Tag: danger

The Dark Side of Discourse

The First Amendment.

If you’re American, you likely learned about this in middle school. You read the following 45 words in all their grandeur, studying them in detail.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Yes, I know. It’s about as riveting as a trip to the motor vehicle office. But the ideal behind these 45 words put a pep in our step.

They allow us to gather together and to have a say. They allow us to find strength in our voice, conviction in our beliefs and an audience in our midst.

Most of all, they allow us to tap into the power of discourse.

I owe my entire professional existence to the First Amendment. I started my career as a TV news journalist, with my rights etched in stone by those 45 words. Now, as a marketer, I facilitate discourse between buyers and sellers.

And I owe Words of the West to the First Amendment. There’s no way I would have been able to publish years of original thoughts without the license to speak freely.

Yes, the First Amendment is a timeless gift. One with the resilience to last through the centuries without losing its luster.

But recently, some warts have started to show.

In Back to The Future, Marty McFly travels back to 1955, thanks to a time-shifting DeLorean invented by the zany scientist Doc Brown.

If I had the keys to that DeLorean, I’d travel back to 1789. I’d head back to the year the first United States Congress stood in session.

This was the laboratory that yielded the first set of amendments to the U.S. Constitution — better known as the Bill of Rights. And front and center in the Bill of Rights is the First Amendment.

If I were to travel back to 1789, I would tell America’s early legislators that some 200 years later, an innovation would arise called the World Wide Web. And that innovation would help billions of people connect on something called the Internet.

I’d likely end up in the stockades for talking like this. After all, it wasn’t too long before this that settlers were burning young women at the stake, simply because someone accused them of being a witch.

But the risk would be worthwhile. For the Internet presents the greatest threat yet to the spirit of the First Amendment.

Free discourse has persevered throughout the generations. It survived a Civil War that left America reeling. It stayed afloat through a great financial depression and two global wars. And it provided the guiding light for the Civil Rights movement.

Even in the darkest moments, discourse tended to call to our better angels. While some truly terrible viewpoints have been shared throughout the years — such as hate speech and violent extremism — the balance of national discourse remained courteous and respectful.

I believe this prosperity of discourse had more to do with logistics than anything else.

In America’s earliest days, a message could only travel as far as the voice could carry. If someone spoke loudly to a gathered crowd, hundreds of people could hear it firsthand.

Members of the crowd could pass those words on to others further afield, but that secondary message would likely get diluted. Only those in the room where it happened got the unvarnished message.

This made it hard for radical discourse to spread. Harmful messages might poison the bucket, but not the entire well.

As time went on, technology chipped away at these limitations. Newspapers, radio frequencies and TV channels helped spread that firsthand message further and faster.

Yet, these new technology options came with their own limitations. Not just anyone could write for a newspaper or get airtime on the radio or TV. There were gatekeepers — such as editors and programming directors — controlling access and managing the message on each medium.

So, those who sought to use discourse to drag down society found their plans foiled. For every instance of a televised Klan rally, there was an image of Martin Luther King on the Lincoln Memorial steps, proclaiming I have a dream today.  For every demand of an extremist to publish their manifesto, there was John F. Kennedy imploring America to go to the moon.

But now, things are different.

The Internet age is here. And the guardrails are gone.

The veil has been lifted.

Often, this phrase is a joyous one. Sadly, that’s not the case this time.

For the veil the Internet age has lifted was an essential protection. It was the buffer shielding us from the dark side of discourse.

Now, in a world with open access to a megaphone, we are seeing just how sinister that dark side can be.

Malicious discourse is no longer solely the domain of torchlit rallies in the backwoods. It’s no longer the specialty of radicalized criminals racking up collateral damage.

Instead, it’s in the hands of anyone with a smartphone.

A healthy respect for diverging viewpoints has gone by the wayside. Bullying and intimidation are rampant.

Those at the helm of these malicious campaigns run the gamut. They’re everything from middle schoolers to the middle age. They range from the far right to the far left. They represent the downtrodden everyman and the down-looking elite alike.

The expressions of vitriol they spew are no longer reserved for the masses. Like heat-seeking missiles, they can each be fixed upon a single target. One person. One family. One organization.

And the fallout from this prevailing brand of discourse has been brutal. Many have seen their dreams shattered. Many have had their livelihoods subverted. And some have even gone so far as to take their own lives.

This surely wasn’t the dystopian future America’s early legislators envisioned when they bestowed us with the power to speak freely.

Yet, it’s precisely the world in which we find ourselves.

It’s going to be difficult for us to find our way out of this sinkhole.

For as long as there is an open Internet full of popular social networking platforms, there will be cyberbullying. There will be those who launch digital grenades at others under the guise of an alias. There will be those who poison our discourse with little fear of repercussion.

This reality is bleak. But it is not hopeless.

We do have some control of our destiny. And that process starts with us putting our foot down and making our voices heard.

We can begin by letting those around us know that we won’t tolerate rancorous malice. That we won’t sit silent when other use the Internet to turn words into weapons.

We can continue by leading by example. By avoiding the temptation to use our First Amendment rights to make others feel pain — even if we feel it’s justified.

And we can take it to the next level by standing with the victims. By providing them the strength needed to sidestep the harm malicious discourse can bring.

These are only first steps. A first phase in a much larger crusade.

But they are steps in the right direction.

The First Amendment gave our society a great opportunity. Let’s make the most of it once again.

The Danger Of Inaction

What is the cost of doing nothing?

Of standing pat? Of deciding good enough is good enough?

Sometimes the cost is not that high. The only real factor is opportunity cost — the value of possibilities that might have existed if we only went for them.

Other times the consequences can be grave, even deadly.

When armed forces are under attack, a lack of action can lead to mass casualties. One need only to see the end of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End to get a cinematic view of this.

The implications of inaction are clear in this situation. But what about situations where they’re not as direct? How do we act then?

In a word: Poorly.

Consider this.

When we go out and have a good time, one companion is often in the middle of the action. Alcohol.

Booze helps us lighten up. It removes our inhibitions. It gets us feeling good.

And it’s a cultural staple. One inextricably woven into nearly all kinds of get-togethers.

But alcohol provides significant dangers. It affects our behavior, slows our response times and alters our decision making.

At their worst, these effects can ruin lives — or even end them.

Many of us learn about these dangers well before we take our first legal sip of alcohol. Drivers education classes are littered with warnings about drinking and driving. College orientations alert students to the dangers of binge drinking.

But even with these warnings in tow — not to mention the electronic “Don’t Drink and Drive” signs up and down the highway — we still make alcohol-induced decisions that put others at risk.

If those risks come to fruition, we have a ready-made excuse.

But I was drunk.

 This excuse is bogus, and even insulting to those harmed by alcohol-fueled behavior.

Having a few drinks shouldn’t give us a free pass to harm others. To victimize and traumatize. To deprive people of their God-given rights.

Yet, it does. Because we, as a society, let it.

We sanctify the act of throwing one back, or having a couple cold ones. Just as we sanctify the flawed principle of Let boys be boys.

We ignore the consequences of defending these principles, because we don’t want to live in a world that deprives us the change to indulge ourselves.

But the danger of inaction is grave.

It impinges justice. It silences victims. And it makes us all complicit in tragedy.

We can do better.

We can do right by those harmed by this behavior.

We can save countless future would-be victims from their fate.

But we can only do so by taking action. By destroying the façade that says having a good time is beyond reproach. By tossing out the flawed defense of youthful innocence.

We don’t need to give up drinking, as I have. We don’t need to put an end to partying.

But we need to lean in to accountability. We must hold everyone responsible for actions that harm others. We have to prevent the root cause of harm from being treated as an immunity defense.

The actions we take matter.

Inaction is no longer an option.

The Dangers of Groupthink

It was a normal Wednesday. I went to work, dressed in dress shoes, slacks and a button-down shirt.

One by one, my colleagues entered the office, all sporting a decidedly more casual look. (My employer doesn’t mandate a dress code, and many of my co-workers seem to be on a daily mission to take full advantage of this liberty.)

After a few minutes, one of my colleagues walked by my cubicle in order to grab coffee from the break room. Noting what I was wearing, she hit me with eight words that cut like a knife.

What are you trying to prove to us?

Then she walked away, without a clue as to how badly she had offended me.

There’s a simple reason I was so rankled by this encounter. The values I extol were being thrown in my face.

You see, I often speak of the benefits of coming together. The virtues of unity. The power of community.

The premise of all this is that people unite for a common good. Yet, practice doesn’t always make perfect.

Sometimes the dominant voice in the room isn’t a tide to lift all boats. Sometimes it serves as an anchor instead.

Psychologists have a name for this behavior: Groupthink.

And while the name sounds innocent enough, it can pack a more destructive punch than a wrecking ball.

Why? Because Groupthink promotes the status quo. But it does so though underhanded threats and coercion against anyone who deviates from this path.

This means underachievers are thrown under the bus. And overachievers are held back.

If you don’t fit in, you’re cast out. It’s a real-life version of “On Wednesdays, we wear pink.”

Groupthink tells us how to style our hair. How to design our homes. What cars to buy. And yes, what clothes to wear to work.

Throughout it all, one message remains supreme.

Better is scary. Good enough is good enough.

Are these the ideals we want to teach our children? God, I hope not.

We live in a world with air travel and supercomputers in our pockets. A world marked by advances in innovation that were spearheaded by those who refused to give in to groupthink.

Do you think Steve Jobs or the Wright Brothers worried about their appearance when they were changing the world as we know it? Do you think they cared about what others perceived about what they were doing?

Not a chance.

Yet, we insist on holding back. On sacrificing what’s possible for what’s popular.

The only thing we secure with this thinking is our own demise.

Let’s chart a new path.

Let’s aspire to be better every day. To challenge our own notions of what’s possible, and then unite around that ideal.

Let’s remember that following leaders who push us forward is better than gravitating toward the pack. After all, no one wins a bicycle race by staying in the Peloton.

Most of all, let’s recognize that Groupthink is a real danger hiding in plain sight. One that we must eradicate to move forward.

Because, to answer my colleague’s question, we all must prove to each other that the status quo isn’t the best we can do. That we have more to contribute by forging ahead then by lagging behind.

Let’s get to it.

The Double Edge of Virality

Virality is in.

What was once 15 Minutes of Fame is now something far more timeless.

Ever since the early days of YouTube, making it big on the Internet has meant instant recognition. Today, it’s an obsession.

We can’t help ourselves. We want to be known, to be popular. It only takes one lasting visual —one that’s accessible by billions of people in an instant — for us to achieve that goal.

So, we trip over ourselves to star in creative moments. We do outlandish and embarrassing things on camera to build our global name. We master the art of the Meme and the GIF — two terms only geeks knew of 15 years ago — in order to plaster our face on them in head-turning ways.

Since virality is our golden ticket to instant stardom, sacrificing our dignity for an eternity in the sun seems worthwhile.

But it cuts both ways. Are we really ready to live with that double edge?

I’m not talking about the consequences of being eternally known as the person who screwed up an exercise ball trick. Or as one of the soldiers who gave a monkey a loaded AK-47. (For the love of God, do not try this. Ever.)

Those infamous videos are the result of poor decisions. As far as I’m concerned, the people who humiliated themselves in them can reap what they sow.

No, I’m talking about the Pandora’s Box our viral obsession unleashes.

You see, our continual quest to stoke our ego has turned virality into an untamed beast. We can now go viral at any time, even when we’re not looking to. And if we’re caught in a moment of misfortune with cameras rolling, we could end up wearing that unwanted humiliation like a scarlet letter for the rest of our lives.

Consider Dr. David Dao. If you don’t recognize that name, you’re part of the problem. Dr. Dao is the man you saw being yanked out of his seat and violently dragged off of a United Airlines plane so that other extra airline employees could take his seat. You saw it because another passenger posted a harrowing video of the ordeal on Twitter, a video that immediately went viral.

This incident led to universal outrage. United’s stock prices took a beating, and they stand to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in future business because of their tarnished reputation. The longstanding procedure of overbooking flights — by both United and its rival airlines — has also come into question.

But, do you know what wasn’t discussed? How all of this would affect Dr. Dao.

Sure, there were the musings of how much money he would stand to gain from an upcoming lawsuit against United Airlines. There was the press conference, where Dao’s lawyer claimed Dao was more terrified as he was being dragged off that flight in Chicago than he was when he fled Saigon in 1975. There was some journalistic muckraking in regards to his troubled past.

What there wasn’t was compassion for the man’s predicament as a victim of virality.

Now, maybe I’m more empathetic than most, but I feel that’s not right. No amount of money from United’s coffers will ever reconcile Dr. Dao’s unwanted moment of fame. He will be known for the rest of the life as the bloodied man being dragged down the aisle of a plane by airport police as passengers watch in horror.

His chances of making a more dignified name for himself are ruined.

Dr. Dao most assuredly didn’t want any of this. He just wanted to make it back to Louisville and get on with his life.

Thanks to a callous bout of misfortune, a smartphone video camera and a societal thirst for virality, he will never have that chance.

That’s a damned shame.

So, let this be a lesson. One that teaches us to be cognizant of the cost of our viral obsession. One that illustrates the point that virality can not only improve lives, but also ruin them.

For while it’s easier than ever for us to connect and build a name for ourselves in the era we live in, we must understand that this rising tide does not lift all boats.

Proceed with caution.