"I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood."
I came across this video from the channel Big Think. I encourage you to watch it before you continue reading. I'll give you a few moments...
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First of all welcome back. Second of all, I'm surprised you're reading my shit for whatever reason.
We're not gonna sit here and recant everything Jonathan Haidt said. Instead, this short post is gonna be more about my anecdotes and how I've observed these phenomena in my day-to-day life whether that be on campus, in social gatherings or observations online.
Before I even stumbled across this video I've always felt a certain pressure to fit in or to conform. I couldn't quite explain it in words but I've always felt a weird tension in environments when people disagree... you know what I mean that awkward uneasy feeling in the room. Another common situation I find myself in is whether or not I should speak up when more things need to be said. Is it worth my time to speak? Would this make the environment worse? Am I being hostile if I say what I'm thinking?
For those who know me, you know that I am more... disagreeable than your average person (stop smiling you rat, ok far more disagreeable). When I initially moved to Boston to study, I quickly took notice that the environment on campus was certainly more sensitive than what I experienced in high school and social dynamics.
High school in Australia could be pretty brutal to newcomers, we gave each other a lot of shit (banter), we piled on people if they made shit calls, we're constantly sarcastic and yeah I can see how it can be uninviting, to say the least. But during my time there, there were very few instances of people actually having physical altercations or people legitimately hating each other. Like Haidt said it was a pretty safe physical environment but quite an unsparing verbal one. I come from a Chinese family, and most of my family friends are also Chinese. Chinese culture has a certain bluntness to it, my grandparents would most definitely call you fat if you showed up looking bigger than usual, and when they see something that should be brought to your attention they say it. It's awful tasting medicine but sometimes the patient needs it.
Going through all this has made me quite good at picking up people's true intentions. The main issue here is the inability to discern light-hearted banter, warranted criticisms or straight-up insults. Obviously when someone starts yelling racial slurs down the street that's not fucking warranted and doesn't help anyone but when someone gives you genuine criticism one needs to realise it's an opportunity to be a better person. I always think of it like this: When someone criticizes me, it means that they give enough of a fuck about me to help me get better. It's sometimes really difficult to identify the root message they're trying to get across, sometimes the underlying message is complemented with a barrage of unsavoury vocabulary and to be emotionally secure enough to dig through the shit to get to the message is not always so easy.
Now I have to include this quote because Epictetus is a legend:
"It is not things themselves that disturb us but our interpretation of things."
Those who have lived their lives without much being tossed around emotionally tend to take things more personally. When they feel something offends them it feels like a personal attack the closer the 'attack' is to your belief in your own identity the greater the response. I once offered to talk to my professor about my disagreements with her teaching methods. I sent her an email, albeit sharply worded, detailing my concerns with the current curriculum and the way it was being taught and evaluated. Instead of taking me aside and talking it out, she took it straight to her boss, to which her boss berated me for 30 mins. The thing she failed to discern was that we were all working towards the same goal. I wanted what was best for my fellow students and I'd imagine so did she, granted looking back my methods were by no means perfect but not communicating and asking her boss to confront me, going on to mention that I was disruptive in class talking about things like my "gaze" (lol), moving the location of class after I left, blocking me on LinkedIn suggests that I become a trigger. The fact that a student questioned her methods was enough for a full fucking schizophrenic episode (I'm kidding, I'm kidding) goes to show that we should always question our first emotions.
The other day I also walked around campus and there was a student body raising awareness of a case of police brutality. The person that talked to the students was extremely suggestive he said something along the lines of "Isn't it messed up that this 21-year-old unarmed man just minding their business was shot to death by an officer?". This extremely suggestive comment is a prime example of common enemy identity politics, protests around the world fall into this trap. Uniting by declaring a common enemy whether that be China, Trump, oil companies or the police force is no way to resolve conflicts. The vast majority of the time people are literally on the same side but continuing to perceive another 'tribe' as public enemy number one is a terrible way of conflict resolution and only increases animosity among the respective parties.
Schools preach fucking 'open-mindedness' and 'diversity' and 'critical thinking' they love their buzzwords but when you dig deeper you realise that this so-called diversity or open-mindedness or critical thinking is really non-existent. In an environment where people are pressured to conform to one set of beliefs is no way to increase diversity and certainly does not promote open-mindedness or critical thinking. It creates an environment where people keep to themselves, stay in line and stop inquiring and asking questions. The only ideas that are spewed are conventional and widely accepted. The current vibe in my college campus feels suffocating, it's not really a place for diversified ideas or whatever bullshit they tell you in the marketing material. It's an echo chamber.
