Smörgåsbord: Equality, psychology & pop culture.

Image: www.internationalwomensday.com

While scrolling through LinkedIn I was suddenly overcome with a feeling of terrible dread. I thought I had lost my mind. Every second picture posted was that of a group of colleagues doing the Haka in everything from ‘business cashe’ to ‘totes proffesh’. Then I realised that (a) I already lost my mind a long time ago right around the time the Kardashians came into being, and (b) that offices the world over were in fact not alive with the sound of “KA MATE KA MATE KA ORA KA ORA!”, but rather that everyone and their assistant were actually just jumping on the hottest new trend for International Women’s Day, namely #eachforequal.

A global review of 2765 companies indicated that…plot twist (read: not a plot twist)… 98.7% of company boards are majority male. Equally unsurprising is that the gender pay gap is still a thing. International statistics indicate that women on average earn 72% less than men. It’s also kind of hard to succeed at work when you are consistently experiencing healthcare challenges not experienced by men and live in constant fear for your life.

Clearly gender equality is still a very relevant and extremely serious social issue not to be taken lightly. Severe gender inequality in employment and society at large is both an ethical and a sustainability problem. For this reason seeing corporate posts of employees doing the #eachforequal pose, without any accompanying evidence of how the organisation is actually contributing to achieving equality had me like:

Image: www.giphy.com (Confused Chrissy Teigen GIF)

I don’t want to go in too hard and I’m definitely not putting any specific company on blast. My intention here is to offer constructive criticism, not to shut down anyone who I do believe had good intentions but just kind of botched the execution. I don’t think there is any value in chastising, shaming or devaluing an attempt at doing good. I do think, however, that we should engage in critical conversations when we observe value expressions that might be, uh…less than ideal.

Don’t get it twisted though. By no means am I suggesting that support for a worthy cause - that may or may not be a trending topic at the time - must be a big deal or be accompanied by some grand gesture for it to be acceptable. Yes, you can hold off until ‘Women’s Month’ to publish your company’s impressive employment equity results like Unilever did, but you can also show meaningful support for International Women’s Day by simply committing to specific action in your own work environment like the people at Teekay. Regardless of the scope of your gesture, what makes it meaningful is the extent to which others can hold you accountable for what you are going to do or have already done in order to make a contribution.

Image: News24

In an attempt to check my own male privilege, I am currently in the cognitive equivalent of a straight-jacket. If I do not maintain restraint I am afraid I will go in hard on Ms Zille’s new ‘Power Spinster Planning a Hostile Takeover of a Local Newspaper’ lewk of late. I shan’t though. I’m just progressive like that.

I am writing this opinion piece because I believe it to be an absolute travesty that a once great woman has fallen so far (and seemingly hit her goddam head on everything on the way down). She once stood for harmony and unity in South Africa. She once represented the real hope for a South African female president. She was great…but then, she wasn’t.

Prior to her career in politics, Zille worked in journalism. She started earning her ally stripes by pulling stunts like going after South African Minister of Justice Jimmy Kruger for the alleged cover-up of Steve Biko’s death in 1977 and provided a safe haven for political activists during the 1986 South African State of Emergency. Her “Struggle Credentials” are indeed impressive and admirable. Since her stint in getting the receipts on Apartheid-era politicians, she has also held positions such as Mayor of Cape Town, Western Cape Premier and Leader of the Democratic Alliance. However, what seems to be consistently omitted from discourse around what Helen Zille has done in her pursuit of justice and equality, is the acknowledgement that she has done so from a position of privilege. Acknowledging Zille’s inherent position of power as an upper-middle class White woman in South Africa does not detract from all the good she has done over the course of her career, but it does however contextualise the straightup buffoonery surrounding her right now.

In my opinion there has been a steady decline in Zille’s ability to tell a good idea from a bad one since she handed over DA leadership to Mmusi Maimane in 2015. Evidence of this decline can arguably be seen in an apparent attempt to ‘rectify’ her previous decision to endorse Maimane, by returning to public office as the DA’s Federal Executive Council chair in October of 2019. In her own words, she couldn’t “let the DA simply unravel without putting in a huge and final effort”. It came as absolutely no surprise that soon after Zille stepped into the role of DA Federal Executive Council chair, the successor she previously advocated for decided to exit stage left. Before driving away a promising young politician just so that she can satiate her entitlement for a little while longer, she also praised colonialism, cried White victim and took a dump on Affirmative Action (if you are #teamZille on the issue of Affirmative Action just do everyone around you a favour and read Mike Noon’s ‘The shackled runner’ because honestly it’s 2020). I think it’s safe to say:

That I'm she’s at an all time Low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low Low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low

- Jon Bellion

Speaking of “low”, this  brings us to today where Twitter HQ is in the process of reviewing vast amounts of tenders to fill the massive void left by Helen Zille closing her public Twitter account, and opening a private account for those “interested in rational debate”. OH.THE.I.RO.NY. This e-tantrum came as a response to some trolls trolling a tweeted picture of her preparing food with her granddaughter Nceba. Said trolls asked if the girl was her slave or being trained to be a domestic worker. I do not in any way condone the cyber-bullying of children, but what I also cannot do is pretend like Helen Zille is any kind of victim here. Public office comes with public scrutiny and the fact that a socially tonedeaf Zille now feels the need to announce that she has created a controlled safe space where you may only engage with her on her terms is deafening in itself.  

Zille describes Twitter as “a space of distortion, de-contextualisation, demonization, delegitimation and double standards”. So clearly the key problem here is that she doesn’t know that Twitter is open to the general public, right? I’m sorry, what was the “context” of the tweet that “the legacy of colonialism is not only negative”? A response to the hashtag #WhiteSupremacyWednesday?? She cries “delegitimation” while her tweets read like a child trying to convince their parent that the convenience of not having to brush their teeth before bed outweighs the potential health risks.

Image: BusinessTech

My point is I think Helen Zille has been an ally-with-privilege for so long that she has forgotten that she is indeed only that…an ally with privilege. No matter how much you support people of colour, as a White person you simply can never know what it is like to live as a person of colour; No matter how good you do (with your privilege), you still have a level of privilege that most South Africans don’t; And no matter your intention, you can still perpetuate inequality and injustice if you remain wilfully ignorant of your societal power position.

Perhaps if she were willing to check her privilege, she would have realised that neither she nor anyone else in her family ever had to endure the horrific costs of building a country under colonial rule and thus she may not have so brazenly cited judiciary, infrastructure and plumbing in her defence of colonialism. Perhaps if she were willing to check her privilege, she would realise that despite not having a poorly paid person of colour cleaning her home; a race-based power imbalance is the status quo in South Africa and hence she should have thought twice before posting the aforementioned snap of herself with her granddaughter into the public arena.

Image: https://www.youtube.com/joshpieters

It is well known that when Katie Hopkins is not hand-crafting jewellery from the crystallised tears of refugees for her Etsy Shop “ConservativeWHTWoman”, she is trolling everyone on the internet who is indeed not a conservative, white, woman. To my knowledge Katie Hopkins holds the title of reigning champion over several hate-based atrocities, but I believe the prank, as pictured above, was the direct result of opinions raised by Ms Hopkins regarding British rapper, Stormzy’s, views on the current state of race relations in the UK.

See, what had happened was, Stormzy was asked in an interview if he thought the UK was a racist country, to which he responded:

“Definitely, 100 per cent. It's like: 'Oh no, we're not racist'. But there's a lot of racism in the country.”

Katie was of course not having any of this ingratitude. I mean, how dare Stormzy have an opinion on his personal experience as a man of colour in the UK, right?! Along with the UK’s tabloid media, Hopkins lead the pitchfork wielding mobs of cyber-nationalists with classy nuggets of insight such as the tweet below:

Image: https://www.twitter.com

As demonstrated by the response to Hopkins’ tweet shown above, her opinions have come under severe scrutiny. Here, I would like to use two of arguably her most visible critics in order to illustrate my own position on the matter, namely Youtuber Josh Pieters and Television Mathematician Rachel Riley.

Josh and his friends orchestrated an elaborate prank to present Hopkins with a fake award and to have her unknowingly pose with said award in front of the word C*NT. This particular brand of humour might not be to everyone’s taste. However, their efforts and rationale for this absurd undertaking need to be applauded. A video of the fake award project has since gone viral. While watching the video of their cunning project unfolding, the irony of these young men using the very institutions Hopkins so fiercely try to defend - namely white male privilege - against her is so glorious I can taste it!

In contrast, Rachel Riley and her colleagues opted for a more diplomatic approach to addressing Hopkins’ brazen attitude towards the spreading of hate on social media. Not Ms Riley, nor the Center for Countering Digital Hate fell for the classic “freedom of speech defence” and together they met with key decision-makers at Twitter to discuss the matter. Hopkins’ twitter account has since been suspended.

In this regard I pose the following question: Are consequences such as public criticism and/or penalties such as the suspension of one’s social media account (a) adequate- and (b) effective mechanisms for combatting the spread of hate in the digital age. I argue that it is not. I argue that it is the bare minimum. No opinion should be above scrutiny and if one should violate fair terms of use there should be just and transparent penalties that can be enforced. However, in an age where hateful rhetoric can spread like wild fire having a material impact on the lives of marginalised groups, these consequences are not enough.

Firstly, these consequences are not enough because on its own it reinforces the speaker’s position that their hate is somehow justified because they are the victim. Enforcing penalties, albeit just, fair and transparent, simply affords the speaker martyr status and although it may serve as an immediate impediment for propagating hate, it does nothing to disrupt the core mechanisms of the hate-based message. Secondly, regardless of how despicable the content of the message, is simply dismissing someone like Katie Hopkins and taking away her ability to share her opinions not essentially the same as what she is doing? Is she not simply being dismissed as ‘the other’, like she dismisses the views of who she considers to be ‘the other’? Is a simple suppression of content with no structure in place to foster understanding and conciliation between groups in conflict the best way we can coexist as a diverse society…or does the accompanying resentment and frustration in the absence of understanding make this approach to addressing hate a ticking time bomb?

Image: ATTA KENARE/AFP via Getty Images

While I was receiving emergency optic nerve surgery after rolling my eyes too hard at yet another article about a public “hit” announcement on President Trump, I found myself reflecting on my own role in the current state of global affairs. Yes, I put “hit” in quotes because President Trump is as likely to actually become an actual “hit” as much as an autotuned supercut of Sarah Paulson screaming on the Ellen Show.

For the past month I have been slaving over the revisions of an academic article for submission to a peer reviewed journal. I’ve been checking and rechecking statistics, making sure the most recent literature has been considered, revising my arguments to ensure that they are meticulously crafted, all to ensure my article is without flaw and would be accepted for journal publication. It was at this point that I started wondering how it is possible that the human race can be at the height of scientific advancement with academics and researchers doing what I am doing to ensure they produce credible evidence-based knowledge, while the world is simultaneously entering a post-truth era – what in the twilight-zone-hell kind of nonsense is this?? It seems completely counter-intuitive that in an age where information is more easily accessible than ever before, that it would be completely acceptable and commonplace for evidence-based knowledge to be consistently dismissed in favour of whatever the dismisser feels in favour of. But see here’s the thing…credible evidence-based knowledge is not that accessible at all. Like AT ALL.

Before I continue elaborating on my personal reflection and explaining how (credible) information is not that accessible, perhaps I should provide some contexts to anyone reading this who has not been following the news on increasing tensions between Iran and the US. Allow me to further summarise Business Insider’s recap of the build up to this most recent publicly announced threat to take out President Trump:

The Obama administration entered into a nuclear agreement with Iran in 2015 and everything was gucci.

In May 2018, the US withdrew from the 2015 nuclear agreement, leaving both Iran and the Trump administration exceedingly salty.

Since the US’s withdrawal from the agreement there has been an utterly tiresome back and forth between the two nations regarding renegotiation with little to no success.

2020 was barely out the gate when President Trump completely popped off by ordering a drone strike which killed Iran’s most important military official, General Qassem Soleimani.

Iran, both government and civilian, then also popped off by vowing to enact severe revenge;

to which President Trump served Iran back by threatening to go full Mother of Dragons on them.

This brings us to the present where actual Iranian MP, Ahmad Hamzeh, has publicly offered a USD 3mil bounty for the assasination of President Trump. I’m no political or military expert, but is this messy behaviour acceptable? I don’t know Diplomatic Relations, I don’t know Foreign Trade Policy, but what I do know is people; and what I can tell you about people is that the unnervingly swift increasing likelihood of us burning ourselves to a radioactive crisp is not because of people like Donald Trump or Ahmad Hamzeh. Rather, it is because of the people who willingly consume their rhetoric without question and thus allowing them to act appallingly on behalf of their respective peoples.

If my own experience is anything to go by (it is, all academics and researchers do this), then the academic community’s collective hoarding of knowledge is as guilty of contributing to a post-truth society as President Trump’s Religious Advisor who claims that to go against the president is to go against god (wow, it was really hard to type that last bit without going into a rage coma). If you are in the business of producing evidence-based knowledge, ask yourself 1) in the sea of information out there, are my contributions identifiable or distinguishable from the fluff and rhetoric, 2) is my work accessible to the average person on the street and 3) are my findings presented in a format that is consumable to a person without an advanced degree? Let me save you some time: 1) no, because we only produce two articles a year because they must be accepted by the highest possible ranking publications and that is simply not enough, 2) no, because we are snobs who refuse to disseminate knowledge through channels that we deem to be below our intellectual status, and 3) girl, do you really even have to think about that one? Meanwhile, as we are hoarding knowledge within our elite community and fooling ourselves into thinking that the compulsory two paragraphs on “research impact” in our grant proposals are sufficient, the world is going up in flames around us.

Now before anyone accuses me of being a failed academic who is scornfully attacking academia, while the first part might be true, the second could not be further from the truth. I am not saying rigorous, formal research should not be produced, published and disseminated in the manner it currently is, i.e. academic conferences and peer-reviewed journals for example. I am merely saying that we as the academic community needs to reassess how we can reach the general public, because let’s be honest we are only reaching our own community at the moment (and maybe a few bright undergrads for three years). Yes there has been a significant increase in the emphasis placed on ‘research impact’ in recent years, but I am sorry people, while the voice of the Anti-Vaxxers, Jenny McCarthy, continues to influence public health debates and children have to take time out from learning to address climate change because government officials are still arguing over whether or not it’s a thing (spoiler alert: it IS a thing!) we simply are not doing enough to make evidence-based knowledge accessible and consumable. If you are an expert, researcher or academic, keep producing and disseminating rigorous, peer-reviewed, evidence-based knowledge through formal channels. In addition to that, however, think about how many people outside of your expert community you are reaching; because the thing is if we don’t the public only sees CNN giving Kellyanne Conway airtime to do what I can only describe as the debating equivalent of doing the Harlem Shake, and subsequently forming their opinions based on that. Do you think she cares about rigour?

**names of people and organisations have been anonymised to avoid putting anyone on blast**

Dear John,

I am a recent applicant for a position at Global Inc. I understand that you are the hiring manager for this role, namely ‘Internal HR Consultant’. Furthermore, I understand that you are also the Director of Human Resources and I therefore have some concerns regarding your recruitment process that I would like to bring to your attention. 

My application was being considered for the aforementioned role and I had a first round Skype interview with Peter Smith on 23 January. I was subsequently informed on 26 January that my application was unsuccessful. I believe the recommendation not to proceed with my application to be procedurally fair, as referring to said interview as abysmal would be an understatement. Indeed, had a candidate provided the same responses in an interview I conducted, my recommendation would have been the same. However, I do believe that the interview was substantively unfair as I have serious concerns regarding the validity and reliability of the interview questions’ ability to predict job-fit, cultural-fit, or future performance.

I am writing to you, not to make any demands, but rather because I believe that Global Inc. does valuable work and that a problematic recruitment process might be disqualifying top talent and as such hampers Global Inc.’s ability to build diverse teams, instil a high-performance culture, and create an ideal employer brand.

During the interview with Peter, it seemed that he was following a standardised or semi-structured interview schedule. Therefore, given my answers, I believe the decision not to advance my application was procedurally fair. However, I believe the following concerns represent a significant problem regarding your recruitment process’ substantive fairness:

Question: From all the organisations you can choose to work for, why did you choose to apply to Global Inc.?

At most, this question allows the interviewer to gauge the extent to which a candidate has prepared for the interview and whether they are aware of the organisation’s core business. However, if one is to make the reasonable assumption that this question is used to make a selection decision, it appears the question attempts to determine if the candidate considers Global Inc. to be an employer of choice or not. Of course, being an employer of choice is important for an organisation to attract top talent, but using it as a measurement criteria in the recruitment process is problematic as it implies an underpinning belief that candidates who consider Global Inc. to be an employer of choice are the best candidates. Strong employer brands have been shown to enable organisations to attract top talent, however, there is not sufficient evidence to support the notion that buy-in to an employer brand predicts job-fit, cultural-fit or future performance.

This question also appears to rely on an overconfidence in Global Inc.’s employer brand, at the expense of consideration for current labour market trends. Broadly speaking, there is a global over-supply of skilled talent - this is especially the case for the HR Profession. As such, selecting candidates based on their apparent perception of Global Inc.’s employer brand could be disqualifying high skilled candidates who may have been motivated to apply due to labour market conditions. Given the job listing’s mention of a 2-3 year commitment, I believe it is also fair to assume that this question attempts to elicit responses that might indicate the likelihood of the candidate exhibiting Organisational Citizenship Behaviour towards Global Inc. Organisational Citizenship Behaviour, however, has been found to be a function of post-appointment factors such as organisational justice, organisational support and role efficacy. Therefore, an attempt to assess a candidate’s perception of an employer brand - before appointment has taken place - would arguably not be a valid predictor of commitment to the organisation or project. 

Additionally, it is unlikely that a self-reported motivation to join - especially under interview conditions - will provide the interviewer with reliable data regarding the candidate’s value system and how that compares to the values promoted by the organisation. This question is more likely to prompt the candidate into presenting an inflated view of the organisation’s employer brand and achievements, or regurgitating publicly available information such as mission statements. Therefore, questions such as these overemphasise the significance of the employer brand, underplays the significance of job content and disregard key contextual factors, arguably resulting in warped or incomplete assessments of a candidate’s suitability.

Question: Provide me with an example of a leadership position you’ve been in, what you did, how you led and what the results were.

Self-reports of leadership enactment is not always an accurate representation of someone’s approach to leadership, especially under interview conditions. Short of a thematic content analysis of responses, questions such as this offer the interviewer nothing more than an overview of pervading notions of effective leadership in popular leadership discourse. This question is decontextualised, is unlikely to provide any insight into the candidate’s leadership potential, nor is it likely to present an accurate representation of how the candidate enacts leadership in real-world situations.

Although mainstream conceptualisations of leadership are often presented as context-neutral, leadership is in fact a highly context-specific social process of meaning creation. Due to the context-specific nature of leadership, an example of how a leadership role was approached in one context might not necessarily offer sufficient data for determining the potential of a candidate to act in a leadership role in another context. Furthermore, self-reports are arguably not the most reliable tool for assessing said leadership potential. In both my professional career and academic research I have experienced first hand how persons report to have one approach to leadership and then enact an entirely different one - often unconsciously. It would be advisable to ask more specific questions that relate to leadership potential within a given context and perhaps to complement these questions with an overview question such as the one in question.

A final concern regarding the use of this type of question in making a selection decision is that it implies that leadership skills and behaviours cannot be modified, given that it asks about a specific instance of leadership enactment. As my aforementioned comments illustrate, this question does not provide an indication of leadership potential but simply how leadership was chosen to be enacted within one context. As Peter explained to me, the role I was applying for, as well as future roles would very likely include leadership responsibilities. Given the seeming importance of leadership for this role, considering the context-contingent nature of leadership and since leadership can be developed, I would argue that this question and its subsequent probes were not nuanced enough to elicit valid responses to make a fair selection decision.

Scenario question: You need to recruit 100 recipients from the population of current scholarship holders to invest 10% of their scholarships into a special investment fund. This will have significant short- and long term financial implications on scholarship holders. You have 5 field officers to assist with the project which needs to launch in 3 months. What specific tasks would you have for the first 3 weeks and what would you do in the last 2 weeks before the launch?

First, I feel I should mention that I understand that certain interview questions are designed to elicit information regarding transferable skills and thus need not be phrased as being explicitly linked to the job in question. Furthermore, I also understand that the position I applied for requires a strong ability for project management, which this scenario question clearly addresses. However, I still have several concerns regarding this question, the most prominent of which is its content. Like candidates are expected to write cover letters and adjust CVs according to the position and company they apply to, so too should interview questions be contextualised within the specific role the candidate is applying for. Failure to do so exposes the recruitment process to risk regarding both reliability and validity of the data collected. Specifically, in the case of my application, I have concerns about the validity of this question as it is focused on the external environment while the position in question is focused on the organisation’s internal environment. This question also raises concerns regarding its validity as it appears to have more of a sales focus than an operational (specifically HR) focus. I have difficulty understanding how a list of tasks I might hypothetically have at the start and finish of a project that relates to Global Inc.’s highly specialised core business could offer any insight into my ability to perform in the position in question. Of course, I am not suggesting that HR (or any department for that matter) should adopt a silo mentality and concern itself exclusively with HR issues. In fact, I am a strong proponent of integrated HR strategies, but I do not believe that this question sufficiently addressed the requirements of the position I applied for. 

I would also argue that a candidate’s ability to provide an appropriate or satisfactory answer to this question would require significantly more information than what is provided in the scenario (despite the fact that the interviewer did state that he only required me to consider the presented information). Presenting an action plan at a granular level necessitates significantly more intimate knowledge of the project which a) would require a more in-depth contact session or exposure to the core business and b) could be taught through on-boarding and training during a probation period. This raises concerns regarding the question’s ability to produce reliable data that is consistent over time and across candidates. Finally, I would argue that a scenario-type question like this would be more suited to a case study environment, where the candidate is afforded sufficient time to formulate a tentative roll-out plan, and less suited to an initial telephone screening.

Question: Where do you see yourself in 3-5 years?

Second only to “what are your biggest weaknesses?”, this is arguably one of the worst interview questions one could possibly ask as it does not provide any tangible evidence regarding abilities, motives or values - data collected from questions such as this are essentially meaningless. Perhaps if it was followed up with probes such as “what steps have you taken thus far to achieve these goals?” one might argue that it could predict behavioural competencies such as tenacity, perseverance and commitment, but this was not the case here. Usually, a career trajectory is also discernible from a CV and an initial telephonic interview might be more optimally used to probe into possible gaps in the CV or to clarify aspects of the candidate’s career history that might be unclear.

Using the aforementioned question as opposed to tangible evidence of a career trajectory is also problematic in its apparent assumption that a) the candidate is able to accurately assess their own capabilities, and b) present these capabilities to the interviewer in an objective manner. This question also creates an opportunity for motivational distortion and arguably reveals more about the candidate’s perception of what the interviewer wants to hear rather than what the candidate actually wants to- or can achieve.

I thank you for your time and wish you all the best with your future endeavours.

Kind regards,

What do we do as lefties when someone says something racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise triggering? We unfriend them on Facebook, block them on Instagram or as I did, more far far away from the small town that did not seem to agree with my liberal outlook on life. Herein lies a bit of a dilemma – don’t get me wrong, Im not about to use freedom of speech or freedom of religion as the basis of a pro-hate argument (all tea, all shade). I 100% stand by my belief that any form of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia and the like are wrong, but what Im thinking is that we as “liberals”, “lefties”, “progressives” or whatever you want to call yourself might need to reconsider how we operationalise our beliefs in diversity and inclusion.

A recent video of a clearly far-right (and woefully misinformed) woman verbally attack Jagmeet Singh, and essentially accusing him of being a terrorist sympathiser, made me think about how I engage hate and discrimination. The woman claimed Singh wants to impose Shariah law and supports the Muslim Brotherhood – none of which is of course true. You can see the exchange captured on video below:

Considering Jagmeet Singh’s stance on Canadian public policy, claims of Islamic extremism is utterly preposterous. Therefore I will happily admit that my initial reaction to seeing Singh’s encounter with the protester who had the wrong end of a racist stick made me shout “he’s Sikh, not Muslim you idiot!” at my computer screen – as Im sure many others did. The problem with dismissing her as a “non-woke idiot” and removing her or removing yourself from such a situation does not result in any growth, conciliation or a disruption of the problematic status quo. Dismissing her will simply perpetuate and reproduce the divide and resulting tensions between groups of people with diverging views.

So what’s the alternative? If we don’t dismiss those who offend our beliefs in an equitable society, what do we do? We engage. How we engage, however, is key and I thought Singh handled his specific incident beautifully by repeating the mantra that we should engage “with love and with courage”. A bit schmaltzy for my taste, but at its core is a very sound strategy based in psychology. Evolutionary psychology offers a possible explanation for why people like the protestor in the video insist their viewpoints are valid, when in fact they are not. That is because opinions (or “worldviews”) are not changed by fact – they are changed by the interpretation of fact within groups (or “tribes”). As an evolutionary survival mechanism, the human psyche has evolved to conform to what is perceived to be the best course of action for the group. It would seem, however, that in a modern society our hard-wiring as not yet caught up to our environments where constant reliance on your group or “tribe” is no longer necessary for survival. This video explains this theory in a bit more detail:

So from a psychological perspective, why does it sometimes feel to liberals as if racists, sexists and homophobes lack the capacity for listening to reason? Simply put, it is because what we perceive as fact is interpreted differently across groups and therefore result in the construction of different opinions - opinions which cannot be changed by merely presenting facts. This means that bombarding non-liberals with data or habitually clicking the unfriend button is, in my opinion, not the most constructive course of action. The more we separate ourselves, the less different groups are able to identify with each other, the less amenable we are to accept information that challenge our views, the less empathetic we become to others, the worse the problem gets.

Which brings me to my point: Be friends with racists, sexists, homophobes and try to find ways to identify with them. The more horrible the things they do and say, the more we need to try (courage) and identify (love) and empathise with them. It is only when someone is truly able to identify with you as a part of the same “tribe” that you will be able to make them truly aware of the harm their discriminatory views and actions have and it is only when you are truly aware of the consequence of your discriminatory views, that you are able to empathise and start working towards fixing the problem. Thus, if you consider yourself to be a liberal, you could probably do with being a bit more liberal.

There is no doubt that there exists a lot of hate on the internet. Furthermore, anonymity in social media allows for much of this hate to be spread without much consequence. Ignoring anonymous hate on the internet is arguably a more positive response than alternatives such as siccing your followers on critics, or firing back and being caught up in an endless cycle of insult-slinging. Ignoring negative comments seems to have emerged as an active strategy to deal with perceived hate on the internet. This trend is especially visible among popular online content creators with large followings – a trend known colloquially as “blocking the haters”. 

What I would like to talk about here, at the risk of being labelled a “hater”, is the blanket nature of the use of the term “hater”. I am not suggesting that a practice of “blocking haters” is inherently problematic. However, when used frequently and as a go-to response when faced with any form of criticism about what you publish on the internet, it does indeed become problematic. Some examples that come to mind are Nash Grier’s hiv-related homophobic post on Vine, and more recently Jake Paul’s racist and xenophobic tweets. In both instances, criticism of this content were met with the label of “hater”. To my knowledge, Nash Grier’s following did most of the labelling, while Jake Paul defended himself numerous times by labelling his critics as haters.  (DISCLAIMER: For the record, I am intentionally not citing sources or providing any evidence of these cases as they are for illustrative purposes only. My intention here is not to put anyone on blast or to pass judgement on any particular individual or group, but rather to engage in a discussion about a social phenomenon which I find interesting.) Arguably more well known for blocking the haters than he is for his public policy is American president Donald Trump.

An avid Tweeter, Mr Trump infamously blocks (literally blocks) anyone who dares to criticize the polarizing views he so enthusiastically posts on Twitter. What I find problematic about the widespread use of the label “hater”, and their subsequent “blocking”, is that this seemingly kneejerk reaction runs the risk of dismissing or discrediting legitimate critique which was actually not intended as hate. Dismissing all critique hampers constructive dialogue, promotes division and as such fuels conflict between polarized groups.