A short and personal list of things which bug me, all about political discourse since that’s my interest. I do some of these things myself and then regret it.
1. Instant opinions, unfounded in original research, which add nothing to the general understanding and are usually just flag-waving for the author’s preferences. For example, most online takes on geopolitics.
2. CAPITAL LETTERS. See also BREAKING, which makes me think of a schoolchild in art class snatching some other child’s picture, waving it in the air and shouting “Miss, I’ve finished!”
3. Supposedly clever ironic quips which only make sense to a handful of people. This is just another variant of online status-building which has no effect on the material world.
4. Irony in general, nowadays. Irony is a fine and enjoyable form of civilised discourse but when a sledgehammer is required, a wood-working chisel will not do.
But also …
5. A belief that public speech is equal to political action, rather than being only one component of it, and that the louder the speech, the more effective the action.
(I suppose that actually we all know this, but talking loudly online is one of the few forms of activity that’s available to us and so we keep doing it in the hope that this post will be the one that finally cuts through and changes minds.).
And one rhetorical flourish which is admittedly very minor, but which annoys me: people citing the views of those who profoundly disagree with them in support of their own beliefs.
For example: “even the central bank/JP Morgan/The Economist says we should raise taxes on wealth and they’re not exactly hippy communists!”
Indeed they are not: they reject everything you stand for and they want you to be defeated. They are only coming onto your turf in order to capture your idea for their own purposes.
So what is social media good for, politically speaking? Something, for sure, but I don’t know what exactly. Not for the nuanced debate of complex political ideas, which increasingly feels like trying to fill a tooth mug from a firehose.
A profound, possibly insoluble problem with social media, as far as political action goes, is the foregrounding of the individual voice. “What I believe” is structurally subordinate to “here I am” and I don’t see how it’s possible to build a durable movement of political ideas out of brand-maximising “I”s.
(I’m aware that I’m doing exactly that, right now: foregrounding my own individual voice. But I think it’s OK because not many people read this blog).
Social media can certainly sow the seeds of ideas and maybe fertilise them – we all depend on it to learn what others are thinking – but the impulse to grow has to come from somewhere else. I wish I knew where. Perhaps not from any of us here. I’m eagerly looking around to see which direction change might come from and if it turns out that I’m in its way, then I’ll happily stand to one side.
Sorry, I have a cold today. You can probably tell.
Puck 