[…] mentioned it before, but technology can be an enabling factor that gives you access to thoughts and opinions of all kinds of different people, from different […]

@ Max:

Yeah, people have been doing reckless things while driving long before text messaging was even a thing. I once saw a guy read a novel while driving. He had like a real paperback book spread on his steering wheel.

Plus I think the texting while driving sometimes is more of a “shit, someone just messaged me – this might be important” rather “omg, I have a sad”. As a rule I ignore the phone when I’m behind the wheel. If it is something really, really important the person on the other end will probably know my schedule and realize I’m en-route and call me instead so I can pick it up on my car’s Bluetooth. Otherwise it can probably wait 30 minutes or so it takes me to go between my house and my work.

I agree that technology can help you understand other people and their positions. I’ve begun to understand feminism in a somewhat similar way as you, Luke.

Also, that video is meant to be funny? I find it annoying. I got unreasonably angry at this quote:

And sometimes when things clear away, you’re not watching anything, you’re in your car, and you start going, ‘oh no, here it comes. That I’m alone.’ It’s starts to visit on you. Just this sadness. Life is tremendously sad, just by being in it…

That’s why we text and drive. I look around, pretty much 100 percent of the people driving are texting. And they’re killing, everybody’s murdering each other with their cars. But people are willing to risk taking a life and ruining their own because they don’t want to be alone for a second because it’s so hard.

Or maybe it’s just that humans tend to underestimate common risks and overestimate their competence and if they had no smartphones they’d read newspapers instead? Nah, can’t be true, that doesn’t sound deep! Also, I haz had a sad while driving a car once. But seriously, if you can’t drive a car without working through a minor existential crisis, then you should hand back your license. I mean, driving in a highly emotional state is dangerous too. (If that means extroverts can’t drive anymore, then that’s too bad ;) But I don’t think all of them are delicate little flowers like that.)

@ Wikke:

Well, sometimes you don’t have strong conviction, but a weakly held opinion about something you don’t know much about. Those are easy to change by random opinion pieces that give very in-depth analysis. But I honestly think reading something can legitimately change even a somewhat strong conviction because it has happened to me more than once.

Let me try to give you an example. Tru Story™ time:

Back when I was an undergrad in college I took a class that was labeled as “Mythology”. It was supposed to be an overview and analysis of ancient to modern mythological systems, myth creation mechanisms, cultural factors, etc.. As it often happens with this sort of random electives the professors research interests often dictate the overarching “theme” of the course. At least at my alma-matter it did. For example when I took Honors Lit 3 the chief theme was reflections on colonialism in western and non-western literature. When I took a random philosophy elective it ended up to be an in depth study of religious existentialism as seen through the works of Kierkegard. I never minded, because I was learning things I wouldn’t even think about otherwise. Except this one Mythology course in which the overarching theme was feminist theory. It basically traced what we would now call common tropes relating to gender roles in popular stories starting with oral tradition and ending with modern urban myths and pop culture phenomenons.

After about two or three lectures I decided the class was complete bullshit. Few of my buddies dropped it, and the ones who stayed would hit the cafeteria with me after class where we would loudly complain how the crazy feminist lady is totally sexist, and how we are probably gonna fail the class just because we are men. Or how she always shoots us down when we try to valiantly explain to her how hard it is to be a man and how patriarchy doesn’t real and etc. This was before the conservative pundits coined the term “feminatzi” but if it was around back then, I’m fairly sure we would have used it to describe out professor.

Long story short, I got an A+ in that class, because the professor wasn’t actually sexist, or hate men, the course was designed well, the requirements made sense, the assignments were fine and she graded fairly. But for years I would always tell people about that one time when I “beat the system” and somehow managed to pass this crazy feminist lady’s class without actually internalizing any of the “toxic man hating stuff” that she was indoctrinating us with. I just thought she was misguided and feminism was mostly obsolete and reactionary and that equality already has been achieved.

Fast forward years later and I was randomly watching videos and I stumbled upon Nostalgia Chick’s review of Labryinth in which she called the protagonist “the loneliest LARP’er”. That and few other throw away D&D gags and dick jokes cemented it in my mind that this girl was cool. She was “my people”. So I decided to watch more of her videos. As I discovered she was a quite outspoken about feminism, but this time around, because I already mentally filed her under the “cool people who get things” category I listened. Some of that stuff actually got through, and planted seeds of doubt. I figured that maybe not all of the feminism is “bullshit”. Maybe it was just those “radical” ones that were bad.

I mentioned Aaron Diaz above, who makes one of my favorite web comics of all time. I read his blog and tweets and he would also often speak about sexism, inequality, and gender tropes. He was also someone whose work and opinion I respected. So I listened.

Then I saw same kinds of opinions very eloquently explained by people who were “really awesome” and “really got it”. People who were straight up worshiped by nerds like me: Neil Gaiman, Joss Whedon, etc… It was a common thread I noticed that a lot of the people I really respected identified themselves as feminists. Bit by bit my opinions were changing. Maybe maturing also had something to do with it, but a lot of it was just reading things with open mind and going “huh, did not think about it this way” and starting to question conventional “bro wisdom” I grew up hearing everywhere around.

Probably the last straw was when I was hanging out on reddit, and stumbled upon some dude-bros crying about evil feminists from SRS ruining everything forever. So, driven by morbid curiosity I went to check out the most hated, most derided den of evil, man hating misandrists who want to burn reddit down to the ground… To my surprise, folks there turned out to be both witty, and extremely friendly and considerate. This was around that time I had a sudden epiphany and finally realized what that Hark! A Vagrant comic was about. I’ve seen it dozen times posted in various places, and I never really fully understood the joke. These bad, radical, evil man hating feminists that show up in popular culture didn’t really exist in real life. That feminism was not some monolithic machine aiming to misandrer as many men as possible but a very fractured and divided movement that is struggling with its own internal problems (like lack of intesectionality for example). I realized that sexism wasn’t other peoples problem, and that the issues feminists were trying to address affected not just some other people, but everyone.

Looking back at my college days, I actually regret being a complete tool – especially in that Mythology class. Finally, many years later I get what our professor was trying to teach us and have a new-found appreciation of how she structured the course. She was pretty much doing what Anita Sarkeesian is currently very successfully doing with video games – but she was doing it with ancient mythology, urban myths and popular culture. Mostly though I’m kinda ashamed of how long it took me to figure it all out, and kinda annoyed that I allowed myself to live in a cognitive bubble, while at the same time considering myself an open minded and enlightened person.

So yeah, bunch of random internet articles, videos and forum discussions completely changed my view on feminism. Sadly there was no one in my social circles who could have taught me these things directly (or that I would have listened to without immediately shutting things out). Worst part is that most of my life I have always tried to be open minded and sensitive to social injustice. And yet, this was below my radar for so many years.

The beliefs I hold now are pretty much opposite of what I believed back when I was an undergrad. And most this was participated and catalyzed by the technology that allowed me to randomly or semi-randomly stumble upon opinions different from my own, but presented in a language I could understand. The seeds of this change were planted by people who I never met.

It’s kinda funny how we always say “real life” and “internet” as if those were separate domains of existence. But we live connected lives now – all the experiences are part of the human condition, and all of them are valid.

Long time ago since I commented…

Luke Maciak wrote:

Which is why I think technology is a force for good. You may live an insulated, echo-chamber, but one day you will stumble upon a blog post or a video with a point of view you don’t agree with. But for one reason or another it will strike a chord with you – it will explain the subject just right, use the right tone and the right amount of humor that resonates with you, and suddenly your will have an epiphany of some sort.

I don’t think it works this way.
People will only see, and agree to, opinions that matches theirs.
If they would stumble upon a different view, they will be more critical. (me too, I admit)
Think of this about yourself: If you encounter someone with a completely different view than yourself explaining something in his point of view. You tend to find all the errors in their logic and debunk them.
On the other hand, someone with a matching opinion, you tend to agree with him while saying/thinking “He’s right! Everyone, listen to him!”.

@ Alex:

Yep. Extroverts don’t get it, but don’t let it keep you down. The thing about being deficient…

I’ve been thinking about this lately: being deficient, means that there is some normal spectrum for human condition from which one would deviate. But if there is such a thing, then what is it, who defines it. and who gave them that right? Even in statistics outliers are not necessarily bad, they just are. By definition humanity is all-inclusive. It’s kinda messed up that we so often make people feel as if they were some inhuman abominations just because they don’t neatly fit into what is locally accepted definition of “normalcy”.

Which kinda feeds into that other thing you mention: surrounding yourself with only like-minded people can potentially create an echo chamber effect. It does feel good but it may lead to a sort of radicalization within the group, since everyone is confirming each other’s biases and no one is questioning the status quo. It’s funny because it works both on micro (personal circle of friends and relatives) and macro scales (ie. ethnic/religious majority getting trapped in mutual privilege circle jerks and unable to see past it’s own nose). It can quickly go from “yay for us” to “yay for us, everyone else sucks” to “this is the only valid way to be, everything different is wrong”.

Which is why I think technology is a force for good. You may live an insulated, echo-chamber, but one day you will stumble upon a blog post or a video with a point of view you don’t agree with. But for one reason or another it will strike a chord with you – it will explain the subject just right, use the right tone and the right amount of humor that resonates with you, and suddenly your will have an epiphany of some sort.

Very insightful, thank you. I am surrounded by so many extroverted poeple that I sometimes get the feeling to be deficient is I dont actively fight against that. An incredible number of poeple find it ‘unhealthy’ and ‘not normal’. It is like they have to drug themself with constant input from others.

Not having a lot of contact to like minded poeple really fucks you, takes your confidence away over time (having only contact to like minded poeple fucks you too).