Note: This was originally written some time in late 2019.
Public discourse is a trap.At any given time there are a dozen or topics that every intelligent, engaged people are supposed to form opinions on and argue about. In the past few months the list has looked something like:
- Is Donald Trump racist?
- Are the detention facilities at the US border concentration camps?
- Is it appropriate for Nike to use the Betsy Ross flag on a shoe line?
- Legal abortion: good or bad?
- Is it a good idea to ban plastic straws?
- Why are there not more women employed in the software engineering industry?
and so on. The list can be as long as you like. I've chosen particularly contentious issues, ones that start really heated arguments on the internet and in the news media. There is no limit to the amount of time you can spend arguing about any one of these topics.
Much has been said about this both in the present and the past. Many people have written about how there's too much contention, too much division, how we need to do better listening and finding common ground. But there's a more fundamental issue that's been bothering me lately: all the items on that list were chosen by a stranger.
I worry that I've spent days of my life thinking and arguing about the topics in the list above, not because I sat down and made a list of what I thought was most important, but because some stranger I don't know has been working every day for the past ten years to get everyone in the country to talk about their favorite issue.
Sometimes I do think the issues of the day are important ones. But sometimes I think they are a waste of time; often the questions are false dichotomies. Sometimes it seems like the questions are ones that are maximally contentious while minimally substantive. And sometimes it seems like the issues are chosen just to make everyone pay attention to an individual that thrives on attention, positive or negative.
And why should I spend my time on that? Why should I fall into someone else's attention trap?
The first obvious answer to the problem of people not talking about the things I think are important is to spend more time trying to persuade everyone else that my ideas are the important ones to discuss. The second obvious answer is to disengage entirely.
The problem with the second answer is that, unfortunately, public discourse can sometimes have large real-world effects and disengaging means having even less control over what happens to me and my loved ones.
The problem with the first answer is that if before there were 1,000 people working to make everyone else listen to their opinions, now there would be 1,001. And most likely 90% of them are more dedicated to their idea than me, more willing to spend time on discourse than me, and more in love with arguing than me. It feels impossible to contribute meaningfully without making it my full-time job, and a full-time job I would hate at that.
The first obvious answer to the problem of people not talking about the things I think are important is to spend more time trying to persuade everyone else that my ideas are the important ones to discuss. The second obvious answer is to disengage entirely.
The problem with the second answer is that, unfortunately, public discourse can sometimes have large real-world effects and disengaging means having even less control over what happens to me and my loved ones.
The problem with the first answer is that if before there were 1,000 people working to make everyone else listen to their opinions, now there would be 1,001. And most likely 90% of them are more dedicated to their idea than me, more willing to spend time on discourse than me, and more in love with arguing than me. It feels impossible to contribute meaningfully without making it my full-time job, and a full-time job I would hate at that.
