Tell Me I’m Wrong.
The Cod Liver Oil of Society.
Anyone who’s walked out of the house with the tags still on their clothes, or with their zipper down, can understand the feelings of embarrassment, anger, and gratitude developed for the person who finally tells you about the social infringement. After the situation is remedied, the first thoughts usually retrace the path the person’s taken from their house to the point where they were made aware of the faux-pas. They consider how many people must have seen them, which often adds to the embarrassment.
I think people are naturally kind; people want to help other people. We all have imaginations though. We aren’t all able to jump into situations without considering the consequences; and we should be able to. There should be situations that don’t require consideration. Situations that we can just experience in a natural way. When interacting with new people (strangers), most people consider the cost-benefit ratio of what they’re about to do. “If I tell her about those tags on her shirt, will she thank me or get scared and scream?” Many people won’t see an up-side to telling someone anything that could make them embarrassed, or angry. This sentiment has extended into the world of the internet.
No one has to share their ideas, stories, and experiences with the world; but we’re in an age where many people have the ability to do so. It takes courage to let people evaluate your ideas, stories, and experiences; but that’s what we do when we publish things to the internet. (In fact, that’s what we do whenever we share our thoughts with anyone.)
Every word I write is another chance for someone to tell me I’m wrong.
This has always been the biggest draw of the internet. There are real people, smarter than me, surfing around, discussing things people want to share!
The problem is the audience. Almost everything we share is open for anyone to see. A public comment might as well be Kanye’s shout-out to Beyonce; a proclamation to the audience over a message to a person. It’s hard enough to have authentic conversations on the internet, when you throw in a peanut-gallery, that can chime in at any time, we get the current state of the internet. We need to shift our thinking away from being nice, to being thoughtful.
Years ago, response assessment flow charts started popping up to help organizations with community management. These flows were intended to weed out ‘trolls’ while managing legitimate conversations. Individuals usually have a less structured way of assessing responses to ideas they’ve shared. In many cases, individuals are so close to the content they share, saying anything other than ‘like’ makes you sound like an asshole.
I can imagine many of my friends on Facebook keeping a mental tally of every positive or negative comment they’ve ever received.
Some people have become so addicted to being showered with ‘like’ praise, a single ‘bad’ comment could ruin their whole day. It doesn’t even have to be that ‘bad’ of a comment, for instance; everyone was liking this scarf a friend of mine posted to facebook. I liked it too, but I commented “Nice scarf. Where did you get it? I think my grandmother would love one.” She never responded, but I ran into her a few weeks later. She came up to me with this crazy look in her eyes saying “Thanks. I loved that scarf.” I had forgotten about it, until she mentioned it. Long-story-short, she got the scarf from Amazon, and I wound up getting it for my grandmother for Christmas. But it’s situations like this that make me cautious about commenting on anything anyone posts.
There are a lot of nice people on the internet. I can imagine thousands of people who spend their entire day ‘liking’ photos of kittens, babies, and inspirational quotes. It’s the not-nice people that really interest me. The people who’ve ‘liked’ almost nothing and phrase their comments as challenges. The people who are as passionate about being proved wrong, as proving others wrong. The people who know the subtle gradations of truth and understanding. I relish the opportunity to be proven wrong by these people. In fact, I don’t even need to be proven ultimately wrong; just being exposed to a thoughtful alternative perspective is beneficial. But I consider being corrected to be the ultimate nicety. There’s a difference between correcting someone and just pointing out an error:
- See genius through formatting — It’s tempting to call out grammatical, spelling, and imagery errors; but we’re not writing books. We’re sharing ideas for free. Sometimes it’s worth the effort to understand the ideas of people that struggle to share them. Everyone expresses themselves differently; it would be a shame to dismiss insightful ideas just because a person isn’t a good writer, drawer, or mathematician.
- Offer knowledge — It’s easy to point out flaws in logic, incorrect references, or differing opinions; it’s more difficult to craft a legitimate argument. In order to craft an argument to the point-of-view of another person, an expressed knowledge of the subject needs to exist. For instance, I can tell a chef when I don’t like something; but it’s more difficult for me to tell him what I do like.
- Do it to get smarter— Don’t point out errors with the hopes of making yourself look smarter, engage in conversations with the hopes of actually getting smarter. Whether I get proven wrong, right, or somewhere in-between, the best commentators help me understand their perspective.
I know there’s no good reason for all you smart people to help me understand your perspectives on the things I write about. I know it can take a lot of time to post thoughful comments, or engage in deep discussions. Especially when you have no assurance you’ll ever get a response. But I bet if you stop commenting, and thinking, about all those provocative posts intended to get heated discussions, you’ll have the time to really think about stuff that’s important. Thinking about important things often leads to realizing how little we actually know. This leads to seeking out the truth. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true. Distractions can keep us from really thinking about the important stuff. We can easily fall into the trap of assuming things we don’t have time to think about. This leads to ideology entrenchment. The concept of “I’ve always believed this, therefore it must be true.”
Anyway, if you’ve read this post, you may have a differing opinion, or an idea that expands on something I’ve said. You might have a question, or story you want to share. I’m committed to writing at least one thoughtful comment every week on some blog or website I visit, so I encourage you to comment on anything I share. It would be an honour to be corrected, especially on the subjects I have no idea I could be wrong about.
Being told that we’re wrong, may leave a bad taste in our mouths, but it’s better than being ignorant. I’d rather know I’m wrong (or could be percieved ad being wrong) than to continue through life thinking I’m right.
