Independence Day and the prison of Provincialism

As I’ve stated in previous posts, Independence Day means more to me than the founding of the United States.  It represents the adoption of a philosophy which ought to be reexamined from time to time.  While many Americans will be grilling hot dogs and burgers, waving flags, and setting off amateur fireworks this weekend, how many have actually read the full text of Declaration of Independence?  I have, and it makes for good reading – especially today, when so many of our rights are under attack. 

Take for example, this complaint aimed at the British Monarch, George III:  

“He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.” 

Is what George III did all that different from what has been happening across the country since 2017, where polling sites are being shuttered in minority areas and mail-in ballot options are being restricted – thus suppressing voter turnout in those areas?

Or this concern:

“He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.”

In other words, George III was placing restrictions on immigration.  Sound familiar?

There are other concerns voiced in the Declaration which presage today’s concerns, from restricting trade to quartering armed troops in cities.  I’m tempted to opine that the dude would have loved Trump and his minions.  George III, a weak monarch who was doing as his ministers advised, did these things because he was led to believe that they would intimidate the disobedient colonists from acting out further.  George and his ministers miscalculated. 

While few Americans will have read the passages above – much less understood how they relate to today’s political struggles, many will spout the most ridiculous nonsense without a trace of irony.  And many who disagree with them will remain silent for fear of causing offense.  Part of this is because the notion of objective truth has been under attack, and I feel it is not exaggeration to state that truth is in danger of dying altogether – killed by bias, driven by social media.

Today, social media locks people into their own biases and prejudices.  This is by design, because those who have monetized social media have learned that engagement is driven by calculated outrage and confirmation bias.  What is confirmation bias?  An example: someone uses a search engine to research a topic – for example, conspiracy theories about vaccines, the moon landing, or 9/11 – and finds an article or a YouTube video which agrees with their viewpoint.  In other words, they locate something that confirms their bias.  They click on the link, which becomes part of their history – which the algorithm perpetuates by sending similar links their way.  In essence, without even knowing it, users close their own minds. 

As demonstrated in Yuval Noah Harari’s erudite book Nexus : A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, the tendency toward confirmation bias in social media, where disinformation is equated with truth, can have catastrophic results.  Both Facebook and YouTube played a significant role in worsening the Rohingya Genocide.  It’s not as if those who programmed these social media tools deliberately set out to kill human beings, but the algorithm programed into them prioritized engagement over human wellbeing.  For “engagement” means money.

Despite waxing and waning content moderation, the trend continues to this day – as demonstrated by the increasing toxicity of most prominent social media platforms. Confirmation bias is taken to its furthest degree in Donald Trump’s ironically named app, Truth Social – which, despite its all-American chest thumping, was financed by Chinese and Russian interests.

This phenomenon is not unique to the United States.  It has been observed in the United Kingdom, Brazil, and Argentina as well – where manipulation of social media enabled unqualified political candidates who would not been elected dog catcher 20 years ago to obtain leadership positions. 

Confirmation bias dates back to long before social media.  It was most prevalent in what has been known as the ghetto.  Understand that when I use the term “ghetto,” I don’t mean in the modern American sense – which generally refers to a lower income African-American neighborhood – but in the classic sense, which refers to an insular, ethnically/religiously homogenous area.  For centuries, these places were necessary for simple survival.  That is no longer the case except in the most backward parts of the world.

For a brief period, I lived in a “gayborhood” in suburban Boston, Massachusetts.  As a young gay man establishing his identity, it had its advantages.  But eventually the conversations became repetitive and tiresome: which guy from the gym might be gay, who had the best body or attribute, and Madonna – lots of Madonna.  It all became a bit stultifying, like living in an echo chamber.  I had forgotten my annoyance with the paradigm until my husband Daniel and I spent some time in one such neighborhood a few years ago: Wilton Manors.  I found it depressing.  From what I’ve heard from others who lived in similarly homogenous places, my experience was far from unique.  Daniel and I now live in a very diverse suburb to the east of Cleveland now, and while I was happy to see three rainbow flags on my block this past month, I’m equally glad to live in a mixed community with people of all colors, creeds, orientations, and identities.  Variety is the spice of life.

Whether they are referred to as ghettos, shtetls, Ummahs, gayborhoods, or whatever, closed communities lead to closed minds. Social media has similarly placed users into “thought ghettos,” where Provincialism reigns.  Provincialism, sometimes also called “Parochialism,” is the enemy of freedom of thought – a liberty which is in danger.  It’s worth noting that in George Orwell’s 1984, people are prosecuted for “thought crimes.”  With many exploring their hidden desires and dispositions on apps and the frequent breaches of personal data, the notion of “thought police” is not as fanciful as it seemed in 1948.

I certainly understand having to navigate diverse viewpoints and complex conversations.  I am a registered Democrat who comes from what was once a solidly Republican family.  Both my parents and all of my grandparents were Republicans, and my great grandfather was a Republican member of the Michigan state legislature.  I am the only LGBTQ person in my immediate family.  My closest living gay biological relative is a second cousin who I haven’t seen in 35 years.  Recently I met up with my father’s sole remaining sibling, who is 89 years old.  During a wide ranging conversation, he related to me that he had been a Republican all his life but has never voted for Donald Trump.  He either voted Democrat those years or stayed at home.  While he still believes in the conservative philosophy as espoused by President Eisenhower, he laments the lack of bipartisanship.  I found my uncle’s perspective intriguing as it echoed something my father told me in March of 2016, just a few weeks before his death.  Additionally, my maternal grandmother began to align with the Democrats in her old age – she was appalled at the GOP’s cutting of social services and the hypocrisy of Newt Gingrich and other adulterous Republicans persecuting Bill Clinton over his sexual peccadillos.  While I have long supported the liberal economic philosophy as espoused by Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman (who were so far to the left economically that their policies would be aligned with Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez today), along with social policies that were not conceivable during the New Deal (like marriage equality), I also regret the lack of across the aisle communication.  But let’s not kid ourselves: It’s not Democrats who have steamrolled their agenda by firing senior ranked military personnel, firing Judge Advocates General, and crippling government agencies they don’t like.    

The America that used to exist, where leaders of diverse viewpoints talked to each other, made deals, even engaged in a little horse-trading, needs to reemerge.  Compromise may be a dirty word to some.  But it is what allowed us to beat fascism abroad, land a man on the moon (yes, that really happened), and win the Cold War.  The loss of the ability to compromise has led to the credible threat of fascism at home, crippled our scientific and space programs, and helped a resurgent, imperialist Russia gain a foothold in Eastern Europe.

In the end, it may be that the Revolutionary War was for naught – a 250-year experiment that ultimately failed. 

So, on this 4^th of July, let us declare our independence from the prisons of closed-mindedness and from provincialism in all its forms.

And read the Declaration of Independence.