Hitler or Taylor Swift for your inspirational pick-up?

(Undeniable click-bait title for the more interesting subject of ‘star-manning’)

This week I saw someone edit a Linkedin post because of feedback that the person they were quoting was a ‘troll’ (irrespective of the evidence within the quote);  I observed three people sharing a Piers Morgan soundbite with the careful caveat ‘it’s rare I agree with this guy but…’ ;  I saw someone else I respect get chastised for liking an X/ tweet from a persona-non-grata; … and I had a long, (depressing) conversation with my 10 year old about why it’s wrong for children to chant ‘Furry!’ as a slur at another on the playground (!?).  

Source

Whilst I didn’t immediately connect the last to the others, it occurred to me that many adults now also need this reminder.  

When did ad-hominem and who’s saying something become more important than what is being said?  It’s particularly tiresome in an election period.  Discredit the player (or throw a milkshake at them) and the substance goes unevaluated.   Undeniably, it’s effective as the more x-ist, nutty or ‘extreme’ someone is branded, the fewer platforms they get. The problem is that it typically forces them further to their extreme, often taking many fans with them, so counteracting the efforts of the ad hominem detractor.

A test for you.  What’s your gut response to the following quotes? 

“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place”

“Words build bridges to unexplored regions” 

"It takes less courage to criticise the decisions of others than to stand by your own."

“The really strong have no need to prove it to the phonies’ 

‘I believe in one thing only, the power of human will’ 

‘Better to live a day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep’ 

‘The great thing about letting people be true to themselves is they often do very good things indeed.

What do you think about them if I tell you that they’re from Goebbels, Hitler, Attila the Hun, Charles Manson, Stalin, Mussolini and Katie Hopkins respectively?   

And yes, the image above is another.  It’s from a 10-year old Pinterest page that strung inspirational Hitler quotes over Taylor Swift images and received 10s of 1000s of Swifty likes and shares (and you can still play this who-said-it-game here).   ‘Misinformation’, or an excellent mind-game to challenge our instincts? Sadly it proved far too dangerous for the young inventor to continue. She was hounded into closing her accounts (more). 

Wild times. Even I now have to be careful about who I ‘follow’ these days with my equalities role…  which seems madness.  Surely understanding better those with whom you might disagree is a critical part of forming a fuller world view? When did we get so comfortable playing the player, not the ball despite the oft-used Solzhenitsyn quote that reminds us that ‘the line separating good and evil passes…  right through every human heart”. 

It’s this type of thinking that leads to package beliefs:  the knowledge that if someone thinks ‘this’, they’re also highly likely to believe ‘that’, ‘that’ and ‘that’.  It’s profoundly unhealthy and lazy tribalism, albeit reassuring.  

It’s good for us to remember in the current climate that party politics doesn’t have to mean signing up to everything in one side’s manifesto, but simply making our own evaluations as to which package is, on balance, better and likely to do more good than harm.  We’re allowed to (and should)  prioritise different things within the packages or interpret our hopes or fears about the long term ramifications according to our experiences, world-view or knowledge (with the rapidly declining field of ‘History’, often providing the most unfashionable steer).   

One way of reframing this that I have enjoyed is

Angel Eduardo

’s concept of ‘star manning’, which I’ve mentioned previously, but is worth a reminder during angry political campaigning months.

It’s easy to straw-man or caricature an opponent’s idea, with vilifying the view-holder the laziest and most dishonest manifestation.  It’s much more challenging to steel-man (engage with the strongest interpretation), let alone ‘star-man’ -  yet it’s an exercise that would help us all.  

To star-man is to not only engage with the most charitable version of your opponent’s argument, but also with the most charitable version of your opponent, by acknowledging their good intentions and your shared desires despite your disagreements

Whilst star-manning Hitler might feel like a stretch, he goes on: 

The thought of extending charity to those looking to erase us seems masochistic, even suicidal. But this perception of existential threat is an illusion. Yes, there are monsters in the world, but they’re so few in number that you’re unlikely to actually encounter one. More often, you will run into ordinary people under the influence of bad ideas—ideas that lead them to think and act in misguided, even monstrous ways. And of course, they’ll be thinking the same thing about you. Our error is in assuming these people are lost to us.

The truth is we all have more in common than we think and we can find common ground with pretty much anyone the more we track up their arguments and seek to more fully understand why they feel the way they do.  It’s normally from a good place and even just acknowledging that diffuses the difference. 

Eduardo refers to a black musician who collected the robes of KKK men he de-radicalised by befriending them - a huge lesson in humility to anyone tempted to demonise others.   Closer to home, I’ve been fortunate to rub shoulders with enough politicians to know that in the main, there’s huge respect and indeed a lot of close-friendships between many on opposite sides of the house, something we’d never know from our media diet.   After all, they have much more in common with each other than the electorate given the bizarre lives they lead.  

I’ll leave the final word and credit on this to Angel Eduardo, (no sense in re-writing an already brilliant post during yet another bounce-head week), the antidoter of the week: 

If you’re still unconvinced—if you’re reflexively rejecting this notion outright, you have to ask yourself: Why? Why wouldn’t you want to acknowledge your interlocutor’s humanity, your mutual quest for safety, security, and satisfaction?...

Of course, just because you’re acting honorably doesn’t mean anyone else will, but someone has to be first on the dance floor. Besides, you never know who might respond in kind until you try. If we’re to make any progress, we need to actively foster a culture of good faith and honesty, based on the knowledge that we all have the same fundamental desires. It begins with each of us making the choice to see the other as human—flawed, perhaps ignorant, maybe even dangerous, but also human—no matter what they think. It continues by encouraging these exchanges in others, and praising star-manning when we see it.

Many may still think this idea naïve, but they’re wrong. Idealism isn’t naïveté—it’s ambition. It’s a refusal to concede the future to the present. It’s knowing how you want the world to be, orienting your behavior in that direction, and trying to inspire others to do the same. It’s also an acknowledgment that our fates are intertwined. Whether we ultimately agree or not, whether we try to communicate or not, whether we choose to be compassionate or not, we have to accept that we’re all on the same boat. We will sink or sail together, and we ignore this fact at our own peril.

Perhaps try an experiment this week and post or defend something good from someone you think (are are supposed to think) is abhorrent.  And maybe pause to ask yourself how abhorrent their intentions really are.