Know-it-alls rely on one reflection only

Certainty is more dangerous than doubt. Of that, I’m certain. Thanks to the internet, we’re in danger of turning into know-it-alls. What we THINK we “know” is threatening humankind’s survival.

Happy New Year!

“The Social Dilemma,” a film, interviews social media designers who admit their deceitful, selfish intent. “Our brains are being manipulated and even rewired by algorithms designed to get our attention and make us buy things,” a film critic summarizes, “including buying into distorted ideas about the world, ourselves, and each other.” (rogerebert.com, 9/8/20).

It gets worse. Devika Girish, a New York Times reporter, argues, “the manipulation of human behavior for profit is coded into [social media] with Machiavellian precision: Infinite scrolling … turn[s] users into easy prey for advertisers and propagandists” (9/9/20).

I joined Facebook after years of deriding my family for watching piano-playing cats and friends’ faces mooning gourmet meals. My motive, to get the word out about my two newly released books, soon became secondary to enjoying joyful reunions with old friends and former students. Then, as if grasped by Darth Vader’s invisible chokehold, I began spending hours LIKE-ing and commenting on everything from politics to piano-playing cats.

Like me, (no pun intended), everyone on Facebook has an opinion. However, it soon became clear not all opinions are equal. Some are fact-based and thoughtful, others ridiculous accusations and lies. Some originate with the perspicacity of academic journals and C-SPAN 3 lectures; some spawn from tabloid terror or trash-talk radio and TV.

Tom Nichols, in his 2017 “The Death of Expertise,” discusses how access to “knowledge” – the internet, libraries, computerized 3-D museum tours – “is the illusion of knowledge, an accumulation of trivia … like wandering through a forest of interesting ideas with no guide to point out … half-truths, propaganda and lies.” True knowledge, he continues, accrues from humans’ “interaction with other human beings, and especially by putting aside their pride and ego long enough to accept instruction and to reflect on what they’ve learned.”

Without recognizing the benefits of expertise (a glass of clean, clear tap water depends on chemists to city planners), narcissistic hubris leads to scapegoating, racism and other prejudicial, megalomaniacal behavior. Nichols claims, “We are swaddled in a sense of sullen, unfulfilled entitlement that makes self-correction and continued learning almost impossible.”

Recently, a Facebook “friend” I’ll call Robin posted his account of an article criticizing Bill Clinton, when president, for some of his and Hillary Clinton’s financial shenanigans. I responded, opining that Trump surely had sketchily benefited as president with far greater financial gains.

Later, one of Robin’s “friends” replied, “BS,” and another articulated, “What kind of stupid are you?”

So much for reasoned debate.

St. Charles author Pat Parks cannot abide the intractable tweeter or poster. “People lock onto an idea like a pit bull locks onto a leg and refuse to let go, refuse, in fact, to acknowledge that any other view has merit. The level of comments and ripostes rarely rise above the inane, especially on Twitter, which is Facebook’s drunk uncle. I resisted responding until one tweeter provided the proverbial straw. Then I donned my retired English teacher hat: ‘If you want to make an argument, it has to make sense. If you want to be taken seriously, learn to spell correctly and know how to construct a sentence. Capital letters and a dozen emojis are no substitute for clear, meaningful communication.’”

My New Year’s resolution is be wary of social media. Let doubt, humility, objectivity and clarity of expression guide me, not algorithms and self-absorbed egos.

Or else know-it-alls who know and believe only what their mirrors tell them will rule … again.