CxD #150 🐶
1. Not only will the White House be a Dog House again, but it’ll be a Rescue Dog House. An allegory for our times, eh?
Why facts and reason aren’t enough to overcome distrust and conspiracy theory fear-mongering:
“People need a secure order to feel safe. Deprived of that, people legitimately feel cynicism and distrust, alienation and anomie. This precarity has created, in nation after nation, intense populist backlashes against the highly educated folks who have migrated to the cities and accrued significant economic, cultural and political power. Will Wilkinson of the Niskanen Center calls this the “Density Divide.” It is a bitter cultural and political cold war.
In the fervor of this enmity, millions of people have come to detest those who populate the epistemic regime, who are so distant, who appear to have it so easy, who have such different values, who can be so condescending. Millions not only distrust everything the “fake news” people say, but also the so-called rules they use to say them.
People in this precarious state are going to demand stories that will both explain their distrust back to them and also enclose them within a safe community of believers. The evangelists of distrust, from Donald Trump to Alex Jones to the followers of QAnon, rose up to give them those stories and provide that community. Paradoxically, conspiracy theories have become the most effective community bonding mechanisms of the 21st century.
For those awash in anxiety and alienation, who feel that everything is spinning out of control, conspiracy theories are extremely effective emotional tools. For those in low status groups, they provide a sense of superiority: I possess important information most people do not have. For those who feel powerless, they provide agency: I have the power to reject “experts” and expose hidden cabals. As Cass Sunstein of Harvard Law School points out, they provide liberation: If I imagine my foes are completely malevolent, then I can use any tactic I want.
Under Trump, the Republican identity is defined not by a set of policy beliefs but by a paranoid mind-set. He and his media allies simply ignore the rules of the epistemic regime and have set up a rival trolling regime. The internet is an ideal medium for untested information to get around traditional gatekeepers, but it is an accelerant of the paranoia, not its source. Distrust and precarity, caused by economic, cultural and spiritual threat, are the source.
What to do? You can’t argue people out of paranoia. If you try to point out factual errors, you only entrench false belief. The only solution is to reduce the distrust and anxiety that is the seedbed of this thinking. That can only be done first by contact, reducing the social chasm between the members of the epistemic regime and those who feel so alienated from it. And second, it can be done by policy, by making life more secure for those without a college degree.
Rebuilding trust is, obviously, the work of a generation.”
A fan asks Nick Cave: “In this time of illness, cynicism and cruelty, do you receive many mean or vile messages? How do you cope with that kind of negative energy?”
Dear Pat,
The letters sent to The Red Hand Files are mostly beautiful, full of love and a joy to read, but I do get the odd unkind message. Generally, though, I like them and find them weirdly energising. There is nothing quite like a good death threat in the morning to get the juices flowing. They are a form of validation, really, as no one with a public platform and an opinion is doing his or her job effectively if they are not being attacked from time to time.
Having said that, Pat, when you say that we are living in a ‘time of cynicism and cruelty’, I am not sure I agree with you. I think we are living through a frightening and deeply uncertain time, and though there are dementing and cynical voices out there, which are being emboldened and amplified by social media — that loony engine of outrage — they do not represent the voices of the many, or the good. My experience of actual people in this time is overwhelmingly positive — there is a great deal of love and mutual regard and community. I think most of us understand that in order to rise above this particular moment we must pull together, and act with civility, generosity and kindness. We have a monumental task ahead of us that will require vast reserves of energy — we must rehabilitate the world — and this fellow feeling and mutual respect is essential to the process.
Of course, there is much in our world that is in need of change, to be set to rights, and clearly humanity is complex, conflicted and full of faults, but at this moment in time, when our very existence hangs in the balance, we need to come together not just in good faith and consolation, but also in a spirit of creativity and invention. Our existence depends upon offering the best of ourselves. Negativity, cynicism and resentment will not do. ‘We must love one another or die.’
Love, Nick
4. Character design requires compassionate adversity. Here’s one Brazilian Jiu-jitsu method:
5.
Dave Chappelle explains what standing up for yourself feels like when the world is trying to take advantage of you—the story behind why he doesn’t want anyone to watch his old show anymore. Powerful. Watch here. #boycottchappelleshow
6. If you’ve read this far, would you mind letting me know which of the five offerings above felt most meaningful to you?