Everywhere one looks nowadays, the world is increasingly turning right. It’s also getting mad. The president of the United States, the most powerful country in the world, is running crypto schemes. We live in a bizarre timeline and it’s getting crazier each day. The powerful tech corporations, once champions for equality and inclusion, socially progressive ideas, are publicly bribing the government via means of “donation”. They are cancelling DEI programs left and right to please the new administration. Rainbow capitalism is now a question mark. It makes one wonder, will the floats of the tech companies continue this year at the pride parade this year? Probably yes, rainbow capitalism might still be profitable, for this year at least. Stopping the floats just might be too controversial.
As someone who self identifies as left leaning, this world is making me quite uneasy. How did we get to this point? Why is the world turning right? One reason many have identified is because the left are alienating people and pushing them to the right, especially young men. This alienation rings true to me based on my personal experience. I’ll use a few examples to illustrate this point.
Where are you from? There was once a very popular short video from the U.S. where a white man asks an Asian looking woman where she’s from. She answers with perfect American English that she’s from some city in the states but the man insists, but where are you really from? An intense conversation follows, where the woman ends up asking where the man is really from. I get what the video is trying to convey. If the Asian woman is born in the states, she’s from the states. Insisting on asking where she’s really from can be strange and that might be putting her sense of belonging into question. The man could be implying that she doesn’t belong there even though she was born there just as he was, whereas no one ever asks him where he is really from. It conveys a subtle and valid message. So what now? People should stop asking where a minority is from, ever? In reality, there could be varying intentions behind this question, with different variations of the man and the Asian looking woman, including the following ones,
- The man is genuinely curious about the background of the woman. When did her ancestors first move to the states? From where? When? Why?
- The man unconsciously assumes Asians don’t belong in the states and asks the question.
- The man poses the question with a malicious intent.
The girl could also react in different ways.
- She appreciates the curiosity. She might even be proud of her heritage.
- She doesn’t mind the question.
- She feels offended because it questions whether she belongs in the states. She might not be proud of her heritage.
Despite that there are different possible combinations and this question can be benign to both parties, this question has been deemed offensive in some progressive circles. I do think there is a lot to unpack from the question. For example, if the Asian woman is not proud of her heritage, could it be because the society looks down on people of her ethnicity already? But still, instead of classifying this question as offensive altogether, in my opinion it should be evaluated on a case by case basis.
Labeling it as simply offensive has unintentional consequences. First, it stigmatizes the question and hinders genuinely curious and progressive people from posing this question. Second, it could actually turn this previously innocent looking question into a charged question for the minorities. When an Asian person living in North America sees this video, they’d consider whether they should be offended by this question. Should I be offended as a self-respecting Asian person? I myself have thought about this after I first watched that video. I personally think it did turn the question into an offensive one for many afterwards. When people do ask this question with genuine interest, they are more likely to receive a negative response, either from a by-standing progressive person or from the responder who has been “trained” to respond unfavourably. Despite the fact that the video contained a nuanced and thought-provoking message, taking it too literally actually hinders genuine interaction between people — it builds barriers between people, instead of bridges. Another question has similarly become offensive in North America — asking an Asian person whether they eat dogs. There seemed to be a strange trend among the progressives where they compete on the ability to discern potentially problematic behaviours, however minuscule they might be. They pride themselves for loudly calling out such behaviours.
All white people are racist. People of color can’t be racist. This idea also gained quite some popularity. After the murder of George Floyd in 2020, I decided to read some books on racism and this was also one of the ideas discussed in some of these books. The argument is that racism is embedded in the institutions and social structures in the U.S., which leads to disparities regardless of individual intentions. In the book How to Be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi argues that a racist policy is any measure that produces or sustains racial inequity between racial groups. An antiracist policy is any measure that produces or sustains racial equity between racial groups. White people, by virtue of their race, are beneficiaries of this system, whether consciously or unconsciously. They are already racist by doing nothing and they can be antiracist by changing the institutions. In the book the argument holds water using the definitions of the author in the academic sense, however, when taken out of that context and carried into real life casual conversations or short tweets where people have a preconceived notion of what is ‘racism’ or ‘racist’, it sounds way too counterintuitive and radical. The common sense is that everyone can be racist. By the common definition of “racism” or “racist”, the common sense is definitely right and the idea that all white people are racist and people of color can’t be makes no sense. (Are you saying my cute newborn baby is already racist? How dare you?!) This academic idea with re-definitions of important and dividing words used in wider societal discussions has understandably led to a lot of backlash. I bet a lot of self-proclaimed progressive people repeating this idea haven’t even read the book or know what it really means. People like that, even with the best intentions in the world, do far more damage than good. They push people away.
Social media hasn’t helped either, to put it mildly. It strongly encourages short and meaningless feuds instead of genuine exchanges. It encourages social bubbles and blind confirmation of one’s existing views. It helps spread misinformation like wildfires. It creates the illusion that we know more about issues that in reality we desperately need, at the minimum, a crash course on. I don’t think this will get better in the near future. Social media wants attention to monetize. It wants more time spent on the platforms, regardless of the damage that’s done to the society in the process.
How do we survive in a world that’s increasingly right-wing? What can we do to be sane amid insanity? How can we try to make things better? I created some guidelines for myself after some reflection. Maybe it could be helpful to others too.
Beware of the context, or the lack of it
We live in a society where we’re blessed (or cursed) with real-time news from every corner of the world, on which we’re often tempted to make some strong-opinionated comments. Why not? What happened seems obvious… or is it really? The reality is that events happen in a certain context and the news we read nowadays arrives fast, but often incomplete. There is a race to break news as fast as possible to get as much attention as possible, unfortunately at the expense of accuracy. When a story finally gets an important correction, the original version already takes root in many minds. Furthermore, the context each person needs for a story varies. An European might need more context on an event happening in the U.S. or in China, than an American or a Chinese. News stories are easy to come by, the context, however, may need some efforts from the readers. Few people make the efforts, understandably, we are all busy with our own lives. What’s happening in Germany with AfD, for example, can be summarized in a few short paragraphs and read in a few minutes. To former a reasonable opinion on it, however, requires a lot more from my part than from a German.
The first Oscar nominated transgender actress Karla Sofía Gascón is currently in hot water because her unflattering old tweets have surfaced in which she extensively commented on various issues. As a Spaniard, she has some context on muslim immigrants in Spain (which, of course, doesn’t necessarily mean that her views on the subject automatically have merits). On the other hand, other topics that she commented on included the murder of George Floyd in the United States and Oscars diversity, which she appeared to have less context as an European. She wrote, for instance,
“More and more the #Oscars are looking like a ceremony for independent and protest films, I didn’t know if I was watching an Afro-Korean festival, a Black Lives Matter demonstration or the 8M. Apart from that, an ugly, ugly gala.”
Did she have a problem with the Korean film Parasite winning the Oscars? It absolutely deserved its win. (FYI: 8M refers to a feminist strike in that took place on March 8th, 2018)
Gascón’s tweets were curt and edgy. They were meant to convey her already firmly formed opinions, instead of starting a conversation. It reminds me of why I dislike that platform so much. I disagree with J.K. Rowling on her opinion on trans people (I think her own experience, especially as a domestic violence survivor deeply affected her opinion of men and made her suspicious of them, even trans women who were born biologically men. The research she referred to in the essay was also far from extensive as she claimed.), but I do respect her for taking the time to elaborate on her stance in a lengthy essay. That’s infinitely more admirable than these edgelords on Twitter with their ten character replies.
It’s strange to me that Gascón dashes out opinions so freely, I wonder what she would think if someone speaks strongly and unfavorably about trans issues with zero knowledge about it. It’s hypocritical to ask people to get educated on LGBT issues while one is not willing to do the same. Some have claimed it’s not the job of the minorities, the marginalized to do the job of educating others. While I somewhat understand the sentiment — going through daily life as a marginalized person is already a lot –I think it’s the best if they do. Unfortunately people are either too busy or too lazy to learn about issues that don’t affect them directly, if LGBT people don’t do it, who then? The profit driven corporations?
Even words like “progressive” or “conservative” have different annotations in different contexts. A progressive party in one country could be deemed as barely progressive, or even conservative in another. Americans are infamous for being self-centered — a generalization certainly — but I do think American progressives fall into that trap. Racial tensions are still high in the United States due to its unique history, slavery lasted more than 240 years until 1865 and legal segregation in public spaces such as restaurants, buses and theaters only ended by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Slavery was a defining chapter in U.S. history, much like Nazi rule was a defining chapter in Germany’s history. It’s not the case for many other countries. Some Europeans do need to be reminded of their colonial past and their atrocities overseas from time to time but it’s understandable that Europeans exhibit a different attitude. It’s not that racism doesn’t exist in Europe, it certainly does. Racism is a reality but it manifests itself differently in different contexts. Europeans are less sensitive to the issue and there is a lot less tension, the degree of which of course differs in each country as well. To many American (and Canadian) progressives, this makes Europe less evolved in racial awareness and more racist. I disagree. I don’t think a heightened racial awareness is always a good thing, and people shouldn’t be trained to be unnecessarily hypersensitive to it.
On the other hand, the wide exposure of U.S. news has reached many people living in different historical and social contexts, and many uninformed people have made and will likely continue to make unfortunate comments over the racial tensions over there.
In my opinion, to be a better progressive, we need to be more aware of the context, or the lack of it. When we are tempted to make judgements, we should first ask, do I have enough context on this? We should also be aware that different people living in different historical and social contexts don’t necessarily see things the same way as we do, neither should they be.
Reject misinformation, wherever it’s from
Misinformation is everywhere. Reddit is my favorite social media app, due to its helpfulness and also because I come across genuine discussions way more often on there than other platforms. The system also encourages better quality discussions, unlike on Twitter where bullshit from someone with 10 million followers gets way more likes than a quality reply from someone with a much smaller following. Nevertheless, like elsewhere on the internet, people on Reddit also tend to talk straight out of their asses. People pull out made up figures, write about misremembered historical events, and comment on articles solely based on the headlines. People can be so confidently wrong on there it’s amazing. Sometimes such comments also receive tons of upvotes just because it aligns with the views of the up-voters. Often people make these kind of mistakes without malicious intentions, but deliberate misinformation on social media is definitely a huge problem as well. It’s our responsibility to be vigilant. It’s our responsibility to verify the accuracy of the things we share on social media. When we inevitably share something that turned out to be inaccurate in the end, either because of the story itself getting corrected later on, or our inability to thoroughly verify it, we should take the responsibility to correct it as well. In a world where credibility is in crisis, it’s our responsibility to be credible.
A common pitfall is that we tend to be more gullible when we see opinions we agree with. We become less willing, less eager to verify the facts, the numbers, the claims that support that opinion, than seeing opinions we disagree with. This is extremely unfortunate. An idea backed by false figures, questionable facts, unfair accusations only undermines the idea itself. The more it’s spread, the more severe the damage. I’ve seen this happen time and again. I’ve seen it on Facebook from my liberal Canadian friends while I still used the platform. I see it on Reddit every day. It’s highly likely some people are purposefully undermining a genuinely good idea for the overall society with idiotic or verifiably wrong arguments because that idea is not in their interests. We need to tax billionaires more, but not because they are all rapists. To evaluate, or to support an idea, you need to find the best arguments for the idea. You’re more likely to come across them in a lengthy book (in the billionaire case, Capital in the Twenty-First Century) instead of a brief Reddit post. It gets really complicated, doesn’t it? Unfortunately that’s the world we live in now. We need to identify misinformation, be careful not to accidentally spread misinformation and support an idea only when it’s accompanied with accurate facts and the best arguments so it won’t be undermined.
Verifying what we read each day can be tiresome but there are some helpful tools. Besides Google, the LLMs such as ChatGPT, Gemini and DeepSeek, can also be used for such purposes. It’s quick and easy to ask them to verify some facts. Initially burdened with a bad reputation for hallucinations, they’re getting better and better at fact checking. Again, don’t trust everything these LLMs tell you either, when in doubt, find the actual source for the information.
We should also challenge misinformation whenever possible, even if it’s uncomfortable, even when the misinformation comes from people we normally agree with. Conversely we shouldn’t be offended if we get corrected by previously neglected facts or new information, we shall see it as an opportunity to do better instead. No one is perfect, we can only strive to do better.
Avoid the Us vs. Them mentality
The de facto two party system in the United States has led to a divided society. The citizens are pitted against each other, with a strong Us vs. Them mentality. Whatever one party supports, the other party is highly likely to oppose. This can be easily seen also on social media such as Reddit. Influential as the United States is, its politics and culture wars have an important impact on the rest of the world, despite the differing contexts. It would be unfair to blame it all on the U.S. though, social media plays a significant role as well. I also believe it’s in our nature to fall prey to the Us vs. Them mentality from an evolutionary point of view. This mentality, however, is incredibly damaging to our society. One example is immigration. With the overwhelming news about illegal immigrants and Trump’s rhetoric on the group, it becomes easier for people to forget most of them are just normal people trying to make a living, instead of despicable criminals. It becomes easier to see them as the enemy and dehumanize them. Once dehumanization finishes, horror begins.
This group-think is dangerous in other ways — it prevents differing opinions in the same group. If a lot of progressives think asking an asian woman where she’s from is offensive, you’d better get on with that as well. “Well that really depends” just doesn’t cut it. You’re either as progressive as them, or you’re actually conservative. You really don’t want to be labeled as a racist or a self-hating Asian, do you? Over the years, I have grown to accept the fact that I will never fit into that group because it has too many absolutes with not nearly enough facts. It discourages independent thinking. It’s extremely intolerant in the name of tolerance. I’ve also grown to recognize the type of progressives I try to avoid. They argue not with facts but labels. They carelessly spread misinformation just because it fits their views. They value ideology over facts. Facts are merely details to them because the ideology is what really matters. I sincerely disagree and I have no patience for people like that.
Non-violent communication
Recently I read a great book called Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life by Marshall B. Rosenberg. It advocates a method of communication that fosters understanding, empathy, and connection between people, even in difficult or conflict-ridden situations. First published in 1999, the pre-social media era, it feels more relevant now than ever. I think every progressive person should read it. We don’t need more people with strong opinions, we need more people who can communicate effectively. It’s your responsibility to communicate effectively, now more than ever.
Do you know enough about your stocks?
One of my hobbies is active investing, which involves picking individual stocks. Initially I had no idea how to get started. So I began by going to the investing subreddits on Reddit and looking at what others say. I looked at the popular stocks. That went poorly. It took me a while to realize that I have to look into the companies myself and evaluate them myself. I started to read earning reports and follow company news. I’d look into how the company is doing and what their plans are for the future. I’d look at their user growth and revenue growth and try to evaluate if it will get better or worse. I’d study their competitors. Slowly I started to think for myself. I now primarily hold stocks of companies I know well. Investing in individual stocks is actually a lot of work. You’d be surprised how many people don’t do any of these when they buy individual stocks. They know next to nothing about the companies and make decisions based on either random comments on Reddit, or second-rate analysis from some analysts. And that made me think, if people can form such uninformed, yet confident opinions and make careless decisions that can endanger their finances, how likely are they able to do better regarding events and issues that don’t concern them directly? How likely are they going to read up the background, the history behind the headlines? Take Gaza for example, despite being in the headlines for so long, how many people have read about the complex history behind it, and read about what’s happening in the West Bank? How many people just talk confidently and argue vehemently about it on a superficial, ideological level? I’m not optimistic about the prospects. I think it’s okay to not have a strong opinion on things we don’t have enough knowledge about. It’s not a race. In such cases, it’s more important to be open to learn more about the subject from the more knowledgeable people around. Good intentions are not enough without adequate knowledge. Spreading inaccurate or outright false information harms the cause instead. For people who are knowledgeable and passionate about a cause, they should also be more receptive to feedback. It’s hard to always have the most up-to-date or accurate information and one shouldn’t feel offended when such mistakes are pointed out. We now live in an era with widespread misinformation, so we should learn to accept the fact that misinformation can and will be spread unintentionally and when being called out, we should handle it graciously. Not all people who call out our mistakes are our enemies, they could be our best allies in these uncertain times.
How can you be a better progressive?