3 causes of our broken political conversation

Our political conversation is broken. I think my experience in China might shed light on why.

In 2010–11, I lived in Nanchang, China for a year as a college English Teacher. I entered the experience with preconceived notions about my students; I remember being amazed by how opinionated and ambitious they were. These students had just as many hopes for the future as any college student in the United States.

Young, Preppy Ross as an English Teacher in China

Many had strong opinions about public policy and economics. Many were pursuing professional careers with the explicit goal of helping their families and communities, who were usually poorer and less educated than the students themselves. There was one key difference I noted during my time there: My students lacked a belief in their ability to make social change. Instead, they concentrated on their own families and careers.

Where was the youthful idealism I associated with college students in the U.S.? Whatever truths were spoken were shared in secret, behind closed doors. These children grew up in a society where truth was not shared openly, and they learned to keep the truth to themselves. When those who have an interest in suppressing truth also own the means of mass communication, truths cannot spread. Truth-tellers are discredited. The politically expedient ideas are shared. After a while, nobody is interested in discussing politics anymore. It’s out of their hands.

In a democracy, the truth must be shared openly to retain its power to drive change. I fear that people in the U.S. are now adopting the attitudes held by my students in China.

Cause 1: We have forgotten the power we hold as citizens.

We have forgotten how to speak truth. We have come to believe that we cannot make social change.

Like my students, we are only willing to speak the truth behind closed doors, and we fear the consequences of speaking openly. Ownership of mass communication is falling into fewer and fewer hands, and major outlets spend airtime discrediting others rather than magnifying those who speak truth. We aren’t taught how to effectively use our voices to organize our communities. The wealthy and powerful are trying to deter and de-motivate the people from making social change.

Cause 2: Our strategies for discussing politics are not productive.

Like my students, we have forgotten how to have political conversations, and we have come to the conclusion that political conversations are a waste of time. For example:

• Rather than talking about the issues, we talk about who is “winning” and “losing.”
• Rather than speaking for ourselves, we allow the most threatening, polarizing, and wealthy people to dominate the conversation.
• When we hear a position opposed to our own, we threaten each other instead of listening and finding common ground. Or worse: we give up and sit silently.
• When we advocate for a candidate, we skirt around their character and sell a “lesser of two evils” narrative.
• We are not concerned with speaking truth. Only with winning.

Why did we choose to adopt these strategies? I believe the answer lies in the platforms that we use to communicate.

Cause 3: Our platforms exacerbate the problem.

Today’s technology platforms weaken our ability to communicate effectively through the incentives and dynamics of 1) advertising-supported business models and 2) selective anonymity.

1) Ad-Supported Business Models

Ad-supported websites follow a business model that relies on attention (eyeballs) and clicks to generate revenue. Any business that relies on advertising will have an incentive to magnify controversy and to elevate the voices of people who polarize us. Research shows that the biggest determinants of a story’s success on TV and the Internet are its “valence” and “arousal”, or the extent to which the story makes you feel a strong emotion like anger, anxiety, awe, or humor. Online, this promotes a class of people who will say or do anything, regardless of their beliefs, to elicit a strong emotional response. It also encourages newspapers, television stations, and social media companies to provide platforms for these people.

These forces are not new. Artists, musicians, and provocateurs have been using these methods for centuries and commercializing them successfully for decades. The difference now is the scale of wealth and power that can be generated in a short period of time through these methods. A single toe-dip in the public conversation is enough to guarantee a decade of brand recognition and derivative sales. The pervasiveness of smartphones ensures that millions of people will recognize you.

We need a platform for civic engagement that does not rely on advertising. ActWorthy provides that platform. If we can avoid the economic incentive to polarize ourselves, we may be able to have a more reasonable conversation.

(Note: Advertising is necessary for the success of every business, and we do not want it to go away. We want the public sector to be freed from its incentives.)

2) Selective Anonymity

Selective anonymity is a feature of social media that allows some users to be anonymous while others use their real names. This dynamic provides cover for people to spread ill-will without a negative impact on their real-world lives. It contributes to disconnectedness between public figures and private individuals. It increases the amount of troll-behavior and political cynicism that citizens and public officials experience on a day-to-day basis.

Troll-behavior includes threats, name-calling, directed negativity, shouting, badgering, and public shaming. These behaviors make people doubt that other citizens have a genuine commitment to a better society. They make our public figures less likely to listen because our platforms are overwhelmed by negativity. These behaviors poison conversations about public policy. ActWorthy is committed to removing troll-behavior while providing avenues for useful anonymity in taking political action.

Political cynicism is the belief that no action will make a difference. By increasing cynicism, existing platforms enable those who have an interest in silencing people to de-motivate you and selectively motivate others. We know cynicism is a threat to our democracy; it was a core tenet of the Russian attack strategy during the 2016 election. Cynics will tell you that voting is meaningless because “all our choices are bad.” Cynics will tell you that political action can not and will not amount to any meaningful change. Regardless of your political beliefs, cynicism has no place in our democracy. ActWorthy is here to demonstrate how incorrect these cynics are by making it simple to coordinate political action and make a difference.

The dynamics of existing platforms diminish the quality of our public servants.

These dynamics make public life undesirable for anyone who wants to listen honestly and openly to what other people have to say. They keep authentic, transparent, and empathetic individuals from wanting to run for office. Thus, the only people willing to wade into the political conversation are those for whom attention is more important than shame. It’s a vicious cycle: as people lose faith in public officials, we respond with increased troll behavior and cynicism, which in turn deters quality candidates from running for office. At ActWorthy, we want to short-circuit this cycle.

How ActWorthy Helps

At ActWorthy, we believe the political conversation should be oriented around action. What do we do now? How can we accomplish our goals? ActWorthy cannot solve all of the problems above, but we will try:

• We need to act. ActWorthy focuses on action. Regardless of who is winning and losing, we have no option but to take action. ActWorthy creates mechanisms to motivate and incentivize actions aimed at bettering our society.
• We need to act together. ActWorthy enables decentralized coordination. You don’t have to attend a meeting. Just take action with others in your community who share your vision for a better society.
• You should not be subjected to threats for acting according to your beliefs. ActWorthy removes threats from the conversation. This is at the core of our values of non-violence and non-discrimination. We provide an avenue for leaders to lead without being threatened or trolled. Do you disagree with someone on an issue? Don’t fight them. Out-organize them.
• ActWorthy provides a platform that puts activists, organizations, and candidates at the center. Passionate people create actions on ActWorthy. As an ActWorthy user, you can follow and support the activists, organizations, and candidates who fight your fight. Join their movement, or start your own!
• We need an online civic space that enables the spread of ideas beyond our friend-groups and does not rely on advertisements. ActWorthy is not ad-supported. We are supported by activists, organizations, and candidates. We have no incentive to magnify polarizing voices. We want to magnify the voices of people like you.
• Leaders need to be held accountable for their speech. To contribute actions to the ActWorthy conversation, you must have a profile. The only way to contribute anonymously is to take positive action. Actions can be calls, emails, faxes, donations, protests, boycotts, or actions we haven’t thought of yet. The important thing is that we take them together. We won’t create ways for people to troll you, and we won’t allow people who violate our values through threats and name-calling. People are welcome to read and take actions anonymously. Trolls need not apply.

What Now?

People like to characterize China as a politically repressed nation, but we are now the ones at risk of repression. Our nation is built on the freedom to fight for what we believe. ActWorthy enables you to take positive action together and demonstrate the impact of non-violent political action. At ActWorthy, we believe that this will restore faith in democracy and remind us to speak our truths in public.

If you care about our country, don’t sit silently. Take positive action in your community. Make your voice heard.

Take action now. Visit ActWorthy to become a founding activist on our platform. ActWorthy launches in Iowa on January 8th, 2018.

Have questions? Check out our Frequently Asked Questions or email us at questions@actworthy.org