Complaint defines a great deal of
social media interactions. We are all implicated. We all decry other people's
'excessive' complaining while justifying our own. Even this post is a form of
complaint (and I am going to righteously justify it!).
My complaint isn't that we need to
stop complaining. Complaints are important. They address faults, frauds, and
(can. sometimes) lead to better things. My issue is with the wholesale
totalizing negativity that our social media world of complaint has produced.
My personal political paradigm is one
that is fundamentally critical of the totality of how our society is organized.
So allow me to assure you, I have a lot to complain about. Given that, a
strategic approach to complaint is called for. In addition, it means that one
has to try and find ways to work with the majority of people who seem to think
everything is mostly okay. It also means determining how to take seriously the
multitude of complaints that my political paradigm considers inconsequential. No
small order.
I've sat on many adjudication panels
over the years. This requires a strategic approach toward complaint. I have
observed how some reviewers will run every proposal through their own personal
theoretical paradigm. They will find the proposals all lacking because they
don't mesh with the reviewer's personal paradigm. Such reviewers are
unable to extend a benefit of the doubt to applicants operating in different
theoretical paradigms. They find fault with everything. If I were to do
that I would likely find about 95% of proposals I review deficient.
My solution is to identify the
applicant's paradigm, consider the extent that they meet the expectations
within that paradigm, suffer the small faults, and look to the big picture
issues. I also consider to what extent the applicant could hear any critical
comment from me, would they alter anything in response to my
complaints, can I prioritize my complaints and just focus on one or two
key ones? This seems like a reasonable approach to wider political
issues.
It would be nice to see a winnowing of
complaint within social media, a prioritization of complaint in which each of
us commit to only laying out our most important complaints. Maybe salted with
some positive, complementary, hopeful commentary? It’s unlikely, but I can
hope.
The pervasiveness of complaint,
unrestrained by prioritization or strategic considerations, contributes to a
nihilistic political environment.
Nothing is to be trusted. Hyperbole is the norm. Bullies claim they have
been bullied. Liars call truth makers frauds. Everyone gets into the action.
I suppose those who think our
world is running just fine find solace in the cacophony of complaint – they can
shrug off complaints with impunity. In the morass of undifferentiated complaint
there is no way to separate critical from frivolous. Power remains in place and the complainers,
whether they like it or not, are perpetuating the system. Their complaints don’t
fall on deaf ears; they drown the few voices calling for needed fundamental
social change. The litany of complainers becomes the shock troops of
authoritarian capitalism and is encouraged to keep going under the guise of
free expression.
Complaint is ultimately easy;
especially when one doesn’t suffer the small things. Harder to do is strategize
and focus on big points and to ignore the encouragement to complain that social
media proffers. Working in contexts
where most people not only disagree, but often dismiss, my political
perspective one has to figure out what’s worth arguing over, what little
details to agree with for the sake of hitting harder on the big issues. One
only wishes more folks in social media might try the same.
