Malaise

[kimberkit]

I am having a hard time writing. Clearly, we're all socially influenced, but I don't know precisely how writing on the internet is so much "social." When was the last time you wrote or read any entry on the internet that truly changed your worldview, even a little bit, about something?

Over and over again, it seems like the best way to actually effectuate what we believe in is to try to reach out to people in person, and engage in in-person dialogue or demonstration -- and even then, it's hard! The broadcast medium of the internet feels both silly and isolating right now.

People are indeed listening, of course -- but often only for things that already confirm their worldview, or add information to a point they already want to make. In business, that's called niche marketing -- people want to gravitate towards others that already agree with them. I guess that's the "Long Tail"? I'm pretty sure that this is doubly so for the internet, as opposed to real life interaction.
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A year or two ago, Williams broke up the housing clusters, disallowing blocks of 4 people to live together. They argued that diversity in housing was necessary in order to create a group of people who were willing to have their social worldview challenged. It was a hugely controversial move, and it was overwhelmingly opposed by the majority of students on campus. They did it anyway. At the time, I thought, "Well, good luck with that... all you'll get is frustrated people who don't like living together."

Sometimes I wonder whether they were right, and whether that frustration is useful and good for us. I mean, it'd be pretty spiffy if you could get unlike groups to work, and you often do have some unlike worldviews when dealing with co-workers, for instance. It might be useful to have that level of frustration, with people who are 18 and still theoretically able to change how they interact.

But then my cynical side kicks in, and I'm sure that they were wrong, and just created more isolation on campus. Given a choice, I'm not sure I, or your average 18 year old, wouldn't rather chat on IM with someone I knew was like me, instead of talking to someone next door who wasn't like me. I wonder whether the social force of "be only with people who are like yourself" would outweigh everything else.
~ ~ ~
Coming back to my original point, I think that the clustering of alike-people does weird things to the internet -- that is, because you get such big groupings of people who agree on most things, it's hard to get a good voice for disagreement on that forum if you happen to be in the minority. So you splinter off and go with a group of the minority-dissenters, and then no one changes their mind, because your voice is primarily being heard amongst people who agree with you, not those who disagree with you. And who could blame you? Changing someone's mind is hard to do in person -- challenging their beliefs online seems impossible, especially not when you think that most people on that particular (insert: forum, blog, whatever) will disagree with you.

Comments

[regyt.livejournal.com]

When was the last time you wrote or read any entry on the internet that truly changed your worldview, even a little bit, about something

A pretty big example: I didn't even think of myself as a feminist until I read this post. I thought feminists were just whiners who sat around and bitched instead of making themselves into shining positive examples. My worldview has shifted pretty dramatically on the issue.

People are indeed listening, of course -- but often only for things that already confirm their worldview, or add information to a point they already want to make.

Then how do we get into so many arguments on the internet? Couldn't happen if we were only interacting with people with whom we agree in the first place.

[kimberkit.livejournal.com]

Interesting on the feminism issue -- I've always thought of myself as a feminist, but recognized that:
(1) The issue sometimes gets muddled because it is tricky to speak universally for all groups of women when in fact there are multiple groups of women who get a double or triple-whammy of discrimination: gay women, black women, sex workers, poor women, etc. As a corollary to this, I'm always a little nervous when someone says, "All members of this group feel this," and I think, "Some of us feel it more or less than others."

(2) It's always a balancing act, dealing with "you can do anything" vs. "you can do everything." You cannot be a good parent and also have two parents be at work 12 hours a day without making any accommodations around that. The socially prescribed "women must stay at home" should change and is changing, but what needs to accompany that is a recognition that at least someone has to be at home sometimes (whether partners take turns, or we shift to drawing in more extended family, or whether one of you should, in fact, stay home full time in exchange for the other members of your household working more), and I'm not sure that anyone's really addressed the childcare issue in tandem with women's rights.

---

As for arguments on the internet, we interact with people whose worldviews are often similar, but not the same, of course. But that doesn't mean that when those folk disagree, that we don't either tune them out or get into one-sided grr matches, which is sort of the opposite of listening.

It's true that this happens in person, too, but the difference is that in person, it may be a little easier to be less combative, more polite, allow points to sink in better, and all of those little things that just *help*, y'know? It's not impossible to be polite on the internet, especially not over minor stuff where you don't expect bad feelings, but I know that when emotional stakes are high, I tend to prefer to drop things.

[pinkrhino.livejournal.com]

When was the last time you wrote or read any entry on the internet that truly changed your worldview, even a little bit, about something?

Every single article below has profoundly influenced my worldview:

http://nymag.com/health/features/46213/
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/07/magazine/07wwln_freak.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/magazine/27tools-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/magazine/12sugardaddies-t.html?ref=magazine&pagewanted=all
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html?ref=magazine&pagewanted=all
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html?ref=magazine&pagewanted=all
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/magazine/15parenting-t.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html
http://www.cookforgood.com/
http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html
http://www.motherjones.com/photoessays/2008/06/phone-sex-operators
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/article791776.ece
http://www.batgung.com/try-new-food-in-hong-kong

[kimberkit.livejournal.com]

Wow, so many of these articles are fabulous! I had heard about the barefoot thing before -- Denise, one of the dual personal trainers/massage therapists at massage school, had given a demonstration of the muscle atrophy that wearing shoes all the time can cause, but the majority of people in the room (since we are all such wonderful hippies in massage school) tended to walk around with bare feet when they were at home, so it wasn't the best of demonstrations. The article is way more compelling -- the stride length thing and knee strain thing were not anything I'd ever heard before.

I'm going to spend some of the rest of my day ploughing through these. You rock! Thank you.

[mansikka.livejournal.com]

Good points all around. That the Internet generally encourages further extremism due to self-selection (as opposed to ongoing (respectful) discourse between people of disparate opinions) was something that my former law professor Cass Sunstein talked about quite a bit. http://www.littlemag.com/mar-apr01/cass7.html (the rest of his stuff is pretty good and intuitive, too - worth a read. The dude's now the OIRA "regulatory czar" and probably is on the shortlist for the next opening on the Supreme Court. Pretty awesome.)

Sure, there are people who disagree and communicate and talk about their opinions, but there's a reason why we refer to things like Godwin's law in the context of the internet. It's so easy to dash off a response without thinking of the effect it has on others; without nonverbal indicia, I think our tendency is to feel slighted or shunned or something if we're not sure about the tone. Blogs written by academics are probably the best in this regard, although I think it's pretty rare you'd see dyed-in-the-wool conservatives reading HuffPost and engaging in respectful conversations with the others.

There's also the problem that a lot of groups consciously restrict membership or posting access. LiveJournal communities are a good example of this, where you need to prove yourself somehow before they open the kimono. Sometimes it's warranted. From experience, in some instances I'd rather have a restricted-access veganism forum because our viewpoints are so outside the mainstream, it would be tiring to have non-vegans come in and challenge our opinions all the time (often in the same exact ways). So to the extent that a restricted-access community excludes, it also has the function of further delineating shades of grey within a subset of people.

By the by, I thought the cluster housing proposal portended a giant clusterfuck. Apparently, it has been, too, from what I gather.

[kimberkit.livejournal.com]

Hee, yeah, as sir_graeme and g_me said, the housing caused tremendous resentment -- no surprises there, and honestly, like Graeme mentioned, people do have a right to feel safe and belonging in their homes, whether or not diversity would be abstractly "good for you."

Y'know, I also thought about the nonverbal indicia thing -- the truth is... oh, hell, now I'm going to have to write a whole 'nother post about this. Sheesh!

[g-me.livejournal.com]

interesting points.

For what it's worth, I was just back in Williamstown, and had dinner with some students. Unanimous dislike for the new housing system.

[kimberkit.livejournal.com]

Hah, yes, I expected that there would be dislike :) I swing back and forth as to whether it's good for you to live with different people -- I sure wouldn't like it, but sometimes people surprise you with how warm they can be, even with different values.

[sir-graeme.livejournal.com]

When was the last time you wrote or read any entry on the internet that truly changed your worldview, even a little bit, about something?

Actually, that happens rather regularly. I can't much compare it to the way things were in the pre-Internet age, since I was only a teenager when the Internet became very popular; but I imagine that I'd be much less exposed to a variety of viewpoints if I didn't have Internet access. I might be an exception, though, since I consider myself a very curious person.


Over and over again, it seems like the best way to actually effectuate what we believe in is to try to reach out to people in person, and engage in in-person dialogue or demonstration -- and even then, it's hard!

Very true. Very, very true...

I've not thought much about the housing changes that the Williams administration has implemented over the years. I see a certain value in it: having gone to UNIS, having lived in New York City, I've come to see it as a very ordinary thing to regularly interact with and be friends with people from a wide variety of backgrounds.

At the same time, there's something to be said for having one's home be a safe haven -- and it's ridiculous to think that most people would be willing to give that up in the name of some abstract notion of having their views challenged. Freshman year in the entry system is perfectly fine, even necessary to integrate into the Williams community. Your average student starts college not knowing anyone, with a relatively malleable mind -- s/he might as well be guided to try new things and meet people s/he wouldn't otherwise meet. After freshman year, though, once said average student has a better idea of what and whom you like and dislike, I can't see how restricting housing choice could create anything but resentment.

[kimberkit.livejournal.com]

I think that "variety of viewpoints" is something I don't tend to get on the 'net anymore -- I used to, with Pool, but it's been quite a while.

I also think you're totally right about the resentment of not having one's home be a safe haven -- I did value the sense of finding a "fit" at Williams, more than in high school or before, and not having it now must surely suck, the abstract and high-handed "views challenged" thing nonwithstanding.

[sir-graeme.livejournal.com]

As a tangent, I've often thought about how Williams's small size does help prevent self-segregation. For instance, WCF was a rather heterogeneous group, despite appearances; the campus was arguably too small to support multiple Christian groups, as is common on larger campuses. (Not that things were perfect: note, e.g., the alienation felt by many liberal Christians.)