Twentytwo13

Why (lack of) arguments is tearing us apart and how it can bring us together

In the early days of the internet, a theory arose that when more people are able to communicate with one another, the friendlier and more understanding they will become. We now know, it isn’t like that.

Networked at vast scales and distanced from potential physical harm, people tend towards fury and to a certain extent stupidity – towards mob justice, conspiracy theories, political polarisation, and trolling.

Social media users are instigated and egged on by big technology companies that believe public discourse can be monetised and is ruled by a simple equation: the angrier we are, the more we engage. The more we engage, the more advertisements we see. The more advertisements we see, the more money flows into Silicon Valley.

A study by scientists at New York University found that using moral and emotional words increases the dissemination of your tweets through Twitter’s networks by 20 per cent for each extra emotive word.

Some may say that while social media is making society more polarised, it is not real life and there is little evidence of people replicating those angry and bitter disagreements in person.

I used to share the same opinion, but not anymore.

I am now of the opinion that people are no longer capable of making the distinction between the ‘real world’ and the ‘virtual world’, especially those who have grown up being logged on online.

Accounts like the Christchurch mosque shooting and armed civil resistance like the ‘Arab Spring’ and the storming of the Capitol, showed us how the thin veil between the ‘real’ and ‘virtual’ world is slowly fading away.

The mob was present because of a reality constructed on the internet. Many of them were even behaving as if they were in a video game, personalising themselves as characters with outlandish costumes, shouting excitedly and expressing astonishment when the military and police fought back with
real bullets and real tear gas.

There are three reasons why people argue or debate. They do so either to assign fault or guilt (blame), to derive what is good or bad (values), or to decide on the most optimum course of action (choice).

Social media has, unfortunately, proliferated discourse that is much focused on the first two types of arguments, which inevitably drive our narratives and debating orientation to become horribly contrasted and condemning.

This divide is further charged or aggravated as we can now conveniently organise our lives, so we rarely encounter anyone who thinks differently. We
avoid conflicts by regulating our social media, rather than having the decency to resolve those differences through a well-mannered debate.

We all follow like-minded people on social media and block the ones who are conflicting with our thoughts and virtues.

We have WhatsApp groups, where we share jokes we know will be deemed hilarious. We swipe left on a dating mobile application upon seeing someone wearing a hijab, or to anyone who looks like someone who doesn’t belong in our opinion bubble.

Thanks to fickle, populous leadership and social media culture that demonise anyone that deviates from the accepted group-think, institutions that we create to foster productive disagreement are now being twisted out of shape.

Universities are becoming increasingly ideologically homogeneous, politicians tend to leap from one party to another, and news agencies suffer in the same manner.

Productive disagreement which spurs creativity, discovery, and new thinking, are no longer celebrated.

Narratives that are driven by deliberative argumentation acknowledge fault or differences, but do not wallow or linger on them needlessly.

Deliberative arguments propel the debate towards forming an optimum and consensual solution that focuses on relationship and solidarity.

This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of Twentytwo13.