Seek protection from noise and spiraling gloom
Seek protection from noise and spiraling gloom
I don't fight for the good cause because I know I'm going to win. I FIGHT FOR THE GOOD CAUSE BECAUSE IT'S IMMORAL NOT TO DO SO. Fatalism is irrelevant.
Adversaries will try to confuse you into inaction… into doing nothing. As Carl von Clausewitz pointed out, the aggressor “would prefer to take over a country unopposed” — if possible. If you are bombarded with disinformation and chaos, it works as a cognitive attack and can put you into a state of inaction — or even erroneous disruptive action, such as dooming and spreading fatalism for example — and you unwittingly harm your own cause and your own movement.
Learned helplessness can explain why some people become depressed; when we don’t perceive we have an effect on our own lives, we can give up.
Informational learned helplessness expands this concept to our online lives, explaining why we may become overwhelmed by a quest for truth.
Better practices by media organizations might make it easier for us to discern truth from fiction and reduce our cognitive exhaustion.
If you feel like things are spiraling into despair or gloom, get off social media, and get involved in some type of activism or advocacy. Even if it’s just writing your elected representatives letters about what’s important to you — that’s a big something that actually could contribute to real change. So no, you don’t have to swing wildly from doom to toxic positivity like some wellness influencer.
Conspirituality Podcast — 136: Virtual Strongmen (w/Ruth Ben-Ghiat)
“They don’t express political aspirations because the industry is narcissistic. It doesn’t really point itself toward any kind of collective action or the difficult work of party politics. None of these people are interested in building coalitions. They want to have affiliate networks, but they’re not going to do deep canvassing and try to convince people to vote. They want people to buy their shit.”
“They’re part of a depoliticization project.”
— Matthew Remski
People ask if writing letters to elected representatives matters. Of course it does. What doesn’t matter too much is gripe-tweeting into the void or doomscrolling viral feeds into infinity.
Hypernormalisation Documentary, 2016, by Adam Curtis.
”The liberals were outraged at Trump. But they expressed their outrage in cyberspace so it had no effect. Because the algorithms made sure that they only spoke to people who already agreed with them. Instead ironically their waves of angry messages and tweets benefitted the large corporations who ran the social media platforms. one online analyst put it simply — angry people click. It meant that the radical fury that came like waves across the internet no longer had the power to change the world. Instead it became a fuel that fed the systems of power making them ever more powerful.”
Anyone who tells you writing representatives doesn’t matter is attempting to deactivate you for whatever reason. Don’t let anyone dissuade you from civic engagement, it’s your community too!
Indivisible Guide: How Your Member of Congress Thinks, and How to Use That to Save Democracy
This constant reelection pressure means that MoCs are enormously sensitive to their image in the district or state, and they will work very hard to avoid signs of public dissent or disapproval.
Thought Co: Tips for Writing Effective Letters to Congress
People who think members of the U.S. Congress pay little or no attention to constituent mail are simply wrong. Concise, well thought out personal letters are one of the most effective ways Americans have of influencing their elected lawmakers.
There may be no instant gratification in writing your reps, no soothing dopamine hits. And no, nobody can guarantee the side of right will win or that your cause will prevail. But if we do nothing, the cause is definitely lost. So we have to press on in doing what is right.