How Constructive Disagreement Can Save us From Ourselves
And from totalitarianism, conspiracy, and extremism
Just argue, FFS!
We’ve been conditioned to “be nice”, behave. Obey. Comply. Get along. Don’t rock the boat or burn any bridges.
Well, fuck the boat and the bridges.
Our education system and society in general expect conformity, compliance, obedience. We criticize, consequence, and punish kids for “not listening” when they’re young, then wonder why teens and young adults become susceptible to peer pressure and social influence as they get a little older.
We’re afraid to engage in any kind of intellectual debate lest anyone become uncomfortable, including ourselves. When we encounter a dissenting opinion or different perspective, we often to regress into defensiveness, rather than be open to learning something new. Discomfort is often necessary for personal growth.
I’m not suggesting we go around shoving our opinions down other people’s throats, nor disrespecting the rights of others for the sake of open dialogue. In certain contexts and under certain circumstances, however, respectful disagreement can be very productive.
We can get a little uncomfortable, learn from one another, and explore differing points of view. Frequently I see people end a discussion with statements such as, “well, that’s just how I see it” or “I have my opinion and you have yours”.
Some things are simply a matter of opinion. I prefer salty over sweet and spicy over mild. There’s not much point in debating personal taste.
Discussion of political and social issues, however, should not be taboo. When we avoid certain topics because we are afraid of conflict, we deny ourselves the opportunity to learn about the world and about ourselves.
I’m not advising anyone start a heated debate about religion over a family holiday dinner. (Drunkenly poking your finger into someone’s shoulder as the volume of your voice increases may not be the best approach either).
We need safe environments where we’re allowed to test out our theories and learn from one another’s perspectives. In discussing and debating complex issues, we gain greater understanding of the subject matter, as well as solidifying our own arguments.
Constructive contradictions (part two)
This is a continuation from my recent piece, Capitalist Ideology as Socio-Cultural Trauma, wherein I began to explain how our individualistic culture makes us vulnerable to conspiracy theories.
I originally wrote this as a paper for a University rhetoric course. I have broken it into two parts and made efforts to edit it to make it easier to read, but have left the page numbers from my references for those who might be interested in reading further.
Protecting ourselves from ideology, preventing ourselves from falling for the allure of conspiracy, requires contradiction.
In 1951, Anne Arendt warned we must be prepared to have our beliefs challenged, lest they become axiomatic (p. 471). Arendt argues that real thinking is done in solitude, yet we need dialogue with others in order to move these burgeoning thoughts from a place of uncertainty, through a process of critical evaluation, to arrive at clarity (p. 476).
Paulo Freire makes strikingly similar arguments in his book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, originally published in 1968. Similar to MacIntyre’s assertion that narrative is required for understanding both oneself and others, Freire contends only dialogue which requires critical thinking will be capable of generating critical thinking (p. 92), and such thinking “occurs only in and among people together seeking out reality” (p. 108).
Conspiracy tempts the lonely and the traumatized with its veneer of simplicity. Arendt explains that ideologies, including capitalist ideology, “always assume that one idea is sufficient to explain everything” (p. 470).
As Hannan describes, ideological thinking offers “rock-solid certainties” (p. 94), and the “comforting illusion of solid ground” (p. 98). Don’t have enough money? Work harder. Don’t have a job? Work even harder. Pull yourself up by the bootstraps, be productive, and contribute to society. Never mind the fact that you won’t see the vast majority of the product or profit your labour yields, it’s your own fault if you can’t get by.
This faulty logic is one Freire denounces when he warns about the dangers of shifting focus onto the people themselves, thereby treating the people as cause of their own oppression, rather than focusing squarely on those who are directly or indirectly served by the oppressive circumstances (pp. 102–107).
The black-and-white thinking style wielded by conspiracy theorists is also very common in traumatized individuals, and offers a false sense of security to people seeking assurance. As Hannan explains, conspiracy offers “a sense of belonging and membership in a community of elective affinity” (p. 99).
The scape goat
When people experience trauma, the brain’s threat detection system can become hypersensitive, causing innocuous or neutral stimuli to be interpreted as dangerous. The world becomes scary and unpredictable. Conspiracy theories offer “straightforward morality tales of good and evil” (p. 99), they lack the ambiguity and subtlety which can compound anxiety and fear when everything is a potential threat.
Arendt bolsters this argument as she explains how totalitarian regimes weaponize fear and terror in order to manipulate the public. Terror seeks to stabilize society in a political movement which “singles out the foes of mankind” in order to “eliminate the ‘objective enemy’” (p. 465).
Presenting a villain we can blame for all of society’s ills is comforting when the alternative is a highly complex system which is difficult to understand, let alone change. Knowing exactly who the “bad guy” is offers a sense of safety for a traumatized society. Something we can concretely identify is much less scary than what van den Kolk describes as our brain’s “smoke alarm” constantly signalling the presence of danger when there is no real fire (p. 60).
Just as trauma causes us to distrust not only others but ourselves and our own memories and experiences, loneliness, isolation, and ideology also cause us to question our sense of reality. Rose Hill explains that this is because “ideological movements are forced to change reality in accordance with their claims” when reality doesn’t conveniently match their propaganda.
“One is taught to distrust oneself and others, and to always rely upon the ideology of the movement, which must be right.” — Samantha Rose Hill
Arendt tells us that we must be connected to one another in order to develop a “common sense” (p. 475), which in this context I take to mean our shared perception of the world we inhabit. Arendt explains that on our own, our senses become “unreliable and treacherous”, and only in relation with others can we trust our own consciousness (p. 476).
As Hannan warns, “without the ability to trust others or oneself, the lonely individual is prone to paranoia” (p. 94). Paranoia is also a common symptom of trauma, of which conspiracy theories can take full advantage. When one is convinced of a nebulous, undefined existential threat, conspiracy theory provides a direction and a target for our not-yet-articulated fear and anger.
For those enduring unrelenting self-doubt, anxiety, and loneliness “conspiracy theory has become a kind of soothing elixir that alleviates acute existential anguish” (p. 101). As long as society endures the harms and traumas of capitalist ideology, we will continue to see the rise of conspiracy theories.
As I have shown, capitalism inflicts trauma upon nations and their citizens. The symptoms and causes of trauma have many similarities with the characteristics which make humans vulnerable to manipulation, and common factors which place us at greater risk of subscribing to harmful conspiracy theories.
As Arendt, MacIntyre, and Freire — and Hannan more recently — have cautioned, we need to rebuild communities of trust, collaboration, and connection. Rather than competing for resources and survival, we must work together for common goals, a collective narrative, and reclaim our agency.
As Erich Fromm urged in 1976 (pp. 56–57), we must shift between “two fundamental modes of existence”, and prioritize “being more” over “having more”.
© Jillian Enright, Neurodiversity MB
Related articles
Capitalist Ideology as Socio-Cultural Trauma
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