Beautifully Broken Issue #43: America's Broken And It's Probably Your Fault

IDEAS, ART & WISDOM TO REPAIR OUR BEAUTIFUL WORLD

Welcome to Beautifully Broken Issue #43: America’s Broken And It’s Probably Your Fault

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Editorial & Apology:

Dear Readers,

First, my apologies for the delay in getting this issue to you. It was partly a technical hiccup—switching the email connected to my Substack account (from the insecure and privacy invasive Gmail to the more secure Swiss server ProtonMail) locked me out of Substack and it took some time going back and forth with tech support to reconnect.

The other part was more complicated. America is broken and because the world relies so heavily on America’s ideals and influence, the world feels broken, too. The purpose of Beautifully Broken is to rebind a broken world through art and ideas and at present it feels like a ceramic bowl that was only a little damaged and being held together with duct tape has been smashed all over the floor. It’s not a victory for either the left or right (read on for more on this in the issue), it’s just a big mess that’s being exploited by the new ruling class that seek to coopt government to remake the world. It sounds like I’m writing a pitch for a dystopian science fiction movie but that really is the current state of affairs and it’s taken some time to work out what’s gone wrong and articulate a solution—how we repair the mess and get back to a peaceful world filled with hope for humanity’s future.

But now I think I’ve found a way forward (that paradoxically involves going backwards), so let’s get into it anyway and see if we can save Western civilization before we wander blindly into another world war.

IDEAS:  America’s Broken And It’s Probably Your Fault

A few weeks ago, a French politician on Radio France remarked on one of his state visits to The White House during President Obama’s tenure. He was surprised that his meetings with the American government and the discussion of their agenda focused almost entirely on minority rights. He felt that, while focusing so much effort on minority rights was noble, in France there’s a keen historical awareness that you neglect the majority at your peril.

Now, please don’t assume I’m taking an stance on minority rights one way or the other, or that I’m pro or anti Obama, or pro or anti France, or secretly on the side of the left or the right. For the record, I’m not American, though I’ve lived and worked in America as well as Britain, Australia and more recently, France, and from my perspective both sides of politics are to blame. It’s in both our interests, yours and mine, that you resist the urge to make assumptions, pass instant judgement and go for the jugular, because that’s exactly the mistake that’s driving America to sleepwalk into civil war, if not global conflict. There are plenty of vested interests out there looking to radicalize “we the people” and it might be worth considering carefully if you aren’t already a victim of extremist propaganda.

It's a bitter pill to swallow and no one wants to be told that they’re part of the problem. It feels better to assume that we’re the good guys, the other side is the enemy, that everything we do is right, everything they do is wrong, but if you’re posting on social media about politics of any kind, if you are angry about Trump, or Obama, Hilary or Bernie, and you get out there and make noise, then you’re doing exactly what your real enemies want; you’re adding fuel to the digital fire, feeding algorithms that sway the content on social media, that amplify voices and really do change people’s behavior and political outcomes. Isn’t that good? That your side wins and the other side lose? Isn’t that how we make the change we want to see in the world? By speaking up, speaking our truth loud and strong?

In the past, yes, but this is the 21st century. Now there are new dangers and we need to understand them before we exercise influence.

The zeitgeist (spirt of the age) fueled by the short-attention span, high-dopamine delivery, instant communication systems of social media want you to pick a side—then defend it at all costs, using ever more extreme rhetoric. It’s the new normal to forget shades of gray and not unusual to see people go straight to labels like “nazi” or “pedophile” for someone they don’t agree with. Unless the person is literally one of these things, there’s probably a better way to express yourself than extreme hyperbole, but because the public conversation is so absurdly overcharged, lesser diminutives have lost their effect. It’s all or nothing, black and white, good guys and bad guys and dangerous oversimplification is dangerous territory.

The trap of extremism is easy to fall into now. Social media amplifies voices that agree with us, serves us content that it thinks we want and blocks contrary opinions. It’s easy to be trapped in an echo chamber where it seems impossible that anyone could hold views contrary to ours, and that if they do they are dangerous extremists. The other side is being trained to think the same about you and the more both sides fight, the more rapidly they are accelerating the destruction of Western civilization.

Why? Because while citizens are focused on “the enemy” (their fellow citizens) and waging an ideological war on social media, in the streets and at the family dinner table, the billionaire class are funding political parties, manipulating public discourse through old and new media while lining their pockets and remaking a future world where they are the only winners left standing. Happy days.