Hello!
How’s it going? Has the easing of restrictions (to my Australian readers) changed your life significantly? Or are you still worried that we’re trying to ‘go back to normal’ too soon?
My week was… <File Not Found>
It was probably the first week since mid-March that I’ve been properly unmotivated and my default setting was on ‘observe and sit quietly’. It’s hard to know if this has been stillness, or just malaise. Hopefully, it’s the process of assessing recent developments and gathering momentum for more. That’s the positive spin on lying in bed watching Masterchef and The Nanny, anyway.
Today’s newsletter concerns ‘bad faith arguments’. I’m happy to report that this is not because I’ve been involved in one. I’m way too old and tired to get into them. But, because I do take part in the hellscape that is Twitter, and quietly scour Reddit and Tumblr, I have seen many of these bad faith arguments unfold with regretful abandon.
For those of you who are sane enough to not waste your time reading the online discourse of the day, I should explain briefly what I’m talking about. Twitter, Reddit and Tumblr are social sites that allow people to share their opinions with each other. Early on, people used them like the old school internet forums to discuss their favourite media (movies, tv shows, music, etc). People weren’t trying for fame or ‘clout’, but over time these sites rewarded ‘popular opinion’ and so knee-jerk reactions and snideness garnered more attention than positive, earnest celebration. This is why Donald Tr^mp knows that by tweeting a barely obfuscated racist/sexist dogwhistle, his opponents will spend energy trying to come up with the most sardonic, righteous response or ‘clapback’ to it than ignore him, thus perpetuating his relevance and building his base of supporters, who react negatively to the pontification and posturing of his opponents. It’s a game. It can change a person’s reasoning abilities. To be seen online means taking a firm stance. You either finesse the best take on the discourse, or make the worst (accidentally or on purpose). This means a lot of people jump into the game with the motivation to gain or maintain ‘clout’ and not necessarily with the most thought out ideas. Or, their tactic is simply contrarianism.
A light-hearted example of what I mean can be seen here, in a ‘classic’ Tumblr exchange:
You can see these sorts of arguments all over the internet. Another common glib example of this is the Twitter exchange: “I love apples!” and the reply, “What do you have against Oranges?”
Of course, the issue is nuanced. I’m not saying that anyone pointing out why something is factually incorrect, or sexist, or racist, etc is misguided or wasting their time. It’s just that when people do this with one eye on how they appear to their peers while they admonish the wrongdoer, insincerity is the takeaway. The person arguing that red is a positive colour, actually, just wanted to sound smart and to flex the expertise they tie to their identity as a designer. It just came across as wilful contrarianism and condescension. Whether someone is arguing in bad faith deliberately, or innocently, the outcome is the same: people are hard work so why bother engaging in healthy debate at all?
For those of you wondering what this has to do with anything, except the mild annoyance of being on the internet, I wanted to bring it up in relation to the people ignoring expert advice around COVID-19. My friends are exasperated by this contrarian perspective, so I’m going to try to explain it.
What happens is a concoction of bad faith arguments. A CEO or politician makes a public stance that the economy is more important than a low mortality rate. This appeals to people who feel like the pandemic response has been overblown because they haven’t experienced it first hand, or they’ve lost money/assets because of it. Then, people swoop in and declare these people ‘COVIDiots’. They mock and accuse them of having no foresight or empathy. The targeted group goes down rabbit holes on the internet and seek to confirm their biases because, like anyone, they take umbrage at being scolded. So, you have people in power — people who have no skin on the frontline as essential workers — making a case that engages those unwilling to adjust to, or traumatised by the pandemic — people who probably do have something to lose by going against expert advice, and their point of view is galvanised by the chiding rhetoric of those of us who are willing to follow that advice. Both sides see the other arguing in bad faith. “I don’t want to be seen as being wrong, therefore I am right.”
White supremacy/fragility underpins a lot of what’s happening with the MAGA/COVIDiot protests in the US (and the conspiracy theorists in Australia), too. An often cited study that looked at the reason why predominantly white males are mass shooters found that it’s not rooted in marginalisation nor video games. Instead, it’s the privileged person suffering humiliation by not always getting what they want. Basically, these young white men lack the fortitude that comes with humility. When you pair this arrogant modus operandi with online humiliation, you get all sorts of extremist factions of society. And if a conspiracy theory sustains their self-righteousness, then believing in it is more comfortable than shame. We’ve also seen the rise in popularity of the term ‘Karen’ — a white woman who uses her privilege over others — which gives the women in these protests a lot more agency. It’s worth noting that the bad faith argument posited against ‘Karen’ was that it’s actually a misogynist slur. Luckily, there have been enough women not taking the victimhood bait and hilarity has ensued.
I mention ‘victimhood bait’ because, unfortunately, that has been another enduring (but hopefully waning) feature of internet discourse. Marginalised people have found each other online, which has been generally positive in terms of building community and tackling isolation, but with it came weaponising their Otherness in bad faith. On the whole, having more marginalised voices in online spaces has created more awareness and acceptance, but some individuals in these groups have been radicalised by being rewarded for righteousness. These people grew a following for ‘calling out’ bigotry, so kept looking for ways anyone and anything victimised them and their followers (the joke that satirises this is calling anything negative ‘homophobic’, eg. “This lighting is homophobic”, “These jeans are homophobic”, etc). It’s a puritanical bullying that is just as scary to me as the bigots. Trans YouTuber and (personal) icon, Natalie Wynn — aka, ‘Contrapoints’ — has a series of videos on this phenomenon, if you want to dive deeper.
So, as you can see, the reason I’m fascinated by bad faith arguments is that they are a bane on society, and on human relationships, in general. The more we entertain them, the more gordian knotty the issue at their core becomes. But they seem inevitable, too. The question is, how do we get wiser than the bait? How do we play the game better? This is analysed in this interesting piece by Sam Kriss (someone I unfollowed years ago for his insufferable arrogance, lol).
Other stuff!
An update on the situation in Yemen. Confirmed 29 deaths (though many more cases with COVID-19 symptoms have been reported).
With everyone at home cooking a lot more, I saw this old article shared on Twitter about why recipes lie about how long it takes to caramelise onions.
The first image of this newsletter is what a parrot’s feathers look like under black light. This article explains the mysterious colour palette birds have that we can’t see.
Sorta related to bad faith arguments is the linguistics phenomenon of Grice’s Maxims — “the hidden rules of conversation”:
And this absolutely amazing analysis of American accents in films by Amy Walker — a genius at doing accents herself. This video is great because she not only discusses the attributes of different regional accents, but does the actors’ own regional accents, too. One of the best Australian accents by a non-Australian I’ve ever heard.
Thanks again for reading. Stay safe… and out of arguments on the internet. It’s not worth it.
Sam xxx