A case against apathy

On Wednesday morning a few weeks ago I woke up at 07.03. I went through my usual routine; grinding my Copenhagen coffee beans while walking around the flat, opening shutters and windows, craving light and fresh air. Brewed an espresso with some extra water. Took my cup and laptop to the couch and sat down in the Sanna-shaped dent I usually sit in. There was a slight hesitation.

As long as I did not go online, the U.S. could have made a reasonable choice.

As you know, that did not happen. Trump. Again. And allow me to feel and express my anger for a second, to everyone voting for or supporting people like Trump, fuck you. This is a vote against women. Maybe you don’t know better. Maybe you consider yourself a rebel against the establishment. But the only thing you’re rebelling against is human decency and I feel sorry for you. 

Phew, I had to get that out of my system. Anger is not a constructive place to have a conversation from. It is, however, a feeling that can help inspire action and it made me want to write about something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. Namely, what we owe to ourselves and each other when the world feels fucked up.

The privilege of not caring

Let me start with some context. In my late teens I was engaged in politics. I wrote essays and posted them online about topics I cared about, like privacy, back when blogs were the new thing. After a vote that resulted in the the FRA law, I became disillusioned with the system. I was disappointed in the people in power, not standing up for their beliefs. I was disappointed in the media, not living up to its promise to examine crucial issues. I stopped reading the news for years. My argument was that nothing I did would change anything, so what was the point? 

Ah, the narrow-minded entitlement of a white 20-something girl in Sweden. It’s easy to not care when not much really affects you, one way or the other, and you have not yet seen enough of the world to understand it.

But I’ve gotten older, and hopefully a tiny bit wiser.

The power of choosing your beliefs

We can choose the beliefs that are helpful to us. This has been a subconscious strategy of mine since I was 12 and the dentist said they might need to give me several shots of local anaesthetics, to which I replied “please lie to me and say you don’t”. It worked well; it wasn’t true, but the belief stopped me from panicking. When I heard Derek Sivers articulate his “useful not true” concept on a podcast interview a while back I realised that’s exactly what I've been doing. By being aware of it, I can use this mindset more deliberately.

There is a lot to be worried about right now. I’m worried about conspiracy theories and the spread of disinformation. I’m worried that there seem to be less and less of a shared world view. I’m worried about women's rights. I’m worried about the joke of a government we currently have in Sweden. I’m worried about the narcissistic man-children sitting on power, in the US and all over the world. I’m worried about media’s role in all of this and what the loss of trust will mean in the future. 

Believing we have no influence on the world around us is accepting the gameplan people like Trump have laid out. It may be the easy route.

But it does not align with my values. 

And it is certainly not useful.

Building a better narrative

At risk of sounding like I'm running for school president, I believe humans can do better. I believe there is a place for nuanced discussions in the public discourse. I believe that each and every one of us has a voice we need to use.

For me this means speaking about things I care deeply about. Right now, that is critical thinking and fighting misinformation. Not because I'm an expert in any way, nor do I think I can magically change people's minds. But I can at least contribute with a different perspective.

You can make shit up in five seconds. Debunking it with real information and sources can take hours, or days. Thus, this internet-era comes with a tide of misinformation and causes many people just jump in their life boats, row away to the safety of their peers and claim “well, it's what it is, nothing I can do about it”. Most days I feel the same. But I think we need to care and speak about it. With your friends, online, share your beliefs as freely as the rabid conspiracy theorists do. I think there is a lot more of us with a balanced world view, but if you log into Twitter these days, you might think the world consists of American right-wing Elon-fanbois. If we don’t engage in any way, we allow them free range in the discourse. We need to lead conversations and not stay stuck in the whack-a-mole of misinformation.

Here's what I think: We might not be able to remove the tide of misinformation, but we can try to dilute it with reason. 

Action matters

In this episode Ezra Klein talks to Anne Applebaum, journalist and author of a book on a timely topic, about Trump and autocracy. At the end of the episode he asks what people should do now. “The worst consequence would be if people become apathetic,” she says. That we give up, check out. Her advice is to just do something, any small action. Join discussion groups. Be present in our communities and do something that makes us active. It doesn’t even have to be political. The antidote to apathy is to act.

This is the energy I want to bring to my mornings next year. Spice up my coffee with some rebellion against the madness. It’s not going to change the world, but at least it's contributing to the world I want, not ignoring the world I don't.