Quote:
Originally Posted by dickiej
Here’s where we’re at in society: Former Facebook exec: "I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works. The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how society works. No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth." You are being programmed. Social media has completely changed the way we interact in society. I was taught that reasonable people can disagree reasonably. Not any more. Increasingly, more and more people (particularly young people) need the instant feedback from “likes” or “comments “ and they fall apart, lose their impulse control, and lash out if they don’t accumulate enough positive responses. We are doomed unless this ends.
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I don't disagree with what you've written, but I just want to point out
how difficult it is to chose the right response to nefarious actions. Our response is in part generational. As a baby boomer, I was actively taught by my high school and college teachers to respond loudly and decisively to things like the Vietnam War and racism. I believe this was in part due to the passive response of the world, including the United States, to the Holocaust. Once we learned what happened in the Holocaust, we realized that individuals and nations should have intervened forcibly much earlier rather than agreeing to "disagree reasonably." Moral and ethical reasoning was actively taught in high school and college curriculums.
By the 1990s the pendulum swung in the opposite direction toward valuing positive communication and working cooperatively in groups. This was very actively taught in my graduate teacher education program. Suddenly baby boomers who had been taught to "speak truth to power" and stand up for right moral conduct were called out for not playing nicely in the sandbox.
Today there has been an incredible increase in social aggression, including in social media. You quote, "No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth." The question is, what's the appropriate response when you witness misinformation, misconduct, etc.? While civil discourse and cooperation are noble goals, today people are indicating that they don't want to find common ground with people whose views and conduct they find abhorrent. My personal view is that certain much larger goals, like preserving the planet and preventing the collapse of our democracy, are more important than maintaining peace with your neighbors.
I witnessed an example of this in my own town when one group of citizens waged a successful long, loud battle to achieve an environmental goal while another group---who would have been directly negatively impacted if that campaign had failed---stood by and did nothing, in the interests of keeping the peace. Today the silent ones who benefited from that win (it positively impacted their property values!) probably still think ill of the "strident" campaigners who invested hundreds of hours in the town's future. Don't forget that we are here in this country today because of the actions of a group of strident dissenters 250 years ago!
I don't want to be a passive bystander. Sure, Plan A is to disagree politely. That's easier to do when the issue is whether marijuana should be legalized. It's much harder when the issue is whether climate change is real and caused by humans, or whether Covid-19 is real and dangerous. Then I move to Plan B, which prioritizes the issues and their consequences over keeping the peace with people who spread misinformation. That explains why I might express strong opposition to climate change deniers, pandemic deniers, and abuse deniers who think that having psychologists in schools is a bad thing.
Why is all this related to what happened at the marina? Because sexual predators always pressure their victims to not tell the truth and in past eras, even family members were complicit in hiding the truth to avoid public shame and "keep the peace." Keeping the peace sounds good on the surface but it fails in the case of evil mistruths.
Finally, there is probably a place in society for peace makers and dissenters who confront evil. I guess you can choose which kind of person you want to be. Hopefully both, but it's a difficult balancing act. All of the above is played out in this forum, so the conflicts should come as no surprise.