I’ve seen a pattern. It isn’t new. I’m late to the party on this one, but I’ve been seeing it happening more frequently. Almost like clockwork. It goes something like this:
After a significant event – especially one that is jarring and difficult to process – there are a series of voices that show up to tell us how we should think and feel about it. The more cataclysmic the event, the louder the voices and the longer they last.
If given the benefit of the doubt, these voices show up as guides. Whether in the news, late night talk-shows, or social media, their talking points take on the following basic form: “The appropriate response to [insert challenging situation here] as [Liberals, Christians, Conservatives, Democrats, Republicans, Humanists, etc.] is [fill in the proposed response].”
This is not an inherently bad thing. If I am in a state of overwhelm, it is helpful to hear a voice that provides some direction and stability. If I am seeking guidance, it is helpful to find a guide. We need trustworthy voices in our lives, especially in challenging times.
The reality is that in most cases, the way these voices show up today undermines the very process of formation we need to live well, in challenging times or otherwise. That process of formation is based on learning through interaction and discovery.
It is very difficult to have learning based on individual discovery in a one-to-many environment. One-to-many environments include any kind of mass media, conventions, lecture halls, or the like. The conversation we have about class size in public school settings is undergirded by our understanding that the more personal attention a student gets the better for their learning journey.
One-to-many environments are everywhere. Performance venues are designed for one-to-many presentations. One speaker presents to a room of 1500 people. One band to an arena of 20,000 people. Social media is also a one-to-many environment. Actually, any media is a one-to-many environment. The whole point of media is to scale the delivery of a single message to the largest possible number of people. Music streams and digital videos now play to millions. Cable news ratings are measured in the millions of viewers for a single channel or show. By nature, these environments are designed to facilitate the promotion of an idea through repetition, not the process of learning through individual discovery.
So, when guides appear on social media, with a new video, or on a cable news show, the best they can do is state their case. The more convincing guides have data or a play-to-emotion, or both, to give their case weight. Regardless, we, the viewers, are left to process our own resonance and reality compared with that of the guide.
I’ve been calling these talking heads guides, but they are more like sign posts. They stand for something, or point to something, but there is little possibility for our interaction with them in any really way. And interaction is what is required for formation.
Listen to one of these signposts enough and we might adopt language, develop a particular mental model, of feel like we’re a part of their group. The connection ends there. We are responsible in our own lives for the working out of the ideas the signpost is espousing. The signpost is not our teacher. We can’t go back to them with results after attempting to apply one of their ideas and receive feedback.
There is a lot of good from having clear signposts in one’s life. Imagine driving down a highway with no signage. We’d likely be lost quicker than we think. But signposts don’t teach you how to drive, they just tell you about the geography. Actual learning and the development of knowledge happens at a level of intimacy and experience that is simply unavailable from signposts. It might feel like a signpost is speaking just to you, and that can be comforting, but I can almost guarantee that the signpost doesn’t know you.
Instead of talking at you as a signpost might, a true guide or teacher would create a space of safe exploration and discovery. They would likely have a sense of your hopes, may ask some probing questions, and take interest in your own interpretation of what they are saying. There is likely great opportunity for friendship to develop between teacher and student in this case because there is genuine care and consideration. The questions asked will also likely be open-ended. They are meant to elicit honest reflection. Questions like:
How did you feel when you first heard the news?
How are you feeling about the situation now?
What do you think has been lost (or gained)?
What things might you do moving forward?
What, if anything, do you want to remember of what has been lost (or gained)?
Can you imagine a signpost guiding their viewers through a series of open-ended questions for the sake of processing a dramatic event? I would love to see that. I don’t blame them for not trying to do it. It isn’t easy. I once tried to facilitate exercises based on open-ended questions and contemplation in a one-to-many environment and it was difficult. Possible, but difficult. When the environment doesn’t promote a particular method, the method ends up by the wayside.
This is unfortunate for multiple reasons.
First, is that we end up being talked at in a parent-to-child conversation by people who don’t really know us. We might share some ideas, but there is no knowledge of individual personality. A tribal mentality can develop based on expressing similar ideas. “If you listen to this signpost you must believe these things.” We find our in-group and know our out-group. This assumption stunts individual variance (and be extension individual growth).
The parent-to-child interaction does the same. It becomes assumed that the sign post is smart, and has all the information, while we aren’t and don’t. We might never be as “smart” as they are and likely never will have “all the information.” This doesn’t mean we can’t build the muscle of coming to our own conclusions, acting on them to test them out, and reaping the consequences. In fact we must. This is learning in action, literally, but is discouraged in one-to-many environments. It may feel safer to just follow the guide. We get stuck in the seat of a perpetual student at the feet of a teacher who can’t ever really know what we need.
Being told how to think or feel from a signpost shortcuts possible moments of discovery. It doesn’t really matter how you are feeling. The signpost will tell you the appropriate way to feel. It doesn’t really matter what you think. The signpost will tell you the appropriate interpretation of the situation. In effect, you don’t really matter. What matters is that you conform to the appropriate expression of feelings and interpretation of the situation. This aligns you with the group of similar viewers, followers, or thinkers, and suppresses the practice of individuation – the acknowledgement and development of your way of thinking, feeling, and acting.
Over time, your alignment with the group supersedes your individual persona. If the group were known, loving, and tested to be acting in ways that considered you, and what is best for you, this wouldn’t be bad. But that is a high call (if not impossible) for the kind of group that gathers around a signpost.
Do it Different
Here is something we can do to interrupt the situation. Take literally any situation – a personal grievance, a challenge you’re facing, a success you are experiencing. Give yourself and others around you some space and time with it. Use the space and time to consider some of the open-ended questions listed above. Be as honest as you can be with your answers. If you’re processing alone, share the questions and answers with a trusted friend or two who would want to reflect with you.
Agree to slow down the pace of your conversation. This might look like taking a pause before responding to one another – giving yourself time to observe your thoughts and feelings even as you share. Observe the use of any cliches or catch phrases. Cliches and catch phrases are effectively assumptions. Instead of leaning on those assumptions, ask each other, “What do I really mean by that?”
Be curious – allowing any answer to come to the surface and be expressed – observing thoughts and feelings as if they were novelties. We might hear ourselves say something and say, “Oh, I didn’t expect that to come out. I wonder what that’s about?”
This is just a start toward disrupting a world in which signposts rule. It is just a start toward interrupting a formation in which the appropriate expression is more important than the honest one. It is just the start toward acquiring the skills and experience of a guide, for the benefit of yourself and those around you. The world after all is in need of guides not just signposts.