The Death of Discourse: 5 reasons your loved ones think you are either Hitler or an America Hating Hippy.

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve seen half a dozen variations of the same well meaning post. It’s the “We may have different views but can’t we all get along” style posts. I’ve posted the same during past elections.

It’s a sentiment I am all for. But more so than ever it is a sentiment that I see falls on deaf ears, leaving the well intentioned person frustrated and confused on why they received the literal opposite types of responses to their call for unity.

I see many comments that say something like “there is a difference between political views and human rights”. What many don’t take into consideration though is one person sincerely does not believe or understand said human rights are being violated. Here are 5 reasons I think many people don’t understand each other.

We live in subjective realities: Most information is neutral until we apply meaning.

Earlier this year I started noticing more wild conspiracy theories. I even started and successfully procrastinated on a blog centered on them. This made me want to better understand why intelligent people fall for crazy ideas easily debunked. From that research I came to better understand the idea of subjective realities. The idea of subjective reality can get deep into pseudoscience and matrix-like theories but broadly it is fairly easy to understand when framed as “everything is information until we apply meaning to it”. A great analogy I credit author Howard Falco for is a sporting event. In a game with a winner and a loser, two fans of opposing teams are literally watching the same game but literally having a different experience. For the fan of the winning team it may be elation whereas the fan of the losing team it is frustration.

I’ve also learned that our brains consistently tune out information so that we are not overwhelmed with stimuli and can make decisions. Despite being unconsciously aware of it, every single day our brain is deciding for us what information is relevant and which we can do without. Most of us have experienced this but may not realize it. It is why when we go test drive a specific make and model of a car, we begin to see that car much more often on the road. Another common example is when a person transitions into being a parent. They may drive past 3 day care centers on their commute to work and never notice them until they have a need for them.

How this impacts discourse: Two people can read the same article or policy document and walk away with a significantly different understanding of the content. In some circumstances information is dropped by unconsciously glossing over details or through an inability to connect key details and synthesize them. This inability is interpreted as a lack of empathy or intelligence.

Our subjective realities are stronger than ever due to tech: Feeds create information bubbles

Companies like Google and Facebook have mastered the art of a curated feed. Chances are if you look at your YouTube feed, the recommended videos are fairly accurate because the algorithms recommend content based on what you search and what you watch. These algorithms even track how long you watch something and prioritize topics you watch longer than topics you started and stopped. They literally shape our reality because our world becomes according to what we sought out. And if we seek out left leaning content that frames Republicans as evil, more content like this is pushed into our feeds. If we seek out QAnon conspiracies we will see more conspiracies. The good news is that tech companies are investing more time into incorporating ethics in these feeds and moderating misleading content. Ironically these efforts are often seen as “censorship” which just emboldens conspiracy theorists.

How this impacts discourse: Our views (facts or fiction) are strengthened through repetition with the same content being pushed to us.

Distrust in media is stronger than ever: Lack of agreement on source credibility

These subjective realities have resulted in more distrust in the media. The ability to discern fact from fiction has become more complex. It used to be enough to share a source of information from an established news source to back an opinion. These days, entire sources are deemed corrupt. Even more dangerously, the preferred biased source is sometimes deemed the only source of truth, tightening a person’s subjective reality.

How this impacts discourse: When information source credibility is disagreed upon there is no objective authority two people can fact check each other’s views on. This results in a stalemate (AKA unfriended and blocked even though you shared your little debbie cakes with me at lunch in 5th grade, you’re canceled bruh)

Mental health among the pandemic

Political differences have existed long before the pandemic, but mental health experts are reporting an increase in challenges due to all of the implications that come with isolation and the anxiety that comes with the unknown. Saying something is “unprecedented” can be cliche but there is no denying that what we’ve seen with covid and how it has changed our day-to-day routines has not happened in our lifetimes.

How this impacts discourse: Sadly many people are not comfortable being open with depression and anxiety. In some cases it is not safe for them to be open. Often we are communicating with a loved one that is speaking through a lens distorted by anxiety and depression. And because we aren’t aware of that, we label a bad mental health day as a person that has changed at their core.

Our identities are aligned with collectives

I didn’t understand the implications of group think and identity until a few years ago. I’ve come to learn our identities are formed by memories, narratives we apply to those memories and self identification. Family dynamics, careers, vocations and political leanings become a sense of self consciously and unconsciously. I experienced this personally when I went through a divorce. My identity as a full time husband-father was stripped and for a moment in time I panicked wondering who I was as a single dad with my kids 50% of the time. What the heck would I do with my time the weeks I did not have them? What was I interested in? What would I watch in the morning if it wasn’t Bubble Guppies with my daughter?

I used to naively critique ideas shared by friends and family on social media and was surprised when I was met with hostility. Even though my critique had nothing to do with the person sharing, the idea they were sharing formed a part of their identity. So the attack on the idea was interpreted as an attack on their identity. The attack on the group they aligned with was interpreted as a personal attack. As soon as my view was detected as disagreement, the objective was to push their view harder versus getting in the weeds on the idea.

How this impacts discourse: When critiques are viewed as personal attacks, the content of the critique is tuned out and the focus is on increasing the volume of the opposing idea versus debating the nuance within the view.

Conclusion

The well meaning “lets all treat each other kindly, even though we have different views” does not work because people are literally speaking a different language within the same language.

A person that lives in a state that borders Mexico and has a personal connection to immigration policy understands immigration policy differently than a person that read a tragic story about an immigrant criminal that murdered someone. One person views the information from fear whereas the other views it from compassion.

Fear and compassion are both real yet rather than understanding the root of those emotions, each person concludes the other is objectively wrong and stops there.

As a society we’re making a lot of progress in exercising empathy and acknowledging mental health challenges. Anxiety is no longer seen as a weakness like it was in the past. Many better understand that depression and trauma are not things you can just “get over” and move beyond. We have an understanding that these things alter a person’s ability to function and think objectively. But the same type of understanding has yet to be applied to political views. For now, the opposition are idiots. The reason your best friend from 5th grade thinks you are Hitler is because their subjective reality genuinely allows them to think that. The reason your uncle thinks you are a naive communist is because his subjective reality genuinely allows him to think that way.

Ideas can be debated fairly easily. Realities can only be debated when a person is willing to acknowledge they may have subconscious biases that are not easily unraveled. Some may never reach that stage.

TLDR: Those that disagree don’t actually hear/read your words the way you believe they do. Rather than labeling them as an idiot, try to understand the roots of their worldview if they are worth being in your life.