Unstupiding Ourselves
Unstupiding Ourselves
Factions of the Most Frivolous and Fanciful Distinctions
In 2022, Social Psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, made the case that a particular change in the way social media worked made the past 10 years of American life uniquely stupid. Drawing from the biblical story of the Tower of Babel, Haidt accurately describes a nation that is suddenly disoriented and unable to speak the same language or recognize the same truth.
So what does he say happened?
In a 2022 article in the Atlantic titled, WHY THE PAST 10 YEARS OF AMERICAN LIFE HAVE BEEN UNIQUELY STUPID, with a subtile of “It’s not just a phase,” Haidt unpacks the research behind social media trends and some of their profound implications.
In the beginning, social media platforms provided people with new and efficient ways to connect with each other. People could more easily share stories, pictures, and life events with friends and family members. But after a while social-media platforms added like and share buttons, which essentially trained users to spend more time performing and less time connecting.
Soon algorithms were coded to track and highlight posts that garnered more “likes” and “shares,” essentially fostering the creation and sharing of of even more posts that would get clicks—and perhaps if you were lucky, even go viral—posts that inspired outrage and shock. Just think of your favorite clickbait titles.
Haidt notes that:
“One of the engineers at Twitter who had worked on the ‘Retweet’ button later revealed that he regretted his contribution because it had made Twitter a nastier place. As he watched Twitter mobs forming through the use of the new tool, he thought to himself, “We might have just handed a 4-year-old a loaded weapon.”
The newly tweaked social media platforms were almost perfectly designed to bring out our most moralistic and least reflective selves, what James Madison called in the 1787 constitutional debates, “the turbulency and weakness of unruly passions.”
So here we are. Despite all of our technological advancements up to and into the 21st century, we are now a fractured country that is cut off not only from our past, but also from one another—a new Babel in Haidt’s estimation.
In some important ways, we are realizing James Madison’s nightmare of Federalist #10—a factious spirit which first taints our public administrations and then ultimately destroys our liberty as the nation dissolves into the tyranny of the mob or the tyranny of a strong man.
Madison says,
By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community….The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to cooperate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.
As Haidt points out, “Social media has both magnified and weaponized the frivolous.” If you’re unsure of what I’m talking about, just open X (formerly Twitter) and spend 30 seconds scrolling through the feed.
In his own article, Haidt suggests three goals that must be achieved if democracy is to remain viable in a post-Babel era.
Harden Democratic Institutions
Reform Social Media
Prepare the Next Generation
His third essential goal—to better prepare the next generation for democratic citizenship in this new age of technology—is where I want to focus. For Haidt, preparing the next generation is mostly accomplished by unsupervised free play—which, he argues, is nature’s way of cultivating the “art of association.” Those of you who, like me, grew up in the 70s and 80s as free-range kids know what he’s talking about.
Nevertheless, while I do believe there is merit to Haidt's assertion, I want to demonstrate that Classical Christian Education is in fact the more optimal vehicle for unstupiding ourselves. And that’s what I hope to prove in the four or five posts that will make up this series. Read Part 2 here.
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