I Already Googled It

I feel like the world is too positively-biased.

There, I said it.

A lot of people say that I’m a very “negative” person, and I don’t think that’s fair, I’m just not spineless.

What do I mean by that?  I mean that we live in a culture of selective acceptability.  We live in a society that’s getting to be almost as bad as many dictatorships insofar as censorship, but instead of being dragged off to the gulag or what have you, you’re dismissed as being “negative“.

Here’s an opinion of mine that may shock some people: I think negativity is better than positivity (yes, that’s a word, deal with it).

Well why is this?  When you do something right, and someone tells you it’s right, what does that really accomplish?  You’ll keep doing that thing, because it’s right.  But, isn’t it human nature to keep doing things pretty much the same way that we were already doing them?  In fact, it’s so normal—so much a part of human nature—that we even have a word for it: “habit“.

So when you tell someone that they’re doing it right, or doing it well, or whatever positive things you have to say, you’re really just saying “keep it up“, but they were probably going to anyway, so you didn’t really accomplish anything, did you?

Now, given that people will form habits, and thereby continue to do things the way that they’re doing them, if they’re doing something incorrectly, what are the odds they’re going to change their ways?

Probably slim-to-none.  The methods they’re using work for them, since it’s become habitual, but they’re still doing it wrong, or poorly, but they’ll keep doing it that way.

The only feasible and efficient way for them to correct their methodology is to be told by someone who knows, or who figured it out, that they are.  If you assume that they’d've figured it out themselves, you expedited the process and saved them the time and effort of rediscovery.  If you assume that they’d never have figured it out, then you saved them a lifetime of doing it wrong/poorly.

The net benefit, therefore, of being negative is actually greater than being positive, since by being positive you’re accomplishing nothing, whereas by being negative you’re actually helping someone correct their ways.

Even if you depart from the realm of mere methodology, and move into the realm of thoughts, opinions, and ideas, a positive remark does nothing to trigger thinking or innovation, whereas a negative comment challenges the person’s conceptions and forces them to either rally to defend their ideas (enriching them) or persuades them to change to a superior point-of-view (improving them).

So why do people ostracise “negative” people, such as myself?  I think the problem has its most basic roots in the school system.  It used to be that if you did something incorrectly, or were an idiot in general, you were told that.  Either through the teacher saying “you’re an idiot“, or through an F, and the subsequent lambasting of your parents.  Through this failure you were forced to achieve at an expected level, moreover, you acquired valuable skills for coping with criticism and dissent in the real world.  After all, we live in North America, where free speech is enshrined as a basis of our democracy, may as well get used to the fact that you’re not always going to be right, and people are going to disagree with you, early on.

But, over time, liberal values infiltrated the schools.  Grades like F and being told you were doing it wrong or—heaven forbid—being an idiot would erode these poor little beautiful and unique snowflakes’ self-esteem.  We need to provide a soft, comforting environment and pelt them with positive reinforcement so they’ll develop strong self-esteem for when they go out in the world.

That sounds great except no one cares.  In the “world” no one really cares whether you think you’re amazing (or not), they care about whether you actually are.  But since your teacher has been oppressed by the liberalized school system into giving you positive feedback at every turn you didn’t realize you were a dipshit.

So now you’re unemployed, or working at McDonald’s, or “in a band” (the next time I hear someone is “in a band” I swear I’m just going to say “oh you too?” and then walk away, the fact that these people think they have any musical talent is almost as baffling and arrogant as the fact they believe people want to listen to them).

And you’ve probably realized, eking out an existence at your minimum wage (or close to it) job and hating your life (although, to be fair, a lot of people with shitty jobs tend to band together and collectively normalize their shitty conditions by telling each other it’s okay/normal and laughing it off (they’re dead on the inside), just like people in unstable relationships who for some reason stick at it year after year), that you’re pretty worthless, and so that vaunted “self-esteem” really didn’t get you anywhere.

I honestly thank God that I was home schooled—looking back—even though I had to do more work than everyone else, and never got to “go home” (the teacher was my Dad and he was always there), because my teacher was my Dad (is there an echo in here?) and he wasn’t afraid to tell me when I was being a dumbshit (which was more than I’d've admitted at the time), and wasn’t afraid to write “DO YOUR BEST” (bold and italics not for emphasis, he was really that subtle about it) everywhere (we still have clipboards with that written all over them), and looked at A- and B and said “Robert, was that your best?“.

Oh, sure, my poor self-esteem.  But if you think that self-esteem and actual ability (the latter being all that matters in the real world) are linked, maybe you need to read about the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Anyway, as a snowball effect of this liberalization, I think that people—fundamentally and developmentally incapable of dealing with negativity—have just chosen to shun it.  After all, in school they were showered with praise, and negativity was nowhere to be found, and school was supposed to prepare them for the real world, right?  So anyone who’s “negative” is just a dick, we don’t have to listen to him.

Except he makes more money than you, because he actually knows the value of self-improvement.

Which brings me to the second point of my first blog post in a long, long while: Discussion.

I feel as though having an in-depth discussion, fuelled by logic and critical thought, is a lost art to most people.  Just listen to conversations that people are having in passing (creeper), you’ll almost never hear critical thought, analysis, or logic, it’s just unsupported opinion and thinly-veiled insults/insinuations of superiority.  You’ll find that this already-ubiquitous trend only becomes more highly normalized in fields which are artistic—and therefore highly resistant to good discussion in the first place.  I’m sure you’ve met the “music elitist“, the person who knows what is “good music” and what isn’t.

Except it’s art dipshit.  You can’t be an “authority” on “good music” because what is or isn’t “good music”—within certain broad limits—is totally subjective. It’s like being an “authority” on good or bad favourite colours, it just doesn’t make any logical sense (except “logic” is practically a four letter word to these people).

The two topics of this post are highly related, because a discussion ceases to be a discussion without negativity—i.e. disagreement.  People try and tell me that this assessment is wrong constantly, but go ahead, try it, have a discussion with someone you agree with 100%.

It’s not going to happen.  There’ll be nothing to discuss.  You’ll say what you think and they’ll say “I agree” and then you can stare at each other like morons because the “discussion” (note judicious use of scare quotes) is over.  In order for the discussion to continue they have to object to something you say, and they have to provide reasons for why they disagree (you can’t reasonably respond to unreasoned disagreement with anything but “why?“).

Instead of having a discussion, we’re all just supposed to—tying in with my point(s) about negativity here—just agree with one another. I’m sure you’ve see it, someone’s having what could very well be a conversation, only to have it cut off by someone expressing their highly normal, politically-acceptable opinion, which everyone will applaud for its normalcy, failure to challenge any mainstream thinking, and lack of originality. Because having no ideas of your own, that’s laudable!

Then you interject, and the smug smile vanishes from their faces, and instead of a powerful reply, backed by the fury of an understanding of one’s own ideas and beliefs and why one has them, they muster a disgusted sneer, and they laugh at you for daring to question their opinion, which—because of its congruence to everyone else’s—is surely beyond question.

This truly is a loss.  Ideas are the foundation of human society—without them we’d be no more than animals, since the idea of tools (which is the fundamental distinction between us and animals (and is therefore a massive rubric in assessing animal intelligence)) would’ve eluded us—and as our society becomes more advanced we’re supposed to formulate increasingly important ideas. Sharing and discussion our ideas improves them and spreads them, and allows them to become truly great. So marvellous and beneficial are ideas that a mainstay of our modern culture—the internet—is custom-tailored to spreading ideas, and the whole concept of “Web 2.0” is specifically designed to allow us to share and discuss ideas.

But, in the midst of this, we have the stifling “Like” and “+1” buttons (which both present a positively-biased view of the world (where’s “Dislike” and “-1“?)  (see the part of this blog entry on negativity) and concede that agreement requires no discussion (just click this button, don’t comment)), and blogs that disable comments.

Ideas, opinions, and thoughts without discussion is like car shopping wherein you buy the first car you see.  How do you know it’s the best, or that it suits your needs/wants the best, when you have no basis for comparison?

You don’t.

I feel kind of like this is human nature, to de-normalize or de-esteem something it when it becomes ubiquitous.  It used to be a mark of pride to be well-educated and -read and to be able to discuss things eruditely and at length, but now that information is so easy to get, we’d rather talk about cute cats or agree that the Tea Party Patriots are racist even though a black man is their presidential nominee favourite.  Just like how when it was difficult to be well-fed, being fat was a sign of wealth and esteem, whereas now (food being easily accessible) it’s the mark of a low-life.

Feel free to disagree with me () in the comments.