Let's Cause Disharmony In 2024
Or maybe not...
The Iowa Caucuses were last week, and the New Hampshire Primary was yesterday. The Presidential election is officially underway.
That of course means that we in the United States will once again get to decide who will serve as our Head of State for a four year term.
But, it means a lot more than just that.
It means that as the spirit of Walter Cronkite is long dead, we will have partisan talking heads on 24/7 News channels screaming about how their guy is good and the other guy is evil, all day, every day, for months.
It means that talk shows on the radio, and podcasts will be doing the same. Not to mention newsletter land, where Emeth lives, we’ll surely have thousands of newsletter writers screaming their screeds across the page.
It means that massive technology companies, owned and directed by multi-billionaires will be putting their thumb on the scale, doing all they can to provoke emotional reactions in their users, holding their attention, while banning some truly horrible content and promoting other, equally horrible content.
We’ve all experienced this garbage before.
But, this year, 2024 is going to be worse than ever before. A lot worse.
Why?
First of all, because the perceived stakes are higher. We’ve now had eight solid years of unabashed, unashamed partisan hatred polluting our political discourse. None of the keyboard warriors, from anywhere on the political spectrum will want to give up the vicious battle while they see a pathway to temporary victory.
Secondly, and more importantly, Artificial Intelligence. No matter what your personal political beliefs might be, this technology will figure it out, and it will drive emotion driven content straight to you, all in an attempt to reinforce some behavior and change other behavior. It will be emotional, driving sadness, anger, division, and rage.
And now, as it can be created at very little cost, at the speed of light, it will drown social media, the open web, and virtually every other large online surface that people use to interact.
We’ll also have plenty of deep fake content driven our way. Just the other day I shared a video in Chat that showed a world leader giving a speech, displaying perfect English. It looked great and it sounded great. In English. But in the real world, when he gave that speech, he gave it in Spanish. We can not believe what we see and hear online, unless we can otherwise prove it true.
The political discourse in 2024 is going to be bad. Really bad.
What does this mean to us, as Freemasons?
It means that we have to work to not get sucked into this insanity.
It means that we must use our Working Tools to help us subdue our passions.
It means that we should not believe, uncritically, everything we encounter online that confirms our own personal political perspective. And it certainly means that we shouldn’t spread this stuff to others, unless we independently know for a fact that it is true.
It means that if we have the Square and Compasses on our social media feed, or post about Freemasonry on our feed, we must be judicious about anything remotely political we post on that feed, lest we offend half the population of our country and sully the reputation of our Craft.
It means that if we can not resist posting both Masonic things, and political propaganda, then we should maintain two, completely unrelated and unconnected social media feeds. One for Masonry, one for whatever political thing is making us mad or glad on any given day.
It means that we must force ourselves to use our reason and to think critically about what we encounter so that we can discern between legitimate political issues and political propaganda.
It means that we must remember that there are special interest groups, political action committees, policy organizations, and lots of dark money outfits that do nothing but spend all day, every day, creating divisive political content. Now they are aided by Ai, and they are funded by the billions.
Most importantly of all, it means that we keep this stuff out of the Lodge Room, out of the dining room, and out of our Masonic events.
There is a reason that Partisan Political Discussion has always been prohibited by all Regular Lodges in Masonic meetings, throughout the world.
We must preserve Masonic harmony within Freemasonry, and we can never make a Brother feel somehow less than, or unwelcome because we can’t resist talking about the latest political outrage when we are supposed to be talking about Masonry.
The avalanche of garbage is coming towards us Brothers! Let’s all do what we can to protect our Gentle Craft, our little Masonic oasis, from it.
Know thy audience. Have a thicker skin.
A great friend of mine and I would have relatively civil arguments about union issues. He's very pro union, and I am pretty anti public sector union. I don't mind unions forming through private corporations, as they deserve to collectively bargain with the companies they work for.
But occasionally we would disagree about a topic, and go back and forth a few times stating our cases, but in the end we'd usually agree to disagree and move on.
Well, his wife took exception to my discourse, and proceeded to send me some very heated texts telling me to leave her husband alone, and that I was mean and an asshole. Keep in mind, both my friend and I to this day get along great. We both have the ability of separating politics from friendship. At no time did we stoop to anger. But, in the interest of harmony, I had to unfollow him on social media, because I didn't want to engage in further heated conversations with the spouse.
But you are right, the public narrative being pushed is meant to sow hate, fear and disharmony, a divided society is easier to control while our government robs us blind. Entire families and friendships have been torn apart over politics.
There's no question that social media has emboldened the hateful, and thereby has normalized hate. Yes, let's preserve our dignity with our online remarks. We can at least be proud of that. But there's only so much that this can accomplish; social media is thick with people looking for a fight that they won't shy away from when they don't have to look their readers in the eye. But let's preserve our dignity online anyway. And let's do more.
Years ago I was walking through Pioneer Square on my way to Starbucks for a mid-morning refresher when a young woman holding a clipboard bearing a sticker from the other party approached me and asked me to sign something, which I declined and explained that I was going to stick with my party. I continued toward Starbucks and as I opened the door I heard her from behind me saying, "Oh, that's a good idea", and she followed me in. As we stood in line I braced myself for what I feared might be a lecture on the merits of her party, but she didn't say a word. When it was my turn I ordered my coffee and then pointed to her and told the barista to give my fine friend from the other party anything she wanted. She immediately resisted and said, "Oh no, you don't have to do that." I replied, "Yes I do. I believe in the two-party system and we don't have to agree with each other but we do need each other and we need to respect each other." She thanked me and told me I was nicer that many others she had encountered from my party.
I do very little online. I generally don't trust the big platforms and so much of what's online is either a shouting match or somebody bragging. But whatever I do online I'll keep it civil. When I'm not online I'm going to buy coffee for people from the other party.