Smart sounding idiots and the idea of no thank you
Most “discussion” today is just idiots shouting at each other, at least if the discussion is being shared through any electronic device, from your television to your smartphone. And these are smart-sounding idiots: they read books by people who think the same as them, they know their subject incredibly well from one perspective, and they might even know the weakest arguments of those on the other side. These “discussions” are making us more stupid, paranoid, and isolated.
If you agree with one of these idiots, you are a good, righteous person. If you disagree, you are an evil monster bent on destroying all that is good in the world. Pick a side, pick a topic, and you will find these pseudo-experts. No ideology is safe from pseudo-experts because that is what ideologies do: they make experts in themselves. Every ideology creates popes of acceptable thinking and behavior, a priesthood of community organizers, devout followers who are saved and saving those around them, and the heretics who get in the way or disagree.
A word on idiots: When I was in the Army in the early 90s at Fort Hood, Texas, there was a tradition of sending the new guy to go get some “ID ten Ts”. The new guy would walk around asking for them, other soldiers would snicker and laugh until one would finally feel pity for the prankee and put him out of his misery by asking him spell it out. Id10t. Laughs were had all around. What can I say, we didn’t have cell phones to distract ourselves, and it was an easy gag to run. The beautiful part is what made the person an idiot. The person was afraid to look stupid by asking a question, so, instead of admitting he didn’t know what he was looking for and look like an idiot, he proved he actually was an idiot.
Part of being an idiot is being afraid to ask the right questions. Ideologues/idiots ask only one question: How does X, whatever or whoever X is, fit into my narrative. They never ask, is there another way to look at the issue? Will what I demand actually make things better? Where have we gone wrong in the past? Is what we are doing working in the way we thought it would be? Are we creating unnecessary enemies? Are we vilifying people who disagree or have a different experience with our ideology? Are we replacing one power structure with another that just so happens to put us on the top? Do we have people using our ideas for personal gain? Are holding everyone accountable or just the people we don’t like? These are all good questions to ask.
Idiots do not accomplish their goals. In the two years I spend at Fort Hood, no one ever found the ID Ten Ts. The same goes for modern discussions when no one is listening. Each side cuts up their favorite 10 seconds and someone posts another Person A “owns” whoever is a heretic video. The country becomes, if not dumber, at least number. Another opportunity is lost to learn something about the topic, understand nuance, and see the humanity of people on both sides. It also gives people who don’t care about this issue in the first place reasons to continue not to care.
You knew all that, at least as it pertains to people who disagree with you. John Stuart Mill’s argument for the necessity of free speech in order to actually think is well known, as is his idea that if you only know your own side of the argument, you don’t even know that. If you need a refresher or you want a deeper dive, check out the illustrated All Minus One ( free pdf ) or go directly to the source, his book On Liberty: ( another free pdf ).
Most of us are passive observers of these ideological battles, which also makes us enablers of the crowds that burn heretics at the stake. Of course, we are more civilized and have moved from burning, to lynching, to doxing people and trying to destroy their careers. If you are a believer, the heretics are getting off easy. After all, they are evil. Who needs a judicial system, even one as messed up as our own? We hope by being silent they won’t come for us.
We think things will settle down, that the pendulum will swing back, but we forget that some of them make lots of money doing this, which is why they are never going away. Ever. The ideologues will only change with the times to keep their positions of power. It will continue until it gets so bad that things explode. That’s bad. There is no utopian ideal down the road. There is only the messy now, full of strife and cooperation, beauty or ugliness. They don’t ask these questions because they don’t want the answers. Idiots do not question the good they can create in the world. The truth is that the best we can do right now is to make the now slightly better and hope that this slightly better now ripples out to a moderately better future. Idiots will promise utopia if only everyone embraces their ideals. Going against idiots is a holding action.
It’s a holding action because all of us are idiots at least some of the time. We are all raised to be our own neighborhood idiots and trained to dislike the neighboring towns’/states’/countries’ idiots. It’s part of the equation that allows societies to function as a cohesive unit. Asking questions, on the other hand, is how societies survive change. The times are always changing, so societies that make it have the right blend of idiots (keeping things functioning on the surface) and free-thinkers coming up with questions and ideas for current and future problems, real and imagined. The free-thinkers and their problems is something for another time. Spoiler alert: they can be just as blind and arrogant as any idiot.
Between the idiots and the free-thinkers, there is a large group of us who want to mostly think for ourselves on the things that matter to us and have the water and electricity run 24/7 and dependable fire departments. What is that person supposed to do when confronted by ideology presented as fact and with morally impeccable (to the spouter) reasoning? One answer, my would-prefer-to-be-sane friend in a toxic social media landscape, is the No thank-you.
The No Thank-you can be used in multiple ways. The first is No thank-you to the question. What it looks like in practice: Ideolog: Don’t you care about…X? No thanks, I’m not interested in that discussion. How sharp or soft you go is up to you. Maybe you know this person is fake and trying to catch you in their oh-so sophisticated reasoning so you bring out the elbows. “No thanks, you’re full of shit and there’s no chance this would turn into an honest conversation.” Maybe you know they really believe they are doing good in the world, “No thanks, other things in my life have priority over what you want right now.” For fun, you could get mildly religious, “No thank you, I think I’ll dust off my sandals and walk away.” Or, if you get that their ideology is their religion, bring your own out in full, “Good question, but before we get there, have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior?” Of course, the last can be modified to whatever belief you grew up with. No one gets to tell you what you must focus on unless they’re signing your paycheck.
When you say no thank you to their topic or argument, idiots will most likely will come back with an attack on your character. “You don’t care about X!” “You’re a …ist!” “Only people in your position say things like that.” Saying no thank you protects your mental health and autonomy. It does not protect you from ideologues on a mission. Idiots are not interested in nuance or the complexities of your life. To them, you are the label they give you, not an individual human being struggling to make it on planet earth. This means that you will often also have to say no thank you to the label, too.
When it devolves to name-calling and character assassination, it’s time for a no thank you to the emotion. “Wow, you seem very upset about this topic. I’m going to say no thank you and pass on a conversation right now.” Some of us are very good at setting boundaries; some of us are not. This is a great place to practice. Other people’s emotions are their emotions. If we aren’t careful, they can become ours. This is why mobs are so dangerous. Thinking goes out the window and everyone gets swept up into the crowd’s emotions. We can match anger with anger, which is often a formula for an exchange of blows, not words. One caveat, sometimes anger is what we need to set a firm boundary. If you need to tap into your anger to set a firm boundary, use it. Use your anger to set a boundary, not attack someone who disagrees with you. If you don’t, you’ve just become an idiot yourself.
If you aren’t in the mood to work on your boundary skills, how about some improve? Two great things for letting the air out of someone’s emotions are humor and confusion. If you are humorous, you know how to do this. If humor is not your thing, confusion just might be. After you have been called a terrible person or told something you know just doesn’t add up, try a bon mot like, “A pickle doesn’t fall far from an asymmetrical swept-wing toilet now, does it?” As they try to figure that out, or one like it, you’ll have time to escape while they have a chance to chill out.
Another thing that can happen when we are faced with strong emotions is that we regress. If daddy was dangerous when angry, we just might do things we don’t want to in order to feel safe. If our job growing up was to keep mommy happy during dark days, we are not going to react to sadness well. We’ll go to fix/save instead of empathizing. That’s on us. We all have work to do, and we don’t have to share that with anyone. If we do, though, we’ll get a good look at the core values of the person with strong emotions. If I say, “your anger is reminding me too much of my dad right now, so I’m going to go take care of myself,” and they respond with anything besides, “I wish you the best, it’s not easy dealing with childhood trauma,” change your no thank you to fuck off. Whatever the case, the idiot in front of you is not your parent. If you are responding as if they were, that may be a good sign you’d be better off spending some time on yourself before joining their cause.
Not all idiots are emotionally abusive, and some can make good points, but they typically only see the world one way. Did you know it’s all about race, communism, religion, the patriarchy, feminism, etc.? No, no it isn’t. Idiots simplify life down to one driving force that everything revolves around. That, of course, is godlike egotism, but when has that ever stopped an idiot. If that’s the type of monologue they want to start, it’s time to say no thank you to the framing. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy” (Hamlet 1.5). Maybe part of it is X, and part of it is Y, too, and Z, and seven other letters of your choosing. When liberal (little l) education is done right, this is obvious. Exposure to different fields of study show that every encounter is shaped by economic, psychological, and sociological factors. There are also neurological, environmental, and religious factors, too. You get the idea, but I’ll still add for chronological, seasonal, and life cycle factors, too, because the list is almost limitless unless you’re an idiot.
To sum up: if you like being stupid, paranoid, and isolated, watch as many of these “discussions” as you can. Memorize the ideological catch-phrases and fill up on ways to attack the character of anyone who disagrees with you. Go forth and make the world a worse place. If that sounds horrible, step one is disengaging from the insanity. Start practicing your no thank-yous. When you do, you will show the people around you that it is okay to say no. They may even thank you, in private, because they are too afraid of the personal attacks to say so out loud. It may be lonely at first, in this space you have created for yourself, but the interesting, thoughtful people of the world will never find you if you are surrounded by idiots.
