Have you ever read a news article or watched a video about anything on Facebook and clicked on the comments? Oh boy. From trolls to people with steadfast uncompromising beliefs, arguments occur about anything you can think of. I discovered that people can and do argue at length about something as inane as how someone's voice sounds in a video review, to whether or not a cute video of a puppy falling asleep constitutes animal abuse.
Commenters and those who engage with them, more often than not, display a complete unwillingness to state their positions respectfully. Plenty of assumptions are made, ad hominem attacks conducted. People end up talking at each other; the comments section descends into largely unmoderated chaos.
Outside of the anonymity the internet provides, a large factor behind this disrespect is a lack of understanding of our own biases and assumptions. We often mistakenly believe that the moral standards by which we understand the world are the social norm. We need to get off our high horse and realise they're not.
It should go without saying but this self-examination applies to everyone, especially the more learned among us. The more knowledge we accumulate, the more we put on blinkers and filter out information that might prove otherwise. Consider the research two professors conducted on the presence of knowledge and its impact on our ability to reason. What they discovered was that our knowledge and belief states can bias our reasoning. Their findings also suggest that knowledge becomes more of a crutch when combined with a possible rationale for gauging how others will think and behave.
Another factor is how we select where to get our information from. A study on Twitter found that if the platform was viewed as a social medium, people tended to communicate most with others who share their political affiliation, creating an echo chamber. When viewed as a news platform, this correlation was reduced and a more diverse range of opinions shared. One implication of the study was that we spend more time with those similar to us. This makes sense. After all, why would we hang out with people we share little in common with? The caveat is making sure we consider alternative views outside of our own particularly when our perspectives are being positively reinforced by our social network.
Questioning our belief systems is uncomfortable and challenging. When we do so however, we obtain a more comprehensive world view and a higher level of empathy for others from different backgrounds. This is what many locals experienced in Pacific County, Washington after a series of immigration raids. Pacific County voted overwhelmingly for Trump in 2016 with a key driving force cited by residents who voted for him being his promise to crack down on illegal immigrants. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportations and arrests quadrupled in the county last year when the president followed through on his election promise. According to residents, the raids have emptied classrooms and made it difficult for companies to hire new employees to replace those detained. Many interviewed confessed to not realising the impact the policy would have on their local community, with dozens losing classmates, co-workers, and friends to deportations. Even Long Beach police chief Flint Wright admitted to reaching a turning point when a long-time friend of his was arrested. The very citizens that voted for the president in part due to his immigration policies now find themselves poring over their convictions.
How do we circumvent the blind spots in our knowledge? A great way to evaluate the biases we might not even be aware of is to take an implicit bias test. The test measures for beliefs and attitudes that we might be unwilling or unable to acknowledge and yet impact our everyday behaviour. Understanding our underlying preconceptions is a big step towards being more mindful in how we react to contentious situations.
Allowing for a varied stream of perspectives into our lives is essential to living in a multi-faceted world. Despite, or perhaps because of the blurring of geographic boundaries, extremist perspectives have gained traction, amplified by the very tools of the internet created to reduce the divide between disparate communities. Understanding does not amount to acceptance, nor should disagreement be driven by hateful rhetoric. If we let what distinguishes us be the only thing that matters, the future would be a bleak one indeed.
