Celebrate the Difference

We may not have ever lived through a more contentious time.  There have certainly been all sorts of conflicts and differences of opinion over the years.  But nothing like this, where we see on a daily basis two entirely separate worlds being portrayed, whether it be within government, the media, or our own homes.  It's almost enough to make us want to stop paying attention altogether.

Debate is healthy.  Having opposing views is what forces us to defend our own, and either learn how to bolster the arguments that make sense and discard the ones that don't,or become swayed by the points being made from the other side.  But, in order to do this, we need to actually take the other side seriously.  We need to respect them.  We need to listen.

The hacker community has always been about differences.  In the earlier days, these differences were mostly isolated to people who didn't fit in with the rest of society because of their interests in phones, computers, or technology in general.  But it was still mostly a White male dominated thing, as was far too much of our culture.  In later years, however, we've seen a natural progression and an openness that is welcoming to other backgrounds of all sorts.  It fills us with pride to see the diversity represented at our HOPE conferences, especially because this is something that didn't have to be artificially induced.  Don't get us wrong; we know we have a long way to go.  But, in this time when so many doors are being slammed shut, it's heartening to see our community listening, learning, and holding our door open.

This is no easy task, especially these days.  The instinct to shut out the people we see as responsible for all of the negativity is quite powerful.  But that is precisely when being reflective is what is needed most.  Are they indeed the ones responsible?  What do we gain by no longer listening or even acknowledging?

In these pages, at our conferences, and on our radio broadcasts, we try to be as open as possible to differing viewpoints and perspectives.  It would be boring if we stuck to one agenda and didn't even entertain the notion that there could possibly be another way - or that we might be completely wrong.  Again, doing this allows us to strengthen our own arguments and reexamine their effectiveness.  This better prepares us to defend the positions we hold.  Always being open to changing those positions based on the arguments we're confronted with is how dialogue moves forward.  And this is what much of mainstream society seems to have lost in recent years.

Of course, it's really hard to do any of this if basic components of facts, statistics, history, science, etc., are ignored or distorted.  This is a side effect of believing one's side is always right.  Even when the facts make it painfully obvious how wrong we are, we twist those facts or try to discredit them entirely in order to preserve our conclusions.  This starts the ball rolling.  Your opponent no longer takes you seriously and eventually stops paying attention to anything you say because it's based on false premises.  You retort with a distraction or an accusation of some sort that diverts the conversation away from the actual topic.  Nothing is accomplished, other than to firmly establish barriers between the two sides with no opportunity to learn or change one another's minds.  Neither side listens to the other and everyone lives in a stalemate.

So much of this can be avoided with a few simple steps.  First, we have to all accept that not every argument is deserving of equal respect.  Sure, there are people who don't believe in gravity or who think the Earth is flat.  It's an interesting aside, but nothing is gained by propelling these positions into a corresponding seat at the table when it comes to discussing science.  To do so simply holds everyone back from any kind of advancement.  People who can't accept certain obvious and easily provable facts will always be around.  Once their premise has been disproved, it's time for the rest of us to move on.  But that can't happen if otherwise reasonable people somehow feel an allegiance to these misled individuals - or if the rest of us overgeneralize and try to label everyone who doesn't buy into all of our premises as equally backwards and ignorant.  That is how you inadvertently build strong alliances based on facts that don't add up.  It's no longer about the facts, but about the resistance to being told how you must think and what you must support.  If nothing else, that is the common ground that unites us: nobody likes to be told what to do.

This is where those of us who oppose much of what's going on today could stand to do a better job.  Rather than dismiss people who have reached different conclusions entirely, why not try to find that common ground?  Certainly there will be cases where this isn't possible and where you will literally come up against an adversary that wishes for your annihilation.  But, at least for now, that's still the exception rather than the rule.  Most times you can listen, you can go over facts, and you can either sway an opinion or not.  It's the dialogue itself that's the accomplishment, providing we listen, respect one another, and don't hold back with our own arguments and views.  Just establishing that link is often enough to change someone's perspective significantly.

Many of us have had to engage in such exercises within our own families.  Add in the inevitable emotions and history, and this kind of thing can be either a curse or an opportunity.  But the only real failure is in not trying to communicate at all.

That's the message we should all try and remember as we keep moving down this road.  We are all different - and that is a really good thing.  We would learn very little from other people if they were just like us.  Inevitably, there will be things we find objectionable, even abhorrent, about virtually any other person.  That doesn't mean we can't still reach them and possibly resolve these issues.  And if we truly can't, knowing that we made the effort really matters.  It's when we start dismissing people out of hand for where they're from, what they support, or who they're allied with that we start to really add up the missed opportunities.

None of this should imply that we need to back down in any way from the strength of our convictions.  Done correctly, this will only make them stronger.  It's when we choose to eliminate challenges and only converse with like-minded people that we really lose.  We not only lose these opportunities, but we lose sight of what is real.  And that's how unexpected things wind up happening, leaving us to wonder why we didn't see them coming.  It's because we weren't engaged in the conversation.  It's because we weren't paying attention to what was going on all around us.  It's because we chose to feel safe in our own insulated world.

Social media has made it so much easier to find those people that we're similar to.  While that initially seemed like a good thing, it may well turn out to be an albatross.  By only exposing ourselves to a particular point of view or philosophy, it's that much easier to be outraged when something opposing that comes along.  These "others" then become the enemy and, more often than not, we isolate ourselves from them.  Demonization and lack of communication are the ingredients that drive any conflict, only now this seems to be our default manner of handling relationships.  We even begin to apply a purity formula to those around us, further isolating ourselves from those who disagree on even a single issue.  Clearly, this is not healthy.

In the hacker world, we have always embraced dissent of one sort or another.  We will thrive as long as we continue to do this.  We must also embrace debate and disagreement in our midst, since that is how we learn and strengthen our own arguments.  It's great to have our "safe spaces" to regenerate in.  But spending too much time there only makes us weaker and less able to see what's actually going on.

What we ultimately want to see are individuals unafraid of standing up for what they believe in, even if they're the only ones in a crowd, and even if that crowd is composed of their own friends.  We want to see these individuals supported, even celebrated, because of the strength they're showing.  It's easy to fit into a crowd.  But encouraging individual thought above all else is what this community should always be about.