Poking The Hornets' Nest

Today I wrote a post that got me in a spot of bother. You may have seen it. It's not the first time, and it wasn't a big surprise. It wasn't surprising that, in the backlash, I was accused of being 'full of hate' while, in the same comment told to 'f*ck off'. I wasn't surprised that I was called a bully, castigated for 'picking on someone with a disability' and generally just piled on. I wasn't surprised that not one of my opponents chose to address what I'd actually said. Like I say — not my first time.

I was surprised, perhaps naively, by the extent of the outrage. You won't find the post if you go looking; I had to delete it as I knew my detractors were out for blood and wouldn't be satisfied until the maximum damage was done. Like most people, I use my LinkedIn account for business.

If you're interested in how the whole event played out, I'm going to present my perspective here. I'm not asking you to take my 'side', but I think it's important that, if you're interested in what happened today, you at least know how I see it. You can make your own mind up about how sincere I'm being and whether or not my reasoning justifies my actions.

I'm going to be careful to present the whole thing as truthfully as possible. If you remember anything differently, feel free to let me know. But first of all, a few ground rules for the comments:

1. If you twist any of my words, I'll delete your comment and block you.
2. If you respond to something I haven't actually said (straw man), I'll delete your comment and block you.
3. If you call me any names, I'll delete your comment and block you.
4. If you want to try and 'educate' me about intersectionality, the patriarchy or any other such topics, don't bother; I'm pretty well versed in them. Disagreement is fine, but don't assume I don't understand these (frankly pretty basic) concepts. I understand them well.
5. If you engage in good faith with what I'm actually saying, I will happily engage with you, whether you agree with me or not.

All good? If not, then off you go.

What Happened

1. A certain profile, who I will keep as anonymous as possible, wrote a post yesterday about how some people don't like being told to check their privilege, and that it was important that everyone do so.
2. I wrote a pretty innocuous comment on why I thought that was a message people aren't likely to respond well to.
3. I noticed another commenter talking about the fact that the poster had gone to a private school. I checked the school listed on the poster's profile, then googled it. Yes, it was a private school and the fees are over ￡30k a year.
4. The poster replied to the commenter, 'I know I have a socioeconomic advantage, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm neurodivergent.'
5. I wrote a post about that, explaining why I don't think all forms of disadvantage are equal. While I didn't name the profile I was challenging, I did make it possible to identify who they are, by referencing their LinkedIn headline (more on the reasoning behind that later). My post had a sarcastic tone. It was deliberately provocative too. My point was that rich people shouldn't be telling others to check their privilege, and I will clarify my position on this below.
6. Somebody then sent a screenshot to the target of my challenge, at which point, dozens of hostile comments appeared on my post — some of them more reasonable than others. Once the count of hostile comments had reached about 50, I thought it wise to delete the post; there was very little critical thinking on display here, but a lot of spite. I felt my LinkedIn account was in danger, and I can't afford to lose it.
7. I should also point out that I received some support, both from people I know and from people I don't, but the emotion was definitely stronger on the other side.

The comments mainly seemed to be attacking me for two things:

1. Targeting someone with a disability
2. Making it possible to identify my target

So let's address those things.

1. I strictly targeted the person's words not the person themselves. I didn't target the disability itself, either. There's a crucial difference between criticising the words of someone with a disability and criticising someone for being disabled. If you don't see that difference, then I'm not sure we have any common ground at all.

So, again, I targeted the words of someone with a disability. The discrepancy between what I did, and what people accused me of doing is important; we'll call it Discrepancy 1.

2. People are regularly asked to, and regularly do, make far less opaque references to the identity of posters. If what I did was wrong, I haven't ever seen that action criticised before. Let's call the difference between the criticism of my actions and the non-criticism of others' actions Discrepancy 2.

Alright, Matt, but why did you do any of this?

It's simple. I get absolutely sick of wealthy people telling others to check their privilege. I get riled up by the specious argument that there are various types of privilege and they are all equivalent. I don't like this because I believe the most serious form of inequality, by far, is economic inequality.

I believe that wealthy people feel a kind of relief from guilt by pretending that being a poor white man is somehow equal to — or more powerful than — being a rich white woman. I just don't believe that Geoff the delivery driver has more power than Lorna the barrister. And Lorna keeps telling him to check his privilege. And then online, everyone applauds Lorna when she does this. That situation, to me, is so self-evidently absurd that it has to be challenged.

I also believe it's despicable. Lorna does this to preserve the status quo because she believes that, if she doesn't, the status quo might change. Less privileged people like Geoff might get a bit uppity, start demanding better pay and rights, and then Lorna will get a smaller bonus. I think Lorna might be right, and that's precisely why I think she must be challenged. I want the less privileged to get uppity and start demanding what they deserve.

You don't have to agree with my political position, but now you know what it is.

The Social Media Aspect

I also spend enough time on social media to understand how and why people behave the way they do, and quite honestly, they display the very worst of humanity at times. The strange thing about this, though, is that while you often can't prove the intent behind an individual's behaviour, in aggregate you can see what's happening more clearly.

If there's one law that describes social media behaviour, it's this: people will, all other things being equal, do whatever they can to increase their likes. Don't just take my word for it; ask the designers of the algorithms how they create this need for likes, and how they exploit that to shape behaviour.

The best way to get likes is to be part of a clique and to be a high status member of that clique. It's no coincidence that social media makes adults behave like children in the playground; it's designed that way, because it reduces critical thinking, maximises emotive expressions and behaviour, and emotive people are far easier to influence.

To get likes, you need to be part of a popular clique and to climb the ranks of that clique. People, rightly or wrongly, believe that the best way to do this is to be the most obvious, vociferous proponent of whatever that clique ostensibly stands for. That's why the demands get more extreme, the conspiracy theories get more absurd, and huge entrenched battles get fought over very minor differences of opinion.

Social media really is all about control. To do well with a platform, you need people who will predictably log on every day and stay, even if there's very little content of worth to justify their time. The way to do that is to create strong emotional responses and trigger an addiction. People are addicted to status online, because people are addicted to status offline. But, as any drugs expert will tell you, a drug's addictiveness is a function of the speed of its delivery. That's why crack cocaine is so much more addictive than the powder form: it reaches the brain that much more quickly. Social media delivers little drugs at a very high rate of delivery. They cross the blood-brain barrier within seconds sometimes. Post, boom, first like.

The addictiveness of social media, and the need for status it engenders, make people behave irrationally. That's the explanation for Discrepancy 1 and Discrepancy 2. My opponents knew, or would if they'd bothered to think about it, that I wasn't attacking someone for being disabled; they knew that making their identity knowable was not that big a deal, but they needed their drug.

Each one of them needed their fix and the high of climbing their chosen hierarchy. All they had to do was be the most extreme defender of my target. Being right wasn't important, but being extreme was.

But imagine being the one who had my account closed down?! That, I believe, was the jackpot: my scalp.

I think there's also an element of tribalism; if you attack the tribe, then it means that you're discrediting the hierarchy they want to climb, and therefore, their very being. That makes people really, really angry. No, it's not rational — we're dealing with addiction, remember?

OK fine, but why make the poster identifiable?

Well, that's simple: In order to prove the real power structure was as I described it in my post, I had to get it to destroy me. I had to show that, despite my white, male privilege, these people had the power to silence me. I had to prove that, if you challenge a wealthy, popular person online, the drones will try to kill you. That meant making it clear they were the target.

I had to poke the hornets' nest to demonstrate how quick they are to sting.

So what have you achieved, Matt?

Honestly, probably nothing. But sometimes you don't know. Maybe some people who saw what happened earlier may be encouraged just enough to call out this BS at some point in the future. Like me, they'll expect the repercussions, but they'll think it's worth it anyway. Actually, like me, they'll think that's why it has to be done. Because people with more power than them, really, really don't want them to do it.

And then, even if I've garnered no results, maybe Geoff the delivery driver saw my post, and maybe now, he can hold his head a little higher. Maybe he's pleased, even just a tiny bit, that some random guy on the internet has got his back.

Thanks,

Matt