Well it’s been quite a while since I have shared here. I probably have four different pieces just sitting in my drafts that I haven’t finished yet. As life does, it gets busy. I’ve traveled, started dating someone, work has gotten busier as the restrictions from Covid have begun to lessen. When all those things coalesce, it becomes very easy for a hobby like trying to write and think generously about the world- to fall to the wayside. But I want to bring this back, to keep writing, keep exploring the beauty in the world. Honestly, much less for others sake and much more for my own.
One of the things I have really been wrestling with over the last few weeks (months at this point) is the idea, or question, of what makes something “good?” What makes this an interesting, and recognizably a semantic, conversation is that in English we typically have two different meanings for the word “good.” The way I think the word most often gets used revolves around the qualities of an experience, someone’s ability to do something, and the level of expertise with which a project is completed; whether that project is a basketball game, a book, a podcast, a piece of writing, how one teaches others, or a painting. The other way we use “good” is what I am a little more interested in. Merriam-Webster describes this definition like this:
(1) something conforming to the moral order of the universe
(2): praiseworthy character. GOODNESS
While I think this gives us a starting place, I don’t find it particularly helpful for conversations in the everyday.
Let me back up a little bit and give you some context for where I am coming from. I love learning, and one of the simpler ways we have developed to learn a lot, and hear from a different types of voices, is podcasts. Ergo, I listen to a lot of podcasts, especially about political policy and how we can build, create, and sustain a better, more generous place to live. Which truthfully, finding political podcasts where the discussion is of “praiseworthy character” is not the easiest thing in the world! It was in the last few weeks, as I really continued to look for journalists and thinkers on both sides of the aisle, that I started to see that while we have an abundance of high quality creators, we don’t have an abundance of people in this space who are willing to sacrifice views, or clicks, for the sake of being kind and/or generous with people they disagree with. I tend to think that the way the market operates is partly to blame for this, but also I have seen in my own social media habits, and that of friends, how the algorithms of Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram factor here too. The content that we are most commonly shown are those that are of a particular ilk, being high quality but also tending towards inflammatory.
Another interesting factor here, that a friend brought up to me, is the role that plurality has had, which of course has coincided with a growing global perspective of the world. Pluralism here, being the presence and acceptance of a plethora of worldview - whether they are religious systems, philosophies, or cultures - that are present, accepted, and held equally truthful. While I definitely lean towards, and believe, that energetic engagement in diverse thinking is a good thing for society, the idea that anyone can say “my truth is true….because I say it is” is a more recent (last couple hundred years12) phenomenon and has really become more prevalent with the advent of social media and the platform it gives to anyone. I find this as relevant when I see a commentator or creator is who is making inflammatory content-something that isn’t good and wholesome- but the response is “well you are just mad because they're saying something that is true and you don’t like it.” That is a tough position to have a discussion around because while maybe you agree or disagree with what they are actually saying, your real gripe is about how they are saying their truth and how they are engaging the world. I think it’s easier to have a discussion around the quality of content, versus the character of the content.
Part of this must also be due to the gravitas to which we hold our own social media profiles. In the introduction to my podcast, which you can listen to here, I talk about this idea that our social media profiles are a painting that we paint about who we want others to see us as. On some level they do reflect us. You and I, probably have very different Instagram’s and no amount of us wanting the other’s life would cause us to ‘switch’ Instagram’s. In this sense we are reflected in our social media profiles. In an equally as true sense, we are not at all. For instance I have posted only a handful of times on Instagram in the last 4 months! Does that mean I have only had two noteworthy moments in that time? Of course not. Honestly, I want it to convey a feeling of thoughtfulness, when I do post, and of being so present in my life that social media isn’t my forethought, when in reality it is still all too present. In this way we each craft our different social media profiles for the type of community we are in. We want them to look at our painting, take our thoughts seriously, to ‘engage’ with us. In a way we take ourselves too seriously. We don’t have the ability to look at our portrayal of ourselves, our thoughts and realize that in the grand scheme of things we aren’t the arbiter of truth and the tribe we are a part of doesn’t have a monopoly on the view of life with the highest praiseworthy character. Therefore when someone critiques our thinking or our stance, we take it as a personal affront on our on character and worldview. I see this happen frequently, even when the critiques just says “hey, maybe don’t go so far.”
Before I move on to what I think highlights “good” content, I want to give a very concrete example of some content creators that are doing this. If you have spent more than an hour with me, you have probably heard me talk about Hank and John Green. John initially rose to fame as the author of a few young adult novels, including Looking for Alaska and The Fault in Our Stars. Hank rose to prominence kind of as John’s brother and now occupies this space as a public science educator and semi-famous TikTok star. In 2007, they started a YouTube series where they would send each other weekly public vlogs, as opposed to sending each other private letters. Now, they do honestly too many things to list- a plethora of YouTube shows, all geared at providing free, high quality, educational content. They make a weekly podcast called Dear Hank and John where they answer listener questions with a range of humor and seriousness that takes into account the humanity of each question asker, but also the brevity of our life in general. They recently started a monthly sock club where all the proceeds go to charity, specifically to help child mortality in Sierra Leonne; and they run the Project for Awesome where every year Hank and John take two days to promote other YouTubers and the charity of their choice. I tell you about them, because I think they are genuinely thoughtful, empathetic people who, want to see the world be a kinder, more creative, and a more thoughtful place. They routinely create content just to be humorous or content whose sole fiscal beneficiary will be families in the third world. It was actually Hank’s most recent novel, A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor, where Hank looks at the effects of social media, widely available fame, and the stimulation we receive from social media, that kind of started my line of thinking about what makes content “good.”
So, I want to wade into that water a little bit now. By no means do I know everything, or have the secret sauce that will result in world peace, but want to share something that I look for when I evaluate creators, commentators, and artists. I also want to recognize that on some level this for me and I hope you find it helpful too. It’s been said you can’t legislate morality, so this certainly not my attempt to do that, I would love live in a world where our economic systems promote edifying and encouraging content. This, is this type of work that I want to advocate for.
One of the first things that really comes to my mind is the idea of trolling, or being intentionally inflammatory. I actually was talking to a friend about this context earlier, and they brought up comedians as being on that line of inflammatory. While I hear, and I am aware of their place here, I find there to be a difference between the comedian and the cultural commentator, or public thinker, who is going out of their way to rile up their base and who ever they deem the opposition to be. In addition to this propensity for trolling, a bad sign, to me, is the consistent creation of the “us vs. them” dynamic. While many times there might be a place to frame a discussion in such a way, I find the arguments for a consistent worldview of “us vs. them,” to be lacking and ultimately harmful.
So truthfully I wrote most of this a couple of months ago, like 6 weeks ago, and its been interesting to come back and read what I was thinking, where I was going, and what I want to explore. During that time, I pretty much removed myself from the political, religious twitter world. I stopped engaging people from all sides, didn’t really consume much content from the left, or the right, and kind of lived my life in a less digitally-focused way. The thing that I keep coming back to, as what makes content, or public figures, or art “of praiseworthy character” revolves around two different ideas.
The first is a sense of transcendence. The main idea here is the human experience thrives and grows when it is viewed against the backdrop of the grander story. One of the peculiarities about language is how it grows and changes over time. Take the word “awful” for example. When we use it in the modern day we tend to be referring to something that is tragic, or shockingly horrific. But if you dive a little deeper the original meaning of the word was rather simple: full of awe. To fully understand the connotations of the word we have to understand what awe is. I think my favorite definition of awe is how the Oxford Dictionary defines it “A feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder.” So if something is “awful,” the character of the thing is filled with this equal mixture of respect and fear. It is this feeling that brings humanity to the feeling of transcendence. This view of the backdrop brings us humility, community, a sense of common experience, and an ability to realize the human weakness and strength in those around you. This empathetic nature of the experience of transcendence gives humankind strength that it needs to grow together, to fight the impulse of “us vs. them” and to build in a constructive way.
“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us even in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavour. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.” Thoreau
The other vital quality that “goodness” shares is that of gratitude. This certainly builds on the foundation that transcendence, and a shared empathy. The great theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer said “In ordinary life, we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.”
One of the features of the inflammatory nature that is present in our modern social discourse is that position of “us vs. them.” “My camp vs your camp.” While the pluralism I spoke of earlier certainly plays a large role in the identity battle, so to does a lack of gratitude. We lack generosity when interacting with others, especially ones that we perceive to be outside of our tribe. Gratitude, however, breaks down those walls, and begins to rebuild bridges as your view of those around you changes from threatening to a realization that we are all endeavoring on this human project together. We are all seeking to live a life of fulfillment and miscommunications with those around you are sometimes part of the journey.
I was watching a video a few weeks ago, one of the few pieces of “political” content I consumed, that was hosted by a public educator. He does a lot of his work for free, and seeks to bring better access to education to the public. In the video he talked about over the last six months, or so, he has spent a lot of his time researching, and having conversations around, the plethora of conspiracies that have arisen around the Covid-19 vaccine. Now I am all for people making the health decisions that is correct for them, and I think we should all be responsible and accountable for our own health, but some of the conspiracy theories he was addressing just seemed to be fabricated out of nowhere. The reality of the ideas bared seemingly little evidence sans for a group of people who said that this was their truth and any attempt to stifle their narrative was proof of the validity of their facts. He talked about how futile his learning and conversations felt because each time one narrative would be disproved, not only would one group of people dig their heels in, but another would pop up tangentially to the first. He then finishes by discussing ideas that he has found to actually brings people together. One that stood out to me is to answer good faith questions, focus on helping people who want help, walking with them, and not shaming the journey they are on. When we shape our friendships, our relationships, our interactions with those outside our camp, and our conversations about any “controversial” topic through the lens of gratitude we inevitably create a table with room for all people. We create a space that is welcoming, and supportive, that fosters discussion, not debate, and aids in the transcendental qualities we all are looking for.
As long as the discussions we are having are about winning some war, where there are winners and losers, then the only result will be the perpetuation of the war. No one will win, we will continue to be divided into camps, and everyone will lose.
“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.” ― Melody Beattie
Thank you for joining this foray into this merriment, love, and sorrow. This view that life holds that ordinary and the unique. The common and the uncommon. Thank you and I’ll see you next Monday.
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https://www.researchgate.net/publication/289891220_A_history_of_modern_pluralism
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/modern-pluralism/history-of-modern-pluralism/558B46BCBBD3D9260DA8D25642D9D005