We need to talk…
Decided to have the two-yearly medical last week and very much enjoyed talking to the health advisor about my aches and pains and inability to spring out of bed like a new-born lamb. The health advisor was a young chap with a lot of tattoos. When he opened the door to the surgery and called my name I had a temporary panic. I thought, ‘But he’s too young! He’s too male! He’s got too many tattoos!’ Tsk, shame on me and my biases, which have the temerity to be ‘conscious’. Suffice to say, forty-five minutes later I’m all but inviting young Mark to join us for Christmas dinner, and we’re laughing at each other’s unfunny ‘knock-knock’ jokes.
Truth is, I am aware of my biases, and I like to see them challenged and (politely, preferably) disabused. I really enjoy a healthy, if heated, debate. And I think it’s sad that we can’t have healthy and heated debates anymore because too much of the talking takes place online. This is a world that encourages people towards those of like mind, and towards the outer edges, rather than the middle ground of thought. It’s the polarized views that are most likely to be aired, and aired with capital letter certainty, thumbs up, and retweets. Only the brave dare dissent, and when they do, it’s unlikely that their dissension (whether, in your opinion or in mine, it’s right or it's wrong) will change another person’s point of view or add some interesting colour and context to a conversation from which we all can benefit.
A couple of weeks ago I saw a post on LinkedIn where the writer gave thanks to her employer who ‘understood’ that she could not travel more than 48 miles unchaperoned for work because her religion would not permit this. As something of a big fan, keen observer, and appreciative beneficiary of women’s emancipation in society (thank you Emmeline et al) I was taken aback by the post. But I was more taken aback by the somewhat ironic stream of responses, along the lines of “you go girl!”. Tempting, though it was, to pass comment, I did not. Of course I did not. Because much as social media has become the place of verbal brickbats and abuse, it has also become the home of cow-towing and following the herd. Even if they have all the linguistic diplomacy in the world, people cannot really say what they think to an audience of unknowns, so they take the easy route and agree with the masses. It may ever have been thus – to follow the herd and agree with the masses – but the algorithmic online world sweeps us up and dumps us in an echo chamber where it’s easy to believe that this is the one and only way to think; this is the truth. So enraged were the disciples of Trump when he lost to Biden that they stormed the capitol building and killed a policeman. That over 50% of their compatriots would vote democratic was simply unconscionable to them; it was an abomination worth killing for.
We have words aplenty … but we have no conversations online and, therefore, no meaningful community.
So where do people go to talk? Where do they go to find out more about each other, cement their friendships, broaden their thinking, challenge their intolerances and embrace their differences? Pubs are shutting down, people are working from home (alone) and diners in restaurants are discoursing with their mobile phones rather than with each other. I think there is a case to be made for switching off these devices, stepping away from the platforms and finding our way back to a talking world which might be ‘smaller’ in scope, and old fashioned, in style, but not worse for that. I think it might just be very much better.
Talking of old-fashioned, I found myself listening to one of the Reith Lectures on Radio 4 last week, delivered by the author and musician Darren McGarvey, who was discussing ‘Freedom from Want’. McGarvey is an absolute master of the spoken and written word and although I didn’t agree with many of his political assumptions, I was entirely captured by the thread of his logic and the presentation of his case. He commented on views that opposed his own without resorting to insult, and he answered questions directly, without diversion or evasion. I found myself thinking, “I might invite Darren to Christmas dinner, too” …
I hope your own Christmas table is abuzz. Pull a few crackers, don’t hold back on the pudding or the brandy, and tell the kids to put Tik-Tok away. Let’s talk in 2023.