…and not make things worse while you’re trying to make them better
In bitter times, Social Media is a cesspool.
I’m talking about how we choose to interact — with friends, colleagues, strangers. I’m talking about how the desire many of us have to do good, to be healthy and contribute to creating a better world, rapidly degrades into shouting matches, insults and entrenched division.
Yesterday I received a heartfelt personal message from a friend. He was deeply distressed, as so many of us are, by the unfolding tragedy of the Middle East.
He couldn’t understand how the daily catastrophe of a civilian population being bombed to oblivion could sink down the news agenda, replaced by celebrity news and funny stories about family pets.
‘We are’, he wrote, ‘witnessing an unfolding genocide’.
He didn’t know how, or to whom, he could speak. He felt silence is complicity and cowardice. To speak though is to risk creating powerful (albeit local) firestorms — fractured friendships, accusations, hatred.
Though he’s deeply committed to a kinder, more compassionate and fairer world, advocating for self-evident truths like ‘killing babies is wrong’ provoked the very violence he so abhors.
You might recognise this.
It’s my experience too.
I want to keep certain issues visible, especially communities and perspectives that too easily get marginalised.
The powerful and vested interests would have us forget many topics and peoples: climate change, poverty, the working poor, the desperation of refugees, sourcing ‘green’ solutions through unethical mining practices, the degradation of landscape and community through tourism….. The list is endless.
Now I see the powerful in the West — through their media — minimise awareness of the appaling atrocity of Gaza. They shy away from what almost every speicalist in the area openly acknowleges — war crimes amounting to genocide are being committed by an extremist government The West actively supports.
Your list of peoples, perspectives and causes you want to fight for might well be different.
Perhaps for you it would include the protection of your county from ‘outsiders’, the promotion of your religious or spiritual heritage, the right of individuals to have unfettered freedom, the belief that climate science has been manipulated.
You have your list. I have my list. We’ve all the ingredients for an online war.
Who benefits from war?
Those behind the scenes and those who manufacture the weapons.
In the case of Social Media, that’s the Big Tech Companies and the politicians who send others into battle from the safety of their villas and bunkers.
Knowing this, yet feeling I want (and have a moral obligation) to keep things that matter to me in the public domain, I face one of the problems of our age: how to fight your fight without fighting.
To help myself, I created 10 Social Media Commandments.
They’re a guide to saying what you need to, without doing more harm than good.
They’re about avoiding unnecessary division, without being complicit in a cowardly decisions to avoid rocking the boat.
Silence is complicity.
Pointless argument plays into the hands of the powerful.
Adult conversation is hard — but more necessary than ever.
So here’s my 10 Commandments for how to stick up for what you believe without doing more harm than good:
#1 You can’t take on all the ills of the world.
If you use your Social Media presence, in any way, to advocate, choose your cause or causes carefully. If you try to fight every battle you ‘feel something about’, you’ll fight none of them very well, and will likely end up too exhausted to care.
#2 Don’t seek your meaning online
Sometimes you need to reach out into the Social Media void. Sometimes you need to be heard, seen, understood and cared for. That’s a powerful function of the interconnectedness of online. It can make us less alone.
It’s a trap though.
If you find your validation only through online interaction, however understandable, step away.
Find peace within, or connect in the real world (where a much more sophisticated etiquette of communication is usually at work).
To need constantly to reinforce your sense of ‘the sort of person I am’ by arguing with strangers online is neither healthy nor wise.
#3 Prioritise integrity over ranting
There’s a fine line between clearly and unapologetically standing up for something, and becoming a ranting bore. We’ve all encountered the person at a party who’s had one too many drinks (or one too few moments of self-reflection). They start hectoring and ranting. Even if you agree with what they’re saying, you don’t want to listen anymore, do you?
Don’t be that person online.
What if you do choose to engage in argument, debate or contentious conversation online?
#4 Don’t have arguments you don’t intend to have
If you say ‘It’s wrong to carpet-bomb civilians’ and someone replies ‘Israel is a small country surrounded by hostile neighbours’, you’re being invited to defend something you didn’t say. Such responses are often an attempt to change the basis of the conversation. Take it as tacit admission by the other person that you’re right. Rather than admit that, they try to distract you into an argument they’re more comfortable with.
Don’t let them. If it’s not your argument, don’t have it.
Don’t defend what you didn’t say.
#5 Beware ‘Whatabout-ery’
‘What’s happening in Gaza is wrong.’
‘What about October 7th though?
‘What about Israel’s policies before October 7th?’
‘What about the PLO hijacking planes in the 70s?’
‘What about the 1948 Nakba?’
‘What about the Holocaust?’
What about British colonial exploitation of oil reserves at the start of the twentieth century?’
‘What about God’s promise to the Israelites …..?’
So it goes on.
Usually it achieves nothing.
‘What about’ is a way of avoiding answering a point that’s been made by making a separate, often unrelated point instead.
If you, or someone else, feels the need to start a response with ‘What about….?’ Pause.
Remember Commandment #4.
Do you want to have this argument?
Are you engaging in a conversation or just shouting slogans?
#6 Don’t assume the other person is real
In an age of deliberate manipulation of online discourse, the ‘other person’ may not exist, or may be in the pay of governments or organisations that wish to create conflict rather than connection.
If you suspect the other person is not writing from a place of integrity, walk away.
Because:
#7 You don’t have to have the last word
Some people — both real people and online trolls — always want to have the last word. They will provoke you to another, intemperate, response and so prolong the conflict.
Let it be.
It’s a sad reflection on their need for validation (see commandment #1). You don’t have to fall into that trap.
#8 Build Bridges
BUILD bridges. It’s something you do actively.
Don’t assume bridges already exist.
Assume the other person writes with integrity, even if you disagree with them.
Assume they write from a place of passion, pain, fear or need, just as you do.
Take a moment to acknowledge how easy it is to misread tone and intention online.
Add to your post “I respect your position, but…’ , or ‘I agree with some of what you say, but there’s things that I disagree with….’ or even just address them as ‘my friend’ or use their name.
If you’re genuinely interested in conversation and promoting a cause, enable conversation. It’s called being polite and is especially important when talking with people you disagree with or think you dislike.
#9 Notice your own flaws.
However noble you want to feel, however certain you are of the rightness of your cause, without acknowledgement of your flaws, you turn rapidly into a bigot.
Are you having a conversation or just making yourself feel better by attacking someone?
Are you reading what the other person is saying, or responding to your assumptions about them?
Would you speak to the other person this way if they were sitting next to you on a long haul flight?
It’s not about backing away from the integrity of your perspective. It’s about acknowledging you too are a flawed human.
No cause is advanced by sanctimonious self-righteousness.
Avoid it.
#10 Listen to those who have skin in the game.
So much of what I read about the slaughter of civilians in Gaza is written by armchair warriors telling everyone about geopolitical ‘realities’. Some is written by people who think their perspective is unarguable because it’s based in an ancient religious belief.
Their perspectives are fine.
Debates are fun.
Wider perspectives often (if not always) deepen understanding.
They’re not worth shit compared with the voices of those actually affected by what’s happening.
Seek out, hear and amplify the voices of those who’re actually affected by the issues you have opinions about.
The civilians being bombed.
The people near the border (on either side) who daily fear for their lives.
Those in your own country who have relatives implicated in the unfolding tragedy.
The pain of an Israeli mother at the death of her daughter is not less, nor more, important than the pain of a Palestinian mother. Both are more relevant to the actual, real debate than your opinion.
The most important voices come from this who have direct skin in the game.
If, like me, you care for issues that don’t directly impact your daily life, then you’re being a good global citizen — seeking to contribute to the forging of a better world for all.
A useful starting point though is to shut up and hear the voices of those directly effected. Only contribute your opinion if and when it will make a genuine difference.
I have Israeli friends whose posts I profoundly disagree with.
I don’t need to respond.
They’re hurting.
I’ll respond if asked.
I have friends too among the Palestinian diaspora. They also write things I don’t agree with. I don’t think my opinion is very important — certainly not more important than theirs. I try to listen and learn and, when the time is right (if ever it is), to build bridges.
While my political sympathies are clear, I’m a bystander to any of the great issues of the day.My perspective is an optional extra to the unfolding of the tragedy in Gaza— as it is to so many of the tragedies unfolding around the world right now.
Here’s a bonus commandment — or at least piece of advice — intimately connected to commandments #1 & #2:
#11 When you need to, step away. You’re not doing any good by making things worse.
These commandments guide my attempts to engage with others in thistime of fury.
I will stand my ground when I need to.
I will recognise how partial and flawed my understanding is.
I will try to engage with those whom I sense are open to genuine engagement.
I will try to do good and know that sometimes I’ll fail.
I’ll judge — to the very best of my ability — when my voice is useful and when I should be silent and simply listen.
Here’s my full list of Social Media commandments in this fractured age.
#1 You can’t take on all the ills of the world.
#2 Don’t seek your meaning online
#3 Prioritise integrity over ranting
#4 Don’t have arguments you don’t intend to have
#5 Beware ‘Whatabout-ery’
#6 Don’t assume the other person is real
#7 You don’t have to have the last word
#8 Build Bridges
#9 Notice your own flaws.
#10 Listen to those who have skin in the game.
#11 When you need to step away. You’re not doing any good by making things worse.
Now — go to wherever you interact online, and try to make the world better.
After thirty years performing, directing and teaching around the world, now I coach and mentor artists and others to live in joy and creativity. I also still perform sometimes, but usually keep my clothes on.
I recently published a free training ‘How to make BIG decisions when you feel really stuck’. It’s a PDF and video. Get your copy here.
More information about me here: www.johnbritton.co
Email: [email protected]