Mitchell Irby
In Response to OTC Prompt 1
1-31-2021
This topic does not need much clarification. Everyone is uncomfortably familiar with the growing contempt between the two factions in the country. I think we all understand that the escalating tensions and acts of violence are limited to the polar extremes of our society, and that any reasonable call to unity might only be acknowledged by the folks who can wrestle with the complexity of reality rather than political simplifications.
There is a temptation built into this prompt that I want to confront. The temptation is to position ourselves politically neutral and build the two lanes of the road around ourselves. I want to look past that frame of thinking because politics doesn’t do much good for us here. It is obviously interesting and engaging, but I can’t care for the institutions that lack a lovingkindness like our Lord; I know that they will drain me, or anyone for that matter, more than they sustain. Instead, we ought to be careful to position ourselves as members of the Church where our true citizenship lies. I am looking for ways in which we can strip ourselves of the political trappings and invite people to conversations of good faith1.
In response to the prompt, my first draft was to give a brief explanation of the historical context of socially straining phenomena in order that we can understand and empathize with both sides of the political strife. Upon realizing my own inadequacy in describing the complexity of our age, I thought it more appropriate to follow my architectural training and investigate the forms and functions with which division is sewn into daily experience2.
Censorship
We are all probably familiar with the censorship happening on social media platforms. A few years ago, it started with Isis. Then, they cracked down on hate speech, then the crazy uncles and conspiracy theories. Then, doctors and researchers were banned for sharing different findings than the WHO or CDC. Now politicians and news outlets are being stripped of their platforms for speaking against the establishment narrative3.
In a pluralistic society like ours, the marketplace of ideas requires unrestricted access for the exploration into better ideas, and for more popular ideas and arguments to float to the forefront of decision making; not that they are any better than the less popular ones, but they better represent the will of the constituency4.
I don’t want to make an argument that censorship is inherently wrong because there are lots of things that we could all agree should be wiped from our collective database. It depends completely on context. Let us look at a few historical examples of censorship.
The Lord’s clear instructions to Israel upon entering the promised land was to “devote them [the other nations] to complete destruction….. That they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you sin against the LORD your God” (Deut. 20:17-18). It is described in several places that the abolition of idols is necessary to guard our hearts from temptation against God (Exod. 20, Lev., Deut., Psalms, Prov., Rom. 1, Col. 3, etc.) In Israel’s case, it is a freedom from, rather than freedom to act out.
A few summers ago, I read the Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. This was my first exposure to any history of the Soviet Union or communism. Article 58 was an infamous decree that ensured everyone could be guilty of thought crimes against the state and could be forced to confess, ensuring ten years in the work camps, or death. Similar totalitarian measures have been used to shield other second world populations from outside (anti-communist) influence. My understanding is that the intent was to keep communist morale from slipping when it became apparent that the manifestation of the communist state couldn’t live up to the utopia it promised. It is critical for many authoritarian regimes to appear the superior form of governance to its own citizens for the leaders to maintain power.
Censorship is the suppression of speech or information that opposes the established authority. The word censorship has a negative connotation as us twenty-first century westerners treat information as an inalienable right. The form that censorship is shaped fits the exact function for which it is exercised. However, there is a hidden function present in some forms of censorship that is quite treacherous. When censorship is enacted without a specific edict, it causes everyone under its influence to transform their own behavior to not be distinguishable from the herd. Immediately, homogeneity is self-enforced at the expense of freedom, originality, and creativity. There is a cybernetics principle that applies here, the purpose of a system is exactly what it does.
Information that delegitimizes authority is suppressed at the expense of the governed. That which is suppressed for the wellbeing of the governed exposes the fallibility of the authority–if any. The judgement between the two cases can only be accessible from outside the relationship– either time or place. The matters between the governed and its authority rely solely on faith, or lack of it; faith in the authority, that it [censorship] is good for the population, or faith that the people will submit rather than challenge the censors.
The censorship facing us today seems to be restrained to political matters, but I have no doubt that the practice will be used against the Church when our radical beliefs have outlived popularity. May we reject the cowardice of complicity on that day.
Bullying–or whatever you call it
There is an unnatural craze with the word power among many postmodernists. Ethan and I studied under the ideas for a semester; it is unsettling that power is the aim of its followers. Fundamental to the postmodernist argument is the notion that all social and governing structures were created to exert power over other groups–oppression5. The obsession with power tends to provoke a sort of hostility in the people drawn to the worldview. My interpretation is that the “disempowered” feel justified in acting above people they understand to have an upper hand in a given situation.
Don’t be mistaken. I am not making claims about one side or the other, the identity politics of the postmodern worldview can be wielded by any person or group. The purpose of this investigation is to beware the poor souls who narcissistically compare themselves to others6. Lingering somewhere withdrawn from casual interactions, they are plotting a path to dominance. This is the perniciousness of the power plays that postmodernism focuses on.
Dominance, or bullying as I am calling it, is the method used to make a fool of the person or people offering the counter argument to whatever is being broadcast. This coercion requires distributed contempt, but it doesn’t assume intentional hostility. Characterizing the form of these interactions; a majority in agreement will aggressively dominate the minority into concession. It sends a message to the dissident(s), and to any silent supporters of the counter argument, that courtesy will be rescinded to undefined heterodoxy. The undefined nature of the bounds of acceptable discourse is important to understand the polarization of the political landscape. The further one distances themselves from the possible bounds of heterodoxy within the community, the less likely their chances of being emotionally mauled.
In the case of the Women/Gender studies course, the message was being established the first day: if you boys want to dispute anything in here, you will be embarrassed for it. Another relatable example may be the social ostracization of someone who expresses doubts in a church setting. When handled poorly, this can turn into the group haughtily turning on the poor sap struggling in the faith. Constructing worldview is hard. Often, we have to destroy the narrative we once told ourselves and reform a better template for the way we perceive reality.
To be culture builders, we have to be living examples of the culture we want to see. To reject the toxicity of this type of discourse, bravery and disagreeableness are necessary in defending truth while grace and empathy are needed to change hearts and minds. Our adventures with the gospel will situate us in some crowds and against others. I am reminded of Paul’s symbolic armor (Eph. 6:10-18) with which to protect ourselves in spiritual battle: truth as our belt, righteousness over our hearts, ready feet to declare the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit.
Projecting Identity
We have all witnessed pitiful behavior in the public arena over the last few years, especially this last election cycle. Each action from one side has a greater reaction from the other. The two methods I want to describe here are name calling and team forming.
Name calling is obviously an act against a group or individual to condense their character into some slanted, ideologically convenient byte. An audience to the smear can then make a judgement about the person or group with no other information. Lots of names are being thrown around these days, nazi, commie, deplorables, racist, socialist, trump supporter, dumbocrat, etc. etc. etc. The function is to distill any context supporting a person’s position in a group out of the ideologically utilitarian view of the fellow man. This allows one to investigate thinkers with dismissable smears and altogether ignore anyone with horrendous smears.
There is a difference between sophisticated and simple. Sophisticated is an easily understood concept because of its universality. Simple is a concept dumbed down for transmissibility. Simple is lack of depth or breadth. Think of a big sycamore tree versus grass on the bank of a creek. A heavy flood of chaos will erode the topsoil, uprooting the grass, but that tree is there for as long as it wants to be. Name calling is simple. It’s a brand of straw-manning, which we will discuss later. It is frivolous because it devalues the meaning of the accusations being thrown.
Team forming is a natural byproduct of name calling. People tend toward associating in like-minded groups. As caricatures are strewn toward opponents, the associates are usually soaked in the splashback if they refuse to renounce the target. This is most clear in the red team, blue team rhetoric in the latest election. Suddenly, anyone who would dare vote for the other team must be morally inept.
The function of the practice is to collect in communities of outrage. It is tempting because it is easy to pick out principles that you can devote yourself against. For example, one might set themselves against pedophilia. To that person, anyone who doesn’t have reasonable outrage about new networks being uncovered has earned themselves a place in the opposing category. Not that they are pedophiles, but that they are part of the unvigilant populace that makes such underground networks possible. The phrase “Silence is Violence” is a perfect example of team forming. If an issue isn’t your primary concern, you belong on the other team.
I don’t know where to place ourselves or the Church in this conversation; it seems like we are the best at both. Probably a future topic for Ode to Culture. I can say however, that our “team” (the Church) is made up solely of sinners. People who understand the tragic default position of our sinfulness.
Straw-Manning
The Straw Man attack is to simplify a position down to the weakest points of the argument in order to dismiss or, perhaps more treacherously, speak for the position. We have probably all seen it or even used the technique to make a caricature of the opposing view of a given topic. The opposite technique is to Steel Man a position by engaging only the most fundamental and valid principles of that argument.
I have taken interest in Alex Jones since he was the first person to be banned by a collective effort from all major social media platforms. He predicted, and has continued to point out, that when he could no longer defend himself in the public arena, anyone who had something nefarious to say about him or his brand could do so without opposition. Because he was effectively silenced, anything could then be made up about him by competitors without having to engage with opposing arguments.
The function here is more apparent than the form that it takes. In some cases, a simple use of name calling will place enough scrutiny to distract the target. In other cases a narrative must be built around the target to show that they are worth discrediting. Receipts of the person’s past can be used to paint a picture of a career. Think of well known examples of people whose reputation has been concentrated to a soundbite, often for different purposes than the issue they are raising. ‘Bernie Sanders spent his honeymoon in the Soviet Union’, ‘Tulsi Gabbard is an Assad toadie’, ‘Brett Kavanaugh is a Rapist’, ‘George Soros helped the Nazis’, ‘Marx never saw his ideas in action’. It looks different based on what it is used for, but the general pattern is to attack the arbiter of an idea, rather than engage with the argument itself.
This is a very relevant issue in our call to live above reproach. We are all sinners, and can be called out for it when sharing our faith. I believe confession and humility has to be at the forefront of our ministry to have the courage to walk in Jesus’s example to live life with prostitutes, fishermen, and tax collectors. The point isn’t us, it is the rock that is higher.
Trolling
One of the first memorable lines I heard from Kevin McGinnis is that our generation is great at pointing out issues, but terrible at providing a solution. I believe he attributed it to cynicism, but he can clarify if I got that wrong.
An internet troll is one who maliciously critiques others on the social media platforms. They usually use sarcasm or triggering language to get people riled up. Oftentimes, there is a joke built into the trolling to make the target respond by acting a fool. You may be familiar with advice shared among youtubers, “never read the comment section.” It is easy to imagine the trolls as immature basement dwellers typing away with the archetypal cheeto dust on their fingers. However, I was recently confronted with a new understanding of trolling from Michael Malice. Malice is a proud troll and uses the technique as a weapon against the establishment. Trolling is used as a guerilla tactic in the information war; that attacking the authority7of our leaders will provoke the proper understanding of the role of the government: by the people, for the people.
Trolling is a poor way to engage with opponents that sets an example for others to follow. It is so prevalent on social media because of the anonymity and impersonality of the dialogue. There is much less trollish behavior in person. The function is not constructive, rather, more like verbal graffiti.
I believe trolling is a symptom of cynicism. Hard problems require difficult thinking for solutions. Trying is always tied to failing. Without the gumption or courage to act, it is easiest to assert yourself in the hierarchy by degrading others’ failure. Beware critiques from self-appointed experts.
Ode to Culture is a step away from cynicism. I elaborated in the introduction letter that there are dangerous forces in the world that will eat us whole if we let them. I don’t think the Church should allow itself to be cynical. I have seen defeatist attitudes take shape in BYX, both at the KU chapter, and others. That a christian group on a secular campus is set for failure. Extrapolating that line of thinking, means that the Church in a secular world is set for failure? I don’t know about that. Failure is something that must be defined for each endeavor. What is failure for the Church? I doubt it has to do with numbers. What is failure in ministry? I doubt it is measured by its fruits. Ode to Culture is an avenue of inspiration. I hope it fosters excellence in our respective disciplines. Let us not be cynical of the world around us, rather, we ought to form ourselves to its understanding to be all things to all people (1 Corinthians 9:19-23).
Notes
1. In this case, good faith means an optimistic respect for each other to speak actual thoughts that won’t be used against each other.
2. I was recently told that studying forms and functions of behavior could be more related to anthropology. I haven’t a lick of expertise in that field, so I am sticking with my architectural analogy.
3. I don’t yet have a definition or roster for my proverbial scapegoat, the establishment. There are clearly unexplained boundaries of thought and speech that are restricted from the political discussion that would expose the hypocrisy of the two party duopoly. This is called the overton window. Something I would like to explore later in this group is the potential arbiters of this standard.
4. We are witnessing the weakness of democracy. Hopefully we can talk about this more in future prompts.
5. I have not done enough research recently to support these claims, but to map the underlying argument, try this. Postmodernism can’t do anything with the “unmeasurable truths”, so anything unquantifiable is relegated to the upper story–relativism. The idea is that “real truth” can be measured, modeled, and predicted–materialism. How can we understand social structures? Well, unquantifiable phenomena can’t be used, so take exact measurements of the society and let raw data tell the truth. Data revealing inequality leaves open the question, why? The complexity of history is underrated when all unquantifiable phenomena are taken out of models of explanation. Privilege or oppression can then be used to explain inequality between any dissimilar groups. This is the basis of Identity Politics, that identity says more about a person than life experience.
6. Refer to this illustration from 12 Rules for Life by Dr. Jordan B. Peterson.
Rule 4: Compare yourself to who you were
yesterday, not to who someone else is today.
7. Authority, in this case, meaning expertise or command of knowledge. Malice has a unique understanding of language, having grown up with several in his upbringing. He explains that understanding multiple languages helps you think conceptually and confusion with homographs in english can be better understood in a different tongue. Authority is an example of such confusion. Someone with authority could have rule or superiority over someone, such as the police. Or, authority could mean someone who has studied a topic thoroughly, and can be trusted with the command and discernment of the subject.
Resources
Nancy Pearcey- Saving Leonardo
Dr. Jordan B. Peterson- 12 Rules for Life
Alexandr S.- The Gulag Archipelago
Wikipedia- Cybernetics Principle