Good reader,
How are you holding up? I’ve had more than a few conversations about conspiracy theories, and I have to admit it’s caused me a tremendous amount of anxiety. I’ve lost sleep over it. Not imagining how to crush people with arguments, but puzzling over the nature of the fear gripping people and how to free them of it.
It’s possible that’s not my job — (it’s not). But I remain a Christian, which means I’m commanded to love people. Consequently, I can’t dismiss conspiratorial brothers and sisters as the “repugnant cultural other.” So, I hope you’ll allow me a few thoughts on the subject as I try to muddle through.
As background, it’s worth mentioning that where I live in Montreal, Québec was the region in Canada hit hardest by COVID-19. We were the quickest to lockdown and among the first to begin re-opening, and our numbers of new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are all encouraging, despite a modest uptick in cases. So, unlike in areas of the US where the virus is rampaging, I’m sympathetic to those in Québec who begrudgingly don masks when they enter indoor public spaces.
I don’t like masks. I do wear one, though, because as I told one friend, I have no reason not to, while there several reasonable ones to suffer the small inconvenience.
But I have no intention of making those arguments here or defending the media or questioning the wisdom of embracing baseless contrarianism. Instead, I’d like to encourage questions.
Questions, of the honest and concerned variety, reveal a lot more than the cunningly crafted gotcha ones meant to make people feel stupid or look dumb. Loving the truth without loving the people affected by the truth can push us towards scorched-earth tactics in arguments, making a point but also causing a wreck of the relationship. Relatedly, this is also why it’s not worth engaging in debates with strangers on the web since the absence of a relationship means we don’t feel the effects of deplorable tactics.
Back to the questions. When a discussion around COVID and/or conspiracies gets heated, I try asking questions like these:
If [source of information/authority] is untrustworthy, how do we know that [opposing source] is worthy of our trust?
We can both see that there are contradictions in Narrative A and Narrative B, isn’t that evidence of a complex, competing points of view, even within established narratives?
If you’re right about X, what does that mean for you now or in the future?
What are you afraid of?
That last one isn’t an accusation, and it shouldn’t be asked if not motivated by care for an anxious soul. When we’re able to get to that last question — and care about the answer — we might actually make a difference. This happens not by convincing someone of foolishness or necessarily bringing them around to our “side,” but by identifying shared fears and recovering shared hope in the face of apocalyptic visions of the future.
My discussions around these topics have been exclusively in-house, speaking with other Christians about who they trust, what they believe, and what (if anything) faith has to do with the hills they’ve chosen to die on. I expect many readers will have similar conversations, and we ought to because one uncomfortable conversation is worth much more than many Facebook posts presented without comment.
I used to fear the trials and tribulations presented in the Book of Revelation, thinking I had to be good to get the grace that Christians say saves — or else. But I learned over years to patiently ask myself a question: What are you afraid of?
-Matt
On a related note…
Confidence in the invincibility of goodness and truth disarms the fear that keeps us huddled into ideological cloisters, always using the worst spokespeople and the worst arguments as exemplars of what “the other” really thinks.
–Samuel James, reviewing How to Think by Alan Jacobs
De-escalating Social Media – OneZero
While I believe no amount of interface/UX tweaking will instill virtue in people behaving badly on the internet, the practicality of this is piece is refreshing. It’s obvious the platforms are all too willing to profit from unhealthy forms of engagement if it means keeping eyeballs where the ads are being served and failing to implement changes like the ones offered here will only reinforce the perception they’re acting in bad faith.
One particular effect of [the social media] environment is that small misunderstandings, mistakes, or disagreements can unexpectedly explode due to the public nature of discourse and assumptions of bad faith. Meanwhile, very few tools exist to moderate these effects.
I sometimes feel appalled at the thought of the sum total of human misery all over the world at the present moment: the millions parted, fretting, wasting in unprofitable days — quite apart from torture, pain, death, bereavement, injustice. If anguish were visible, almost the whole of this benighted planet would be enveloped in a dense dark vapor, shrouded from the amazed vision of the heavens! And the products of it all will be mainly evil — historically considered. But the historic version is, of course, not the only one. All things and all deeds have a value in themselves, apart from their "causes" and "effects." No man can estimate what is really happening sub specie aeternitatis*. All we do know, and that to a large extent by direct experience, is that
evil labors with vast power and perpetual success — in vain
: preparing always the soil for unexpected good to sprout in.
–J.R.R. Tolkien, to his son Christopher (Letters, emphasis mine)
*Sub specie aeternitatis (Latin for "under the aspect of eternity")
Thanks for reading Good Words.
The newsletter has hit a significant subscriber milestone this month and I’d like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who reads and enjoys what I put down here. Some of you even part with some money to fool me into thinking I’m important.
It’s a strange combination, technology and faith, and I’m conscious of not always pairing the two effectively. Still, I’m confident it’s an important niche, and a growing number of people seem to agree. I’m happy to have you aboard. Until next time, enjoy this picture.
📷 Canon AE-1, Fujifilm Superia 400 – An accidental double exposure that turned out to be a pleasant surprise. There’s something about a door opening to the sky that catches in my throat.