A
few days ago, I opened my Facebook to find my newsfeed buzzing with
people's responses to a debate between Bill Nye and a well-known
creationist the night before. I didn't even know this debate had taken
place until I saw this chatter. Disparaging chatter. So I did a quick
Google search to see what I had missed. Again, I found more disparaging
chatter.
Now, usually in these situations, there is
pretty much equal disparaging of both sides in the aftermath of a
debate. Like during election season. In fact, I [confession] refuse to
read the status updates of my politically active friends [on both sides
of the aisle] during election season -- because there is so much
negativity, bashing, rude remarks, and zero to no discussion of how to
actually come together to fix a problem. People don't want compromise
and moderation, they want to be rub-it-in-my-opponents-faces right.
Acting like the world is more black-and-white than it actually is.
Sorry...rant over.
Anyways, my simple Google search of the Bill Nye vs famous Creationist debate
yielded pages covered in comments. As I said earlier, they were expectantly disparaging. But what was surprising is that nowhere
did I see a single comment actually defending the Creationist. (Poor
guy. I felt bad that he hadn't received any social-media-active-young- adult-lovin'.)
It seems that the majority of posts were in support of Bill Nye's
allegedly superior arguments and presentation, all quick to point out
the naïveté and ignorance of the Creationist.
[I'm going to make a huge disclaimer here: I obviously did not
religiously scour every thread that my Google search yielded/every
Facebook post I read for support of my observation. This is all based
on first glance analysis.]
Now, FYI this post is in no way intended to continue
the debate of how this world came into being. A discussion for another
time. What I am more curious about is why people feel the need to
share such inflammatory remarks on social media, and I'm pretty sure, at
least in this instance, it was not to show solidarity for
everyone's-childhood-science- hero Bill.
As I've been noodling on this idea, the wheels
started turning more when I saw a post on my newsfeed two evenings ago
(sheesh, Facebook seems to be the place to vent feelings these days) criticizing the opinions of a blogger
regarding the recent movie Frozen. Intrigued, I read the article in question. And, conversely, I found the article to be
well-argued and presented. Certainly an interesting take on the popular
feminist commentary surrounding the movie. Did I agree with
everything? No. But I certainly thought she made her points well. I
flipped back to the facebook post and opened the comments. Rookie mistake. Nearly
all of them disparaged the author, using phrases like "rolling my eyes"
and "read this if you want to be indignant" and tagging friends with
similar beliefs so they could join in the fun.
Now my first question is: why does a random blogger's
interpretation of a movie cause indignation? It's a CARTOON. And even
if it were a cinema masterpiece, all films [and art for that matter] are open to interpretation.
Meaning, there isn't a right interpretation or commentary. Just a scale of well-supported to not-well-supported ones. It's not black-and-white. So then second question: why do we feel the need to tear
down someone's opinion that they wrote on a personal blog? Is it just
because it's different from yours? And third: what is the purpose of posting something you blatantly disagree with?
So this whole line of thinking brought me back to my
earlier question of why we feel the need to post disparaging
comments on social media -- the reasons for which I think can be aptly
applied to why someone would post something they vehemently disagree
with. Some possible shared answers to these questions include:
1. To validate one's own opinion. We write
disparaging comments/posts in order to incentivize our friends who agree
with us to comment on/like the post. When a post has 200 likes from all
the Bill Nye fans you know, you feel validated that you have picked the
"right" belief or position. Solidarity in numbers.
2. To convert some wandering soul to your
cause/position. As reading a newsfeed full of negativity tends to make
me inclined to block the culprits from my newsfeed, I can't imagine that
this mentality/methodology actually works. So I'm going to have to nix
this reason for implausibility.
3. Because we can't stand the possibility that
people might think differently than we do. Now, this certainly is a
narrow minded and controlling position.... And I would be very concerned
if anyone actually held it. So I'm nixing it -- out of hope for our
society.
4. To educate others about your position. Well, as I
said earlier, I don't think negativity educates others well -- plus
negativity isn't a good defense of a position. Disparaging someone
else's position is not the same thing as supporting your own. So
wouldn't it be simpler (and more friendly) to post an article about what
you do believe instead of posting one that you don't agree and listing
your reasons why?
Plus, at least in the cases of evolution and
Frozen&feminism that I've mentioned here, the evolutionist and
feminist positions are pretty well understood and supported by popular
culture and society. So the possibility of actually educating someone
is slim. Bringing me to wonder (in relation to option 2 above), why do you feel the need to educate/convert them (the
answer to which very well may be listed here).
5. To prove one's own intellectual superiority/the
superiority of one's positions. Regardless of issue or political
affiliation, we all tend to think that our positions and beliefs are
better than the other side's. And if we believe that our position is
superior, then there's nothing left to do but rub it in the competition's
faces. Also known as gloating.
For example, comments like "those Creationists are
so naive and ignorant for what they believe." Well, since evolution is
the primary theory taught in schools, it would appear that evolution is winning the culture war -- I
would place this category squarely in the "I-want-to-be-rub-it-in-my- opponents-faces right" camp (see earlier brief rant about political elections for reference).
As a quick side note: a particularly annoying
side-effect of the fifth reason is individuals commenting on posts that
were intended to remain neutral. Many a time I have posted an article
to Facebook that I found interesting, thought-provoking, or thought others
might like, only to have someone comment with some sort of
disagreement/criticism of the article. While they are certainly
entitled to their opinion, and I would love to discuss it further with
them, my purpose in that moment was not to create debate. Somethings,
in my opinion, are best left not commented on. On the flip side, not
everything merits a comment -- either positive or negative. Somethings
are meant to just be absorbed, digested, and then added to our personal
collections of knowledge. We don't need to be so quick to declare our judgements; many find this to be instantly polarizing and hostile.
Okay, so maybe that wasn't so quick. I'm sure there
are more than five reasons -- but those
are the first that have come to mind.... And this post is getting rather
long anyway (this is what I get for not blogging in a long time LOL)
We live in a society that is desperately trying to
make everything black-and-white, one that is becoming increasingly polarized. Us vs. Them. Me vs. You. Frozen
interpretation #1 vs. Frozen interpretation #2. Notice that there is no
room for middle ground opinions and/or compromise in such a strict dichotomy. What will it take for
us to recognize that it's okay to have differing opinions and to not
feel the need to squash them out of each other? Part of being a
beautifully diverse community is involving people who think a whole
variety of different ways. And allowing and encouraging them to continue
doing so.
Not everything in the world is so black-and-white. And sometimes (but
not always), there isn't a "right" answer; but rather, there are equally
acceptable options.