A Devolving Culture

BREAKING NEWS: Humanity rapidly devolves into a primitive herd mentality, completely suspending free speech and critical thinking for fear of being exiled from the global community

Perhaps the most disappointing and concerning experience I had this week during my trip to Fairy Creek actually had very little to do with the protest itself. Rather, it was a confrontation that I had with two local seniors who combined forces in n effort to both belittle me and validate one another's fragile and baseless worldview.

Most likely you've all seen how quickly out of hand arguments can get on controversial Facebook posts. Trolls, as they're called, tend to spew unfounded claims, accusations, and senseless drivel. Uninterested in having a productive conversation or learning anything new, their sole purpose is to assert a single, rigid viewpoint and shove it in as many people's faces as they can, even when their claims are disproven, their 'facts' are corrected, and their accusations are shown to be false.

In fact, when a troll is proven wrong they seem to become even more determined to validate their own crumbling viewpoint. Throwing logic out the window, they'll become aggressive and insulting, refusing to learn from the people trying to educate them and instead spending a great deal of effort trying to convince the other party that they're simply Wrong. They'll have no basis, no evidence, and no intelligent reason to hold onto their original idea, but rather than assimilating the knowledge being offered they'll exhaust themselves sputtering nonsense about how you're just Wrong.

This was no different except the two trolls were in the flesh. and both yelling at me instead of hiding behind a computer monitor. I'd mentioned to the owner of the Port Renfrew store that I'd stopped by the Fairy Creek protest. It was clear that he didn't approve of the protest. Fair enough, I can understand why it doesn't float everyone's boat and I was interested to learn about his perspective. Turns out, his 'perspective' wasn't really a perspective, it was just an assertation that we were all Wrong.

Without getting too much into detail, I'll summarize the experience with the pinnacle of ignorance that assured me that I wasn't actually having a conversation, I was watching two people trying to defend a fragile worldview, a view that was inherently flawed and baseless, and yet upheld by the majority.

I was witnessing firsthand an idea that had been simmering on the back burner of my mind for a while: that people are willing to completely suspend their ability to think critically in order to uphold whatever story that's currently making its way through the mainstream regardless of how ludicrous and easily disproved it is.

These are intelligent people, but something else was going on here. When they informed me that the Fairy Creek protest grounds were disgusting and covered with litter left by protestors, I asked whether or not they'd actually been there. They avoided the question, so I informed them that there was an elaborate waste and recycling system set up and that the photographs of garbage were the result of RCMP officers breaking into peoples' vehicles and strewing their goods everywhere in search of cameras and cell phones.

Of course, they didn't consider for a moment the possibility of adjusting their story. They became more aggressive. They proceeded to raise their voices and point out that they didn't blame the RCMP for beating the shit out of protestors when they have to follow behind us, cleaning up our literal shit.

"Wait, what?"

"Where do you think all those protestors go to the bathroom?"

"Uh, the outhouse?"

"No. You've clearly got no idea what you're talking about. Those disgusting apes don't even bother digging a hole to go to the washroom in," she shouted as I recalled memories of digging an outhouse pit a few hundred feet down the road from the one that we'd just filled in with soil and sod, "they just piss and shit all over the woods and leave toilet paper everywhere. My son's a cop. He has to clean all that up, I'm sure. There's no outhouses there."

Around this point I began to realize that we weren't actually discussing Fairy Creek here. In any intelligent discussion with rational people, me informing them that there was an outhouse on the grounds that we used, and that nobody's stupid enough to take a shit on the ground beside an outhouse, would be enough to stifle the disagreement. Instead, she puffed up her chest and glared at me. I recognized her stance, it's one I've seen more and more often over the last few years: at once confrontational and defensive. We weren't discussing facts, she was defending something and attacking me. She saw me as a threat. The fact that I was merely telling the truth threatened her worldview and, thus, her connection to the tribe - the majority - from which she strengthened her fragile identity.

We live in a world where the simple act of telling the truth casts so much light on the false narratives that people believe in that having an honest conversation is perceived as a serious threat, a threat worth getting verbally abusive and, in the case of some of loggers and RCMP I've seen, physically abusive.

"What are you doing here, anyways? The Pacheedaht people don't need you. I've lived here all my life. They can handle things on their own." The two had their chests puffed up so high I was concerned they might start to float away.

"That may be, they're a strong people, but that's not what they've told us. In fact they've thanked us numerous times after ceremonies for our efforts and involvement, saying that they couldn't have done it without us."

"You're obviously misinformed," she huffed. Wrong. You're Wrong. The Pacheedaht Chief may have told you that they appreciated your help and need your support, but that's Wrong. I have more reliable sources than the goddamn chief of the tribe we're talking about, you're Wrong, and don't you dare threaten my worldview because if you make me think about it critically for more than half a second the whole thing will crumble and I'll be exiled from my tribe of drones and the ready-made life script that we're fed from the media. WRONG!

After she convinced herself that I was a lost cause who would never learn the truth about the protest she'd never spent a moment attending, that I was simply an ignoramus, a hopeless vandal with no respect for his elders, she turned on her heels and stomed off.

"But... wait, I want to finish the conversation!"

"No. There's nothing to talk about, there's no point. You're Wrong, and you need to put some effort into looking deeper into this issue because you clearly don't know what you're talking about."

I stood there flabbergasted for a minute trying to process what just happened. That was not a conversation. There was no exchange of ideas. I felt like I'd just attempted to argue with a Christian missionary about the existence of God, except the reality was that I was trying to point out to an opinionated old lady that the couple or skewed pictures she saw posted by anti-protest media hardly reflected the truth of the matter and that perhaps she should go up there and see for herself.

Rather than being a productive conversation she treated me as if I was suggesting that we raze the town and set fire to its residents. God forbid that some rebellious bastard destroys your entire preconceived belief system just by telling you that we built an outhouse since we didn't want to crap on the ground.

This is only one example of a hugely concerning trend I've been seeing more and more often. Open-minded discussions aren't the norm anymore, they're a rarity. Conversations on the street are confined to a limited spectrum of accepted opinions and ideas, many of which are logical fallacies and rest on flimsy foundations. When curious minds and critical thinkers ask questions that test the foundations of these ideas, a conversation should ensue. New ideas, stronger ideas, should be born and set upon more solid foundations. Our worldview should be fortified and strengthened. In a society that claims to be rational and scientific, fragile theories and unfounded beliefs have no place. We should eagerly discuss the faults and poke holes where holes can be poked because only by doing this can we edge closer to the truth and claim to be free thinkers.

But that's not the world we live in right now, and it's frightening. I don't know if it's the shitty food people eat, the fluoride, or god forbid the conspiracy theorists are right about chemtrails and vaccines, but whatever the hell is going on, we have a population of people who are otherwise highly intelligent, rational creatures who refuse to apply that logic and intelligence to some of the most important issues of our day. Gone is the day of scientific inquiry, gone is the natural desire to question authorities and dig deep to find the real diamonds of knowledge. I understand that the media provides a strong basis for people to build their worldview, but what I don't understand is why people refuse to inquire further.

At what point do you decide to adopt radical ideas and accept them as truth without doing background checks? Since when did it become normal to fight people for asking questions? Since when did the truth become a weapon so potent that people are ostracized, insulted, and shamed merely for speculating about it?

I thought the world couldn't get much more insane, but here we are. The very act of asking a freaking question is considered so rebellious that people can be banned from social media accounts and remove from public groups. FOR ASKING A QUESTION.

Are there people out there who seriously don't realize the implications of this? What might someone call a society where people are punished and ostracized simply for asking questions? Answer that question and you can see why I'm worried. If you can't answer it then you probably stopped reading by the second paragraph and decided to unfollow me because I was threatening to flip your view of the world upside down.