How to Lose the Game of You
October 9, 2018·3 comments·In Brief
A celebrated astronaut with millions of followers monitors his reputation so carefully that his identity has collapsed into his image. The pressure to avoid criticism has become the dominant force shaping what he does and says. But this isn't a story about one person's weakness. It's a story about what happens when everyone with a platform feels the same weight.
• Public success offers no protection from self-erasure. A person can achieve real accomplishment, inspire millions, and still lose the ability to think independently if the cost of having the wrong thought becomes unbearable.
• The mechanism isn't overt censorship. No institution is forcing silence. Instead, the fear of social judgment has become so pervasive that people preemptively constrain themselves, chilling their own discourse before anyone else has to.
• The problem compounds when complexity becomes dangerous. Holding two contradictory thoughts at once (someone can deserve praise AND answer for flaws) should be basic intellectual work. Yet expressing this has become risky.
• This creates a specific kind of trap. You can protect your reputation by narrowing your thoughts, by staying silent, by never deviating. But in protecting your image, you've already surrendered the thing that made you worth protecting in the first place.
• The question becomes whether autonomy of mind is something that can be taken or only given away. If it's the latter, then every person choosing silence or conformity is making an active choice. What happens when enough people make that choice?
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Comments
It’s not so much that we aren’t smart enough to hold two thoughts in our brains at the same time, it’s that identity politics has resulted in a modern political standard of views on race, gender, etc. TRUMPING ALL. Any deviation (no matter how minute) from the progressive view on these issues is not a disagreement, not a different view - not even an acceptable flaw - but proof positive that you are a racist / homophobic / fill-in-the-blank monster to be excoriated and excommunicated. And this insane standard applies not just to people today, but to historical figures, as the norms, context, experiences and standards of their day are not one bit exculpating - you either are perfect by today’s standards or denounced (with the caveat that this pretty much only applies to white men - hero astronauts included - all others get varying degrees of dispensation).
Even more pervasive than the very public examples we have of what you’re describing, Mark, is the chilling effect that prevents people of good will from engaging in even semi-public discourse, lest they find themselves on the wrong end of the Mob gun.
I am that person as I continue to withdraw from social situation / conversations as no matter how calm and respectful I remain - in liberal NYC - I find myself under attack as a person - as a human being just for presenting these or similar views / any non-liberal orthodox political views. As you (channelling Yates) would say - the political gyre spins stronger.
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