Mr Daniel K. Kalinaki
Not too long ago, someone was invited to appear on one of our shows. Meat-and-potatoes stuff. As soon as the show promos went out, however, I was inundated by people asking why we were giving a platform to this person. I am putting it politely; the language was colourful, the indignation strident.
I asked the producer to consider the complaints and make an informed decision. As it were, there wasn’t enough time to do this before the show, so the guest was disinvited.I still haven’t been able to review the matter in detail, so I don’t know whether it was the right call.
The producer chose to err on the side of caution: better to upset one individual, rather than allow them to potentially upset thousands, right? In most cases, that is the right answer. However, I have run this and other related scenarios through my head – looking just at the principles, in order not to be biased by the facts – and find that it is a lot more complicated.Some lines are clear.
Concerns about views people have expressed previously, or during a show, need to be listened to carefully and not dismissed out of hand. In addition, the need to ensure a diversity of views, including those of minorities, cannot be gainsaid.But many grey areas abound. If someone says something disagreeable about a subject, should they permanently lose their right to speak about that subject? Can they earn penance, and if so, how? Who presides over the court of public opinion?
Is someone who holds fringe and possibly controversial views on subject A allowed to weigh in on an unrelated subject B where their views might be more mainstream? Should there be room for fringe views to be heard, however uncomfortable they might make us feel? And who should set the comfort bar? Do people who think or say things we don’t agree with have a right to say them? We obviously have a right to ignore or shut them off – but do we have a responsibility to listen?These might be abstract musings, but they emerge from a world of real mortal combat over who gets to speak, who gets to be heard, and what gets to be said in the public square. Social media platforms have democratised access to information, as well as the ability to create and curate it. It has also raised the penalties paid for drifting away from the herd. Our ability to stand up and speak out has eroded our capacity to sit down and take things in.
We are inclined to follow people who say the things we agree with and are wired to shut down, ignore or avoid those whose views we don’t agree with. This is human nature, but it is also a dangerous blind-spot. Without the mental manoeuvrability to receive, interrogate, understand – and then agree with or reject – other views, we lose the ability to learn and, with it, the all-too-important ability to unlearn.
Algorithms designed to keep us glued to these platforms keep feeding us a carefully curated set of content that only worsens this confirmation bias. In the bite-sized nature of social media, brevity is the bane of clarity. Worse, the attention monster must be constantly fed; ready or not, here I post! Delay is defeat. Deliberation is for dummies who return to find the gypsies gone. I recently spent an enforced period lying in bed. Flipping through television channels, I was amazed at how differently channels from across the world covered the on-going massacres in the Middle East
Viewpoints matter, as do contexts and our pre-existing and evolving biases. For my benefit, I am trying to find time away – daily – to look up from the rabbit-holes strewn all over social media and try to consume more lean-back content, like books, magazines, newspapers, films, documentaries and feature-length podcasts.I am also trying, very intentionally, to find people or viewpoints that I know I disagree with and try to challenge my own bias to at least re-engage with the arguments.
It is tough, but I hope it will offer some rewards. I am also hoping that I can rewire my brain to be able to stay still long enough to go through a movie without the need to check the phone. Or to leave the phone on the desk in front of me and read a book chapter without touching it.If you share my concerns and have your hacks, I’d love to hear them. At the very least I promise to listen. In a world where everyone has something to say, we need more people to just keep quiet and listen.
Mr Kalinaki is a journalist and poor man’s freedom fighter.
[email protected]; @Kalinaki