Awareness
What people believe is typical becomes what people do.
-Robert Cialdini
Discussions around race consciously and subconsciously encouraged groups of people to think about and consider race. Which shocker, led to more racists.
All the neo-nazi groups, which dwindled down to a few thousand people in 2000, now have grown. Still pretty small all things considered, but they’re real again. Social justice warriors brought race back into public discourse.
Zero Racism Society
“Raising awareness” to attempt to achieve zero racism fractured race relations.
The advent of microaggressions was the first sign. America in the 90’s and 00’s was the least racist multi-cultural society ever. A few couldn't accept that what we had was essentially as good as a society can get. By attempting to get absolutely zero racism, it created 100x the racism.
The economic equivalent would be attempting to get to a 0% unemployment rate. Doing so would destroy an economy. There's a natural amount of unemployment, the same way there's a natural amount of racism. To get to 0% unemployment, we’d need a command economy where the gov forces companies to hire anyone looking for a job. Similarly, to get to zero racism, we’d need to forcibly indoctrinate anyone with a potentially offensive view. Hence, microaggressions. Command economies destroy economies, and thought policing destroys social contracts. And now, we’re where we are.
Wary of Awareness
Suicide awareness increases suicide. Awareness of serial killers creates copycat killers. Mass shootings beget more mass shootings. Publicizing self-harm causes more self-harm and normalizes the behavior. Same with awareness of eating disorders.
Looting and mob behavior begets more looting and mobs. DARE and other awareness campaigns around drugs led to people taking more drugs.
We model behavior we see others doing, especially peers or high-status individuals. More media exposure = increased salience = perceived commonness. Awareness reduces stigma, which encourages the behavior.
Even if you say “most people don’t engage in this behavior,” or that “it’s bad behavior,” they see it. They then do it more.
Solution
Society is simple. The mass hive mind is a child. It lacks nuance. If a child is crying, the most proven way to make them stop is to change the subject. Distract them with something else. When their mind is elsewhere, they stop crying and get curious about the new subject. Our media and societal discussions are no different.
Look, a Distraction!
To restore balance, society must shift focus from dialogues about identity and grievances towards constructive, positive aspirations. Emphasize shared goals, innovation, collaboration, and achievement to unify. Ignore divisions and perceived injustices.
But this isn’t going to happen. The incentives aren’t aligned. Bad things are fun to talk about. 24/7 news needs something to say. X and Reddit need schadenfreude or something to be outraged by. Find my pearls, they’re in need of clutching.
Our societal hive mind loves being a victim and making a mountain out of a molehill. Oftentimes, the molehills don’t even exist. I used to engage with people on these issues. I can debate and sometimes even change minds. I’ve switched to saying I don’t care. I ask them to stack rank the issues in their life. When guided, it turns out the issue is never in their top five. If we’re being exhaustive, I doubt it’d make their top 20. Shift focus.
The best antidote to toxic awareness campaigns is not more awareness—it’s deliberate distraction towards productive, inspiring endeavors. The less we dwell on our divisions, the less power they hold.
Let’s focus on progress, accomplishment, and common purpose. Leave harmful ideas forgotten in the shadows. The first step is making people aware that awareness campaigns suck.