We Call This Order

A system is normally set in place with the promise of bringing order. A system organises behaviour and, in turn, rewards certain responses.

Our system rewards outrage.

As a promised collective of order that makes patterns out of the cast darkness of the cosmos and screams against the emptiness with technology and self-considered progress, we, civilisation, are struggling.

I am not trying to be funny. But it is funny. It just is. Whatever your thoughts, beliefs, values, favourite sports team, singer, film, video game, religion, or brand, we are all essentially the same. Our differences are not nearly as great as our similarities.

For such a progressive civilisation of biped flesh monsters with an endoskeleton, we have built and honed a system that doesn’t serve us.

We are rewarded for reacting. Either positively or negatively — a reward is a reward. We are trained from an early age to defend identity, which is no bad thing.

However, another thing we are taught is that disagreement is an attack. Though some disagreements could correctly be defined as such, most are simply differences of opinion.

In the age of the internet and social media, algorithms are fine-tuned to amplify micro-conflicts, and any sense of nuance dies quietly on the corner.

We are often careless. We are more or less responsible for every terrible thing that happens — but why?

Outrage is amazing. It gives a sense of moral certainty. That certainty gives us our tribe. Tribe gives us safety in numbers, and safety feels like survival.

Survival overrides nuance.

We can’t agree to disagree. Now, I am not trying to piss in anyone’s cereal here. But even if I was, my point still stands.

I don’t want to simplify larger issues, but on many of the hotbed, conversation-ending and war-starting subjects, a difference of opinion is what it all boils down to.

We are broken because, as a society, we don’t seem able to hold a variety of opinions without blood, guts, and metaphorical debris being spilled.

I don’t really like Dracula and Frankenstein adaptations that take liberties with the original texts and add romances here, there and everywhere.

It’s my opinion.

No matter how right I think I am (and I do think I am right), it is still just an opinion — valid, perhaps, but not worth falling out with someone because of it.

A harmless preference because I “get” the original text and hate seeing it stripped of intent.

But to voice my opinion might be taken as defensiveness, or as someone being sensitive to criticism, and as our identity is intrinsically linked to everything we are, it may be seen as an attack — which leads to social fracture.

I am not in any way righter or wronger. Even with the best intentions in wanting to voice my opinion, I could start problems.

Opinions and preferences can become markers for taste, tribe, intelligence and even moral worth — and that’s when issues really arise.

Even from something as seemingly insignificant as Dracula and Frankenstein adaptations.

Now, take me for instance. I have unsubtly made references to the fact that I think I am right.

I like being right. It feels good and validating.

It’s also great when I find others who agree. For as much as I would love for people not to agree with me, the dopamine hits harder when they do.

And much to my own chagrin — something my wife will attest to — it feels good when I see someone else is wrong.

Those notification buzzes that bring comments saying, “Yeah, Paul, you’re right,” feel like tiny victories.

Our system, by and large, has difficulty differentiating between aesthetic and ethical disagreements and existential threat.

This system, as it stands, shapes the most vulnerable — the quiet individuals, those with two conflicting ideas, those who respond with “maybe,” and those who change their minds.

You say one slightly opinionated thing in a conversation. Others decide it is wrong. You are piled onto with hatred.

Your stomach tightens. Your jaw aches from the tension it’s carrying. Your face creases into a scowl. You type faster. Delete. Re-type. Delete again. Defiance kicks in — along with that familiar sense of rightness. You double down rather than back down, because if the other side won’t, why should you? You screenshot. You check the likes. You count the comments.

With this kind of system, there is no loud collapse. Not at first. The misalignment happens quietly and gradually.

The quiet learn to speak less.

The careful stop speaking at all.

Only the loudest survive.

Volume is mistaken for truth.

And we call that order.