Shouting into an Echo Chamber

/ Jeff Cann

When class ended, they fist bumped and stretched their legs and grabbed paper towels to wipe down their bikes. A couple of shouts of “good class,” and “thanks Jeff” and people filed out of the room. As they left, I gave a quick plug for my next class, “I’ll see y’all on Saturday at eight,” and I began mopping up the puddle under my bike. I sweat more than anyone. Yes, I work out hard, but so does everyone else. I’m just a sweaty dude.

To wit: eight years ago, after sweating through a class I didn’t instruct, a guy came over to me and said “Jeff, you’re a sweaty dude…” He quizzed me about how I kept my electrolytes in balance during an hour of profuse dripping.

I shut off the stereo, the fans, the Christmas lights that encircle the ceiling, and I plopped down in the room’s only chair to clock out. The time clock app is always a production. I gave myself an absurd password. Lots of switching between screens—caps, numbers, special characters and those special-special characters on the deepest screen. My fingers shake. I mistype. My phone locks up after an hour of blasting music. I mistype again. As I frustrate myself and earn a few extra pennies while repeatedly trying to enter my password, Kathy and Don stand over a bike and discuss the decline of America—specifically the larger implications of the election results.

I eavesdrop, sorry I’m not part of the conversation. Although with these two, I might be out classed. Kathy is a deep thinker. A published author, a fabulous poet. Her opinions are thoughtful and measured. Never any of the off-the-cuff crap I throw out. Don has lived all over the world. Fifteen years my senior and still grinding out three spin classes each week. We haven’t spoken much, but I know he’s an avid reader of nonfiction. I’m sure I’d drag this conversation down.

“It’s overwhelming to try to combat the whole system. We each need to pick one place to make an impact.” This is Kathy, making a great point, as I expect her to. “If each Harris voter—an army of seventy-three million people—finds their own way to make a meaningful difference, maybe we can implement change.”

“Well,” I think to myself, “I do my part.” When I see something I don’t like, I write about it. From 2015 through the end of the last Trump term, I saw plenty I didn’t like. I churned out countless essays criticizing Trump and his approach to governing the country. I’m a dissident, a rebel. I sway opinions with the written word. This is what I tell myself.

But if I’m honest, I doubt I do any good. My Mourning After post, explaining my shock and depression after Trump won the recent election, received only one negative comment. The writer ranted about men playing in women’s sports and accused all democrats of being pedophiles. I didn’t sway his beliefs. My blog posts are, almost exclusively, met with likes. Facebook is the same way. I’ve surrounded myself with uniform-thinkers. I’m shouting into an echo chamber.

During the election, I didn’t knock on doors. I didn’t donate. I didn’t even put up a yard sign. “I think our pride flag says all people need to know,” says Susan. I’m certain she’s right. No one with an LGBTQ flag voted for Trump. Still, I never stood in the Gettysburg central square and chanted Harris slogans. And truthfully, I can’t see the point. I found all this talk about undecided voters over the past few months ridiculous. How could anyone possibly be undecided? You’re either a person who will vote for a rapist or you’re not. You’re either a person who will vote for a man who bragged about sexually assaulting women or you’re not. I couldn’t believe over half the voting public could overlook so many well documented disqualifiers, but I also never doubted that Trump would win. Something is diseased in America now.

I agree with Kathy. We are each duty-bound to find a way to make a difference. I won’t stop writing, it’s in my DNA, but I also won’t fool myself into believing I change the way people think. Maybe as the leader of a weekly spin class, I can sneak in songs with inclusive messages that will seep into everyone’s subconscious when they are too tired to resist.

Photo by Dmitry Limonov on Pexels (Note, most of the riders in this photo have terrible form).

23 thoughts on “Shouting into an Echo Chamber”

    • I’m honestly not sure how to make a difference. Trump campaigned on burning down the country, and he won the election. Now all indications are he plans to burn down the country. What can I possibly do or say to combat that? Caring for our fellow citizens seems to be triggering for half the nation.

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  2. Nicely written Jeff.

    Zsor-zsor and I chuckled a few times as I read it to her, and we understand the serious intent too.

    She’s too freedom loving to want to change anyone’s mind, other than her direct reports – me and nina.

    As I understand it, active listening can be an effective approach to open up the possibility of a deeper discussion, or indeed you can go further than that and ’empathise’ with contentious points in order to catalogue them and undermine them later. Apparently that works very well in the right hands and situation. However, I’m also attracted by the transformative use of conflict, which I’ve observed being applied skillfully on a few rare occasions. I’ve tried but never mastered that approach.

    It can require great courage to challenge something openly and up front and to do it with enough skill to get someone else interested in why YOU think the way you do.

    Kind regards

    DD

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  3. I think the thing you do here does matter, Jeff. You can’t control who or how many read what you write–which is frustrating for me–but it matters to be the dissenter. Maybe that’s all we have when a majority in this country no longer value the truth or intellect or critical thinking or leadership capabilities or human empathy or actual freedom. But, as your friend said, at least there are 73 million of us who do.

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    • In all honesty, there seem to be no arguments that work. When Trumpers engage me, the things they say ring as untrue and as Fox News talking-points. I’m sure the Trump crowd feels the same way about anything i say. Not sure if there’s a resolution. It feels good to write it out and engage with like-minded people though.

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  5. I have never seen confrontation and challenge work in swaying anyone’s opinion. I worked for a very conservative university where it was expected that everyone was a Republican. Those of us who were not kept quiet. I attend a very left-leaning church where the sermons take for granted that everyone there is a Democrat. Having those two populations meet up for a healthy debate would be distastrous, I’m guessing.

    I’m not sure the subliminal messaging in your spin class is the most effective means of fostering change, but it’s a start.

    Great writing, Jeff. I’m always happy to see your posts.

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  6. Perhaps a somehow agreed upon pretence that conflict cannot be resolved without violence is contributing to the Red v’s Blue problems? I can’t say as I’m not in the USA. Consensus seekers are, presumably, marginalised and perhaps worse?
    Be well and do good,
    DD

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  7. It’s a conundrum. Me and my wife are leaving a group of people who in the past have been important to us. This has been a long protracted goodbye with the hope of being able to understand each other eroded year after year. My son says asking sincere questions of people has worked for him. “Whee did you hear that?” And “Is that what you think or have been told?” I’m not convinced. I live on the west coast which is fairly liberally, but my house is in a very conservative working class area that has traditionally been democrat but not longer, and this is the year I decided to be a citizen. Your writings change thoughts Jeff. It’s a long slow process and I believe hopefully people will see what we have going on and become active. There always the music though.

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  8. Thanks for writing this. I’ve been chewing on this post since yesterday. I come from another country, and roughly the opposite viewpoint. However, I share the frustration with the polarisation. It’s odd that two sides can be so drastically different.

    Part of me is tired of attempts at civil conversation, or the socratic method, or listening – because it can often end up so one sided. Being unable to speak doesn’t help one’s position, as it loses subtlety – but it’s foolish to think that silencing it destroys it – it just makes it more stuck – but still less thought through.

    The other part of me is inclined to go back to the old classics – the common ground, civil discussion, steel manning, curiosity – and try again. We can’t both be right, but we could both be wrong.

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    • Joe, this is a really smart comment and I applaud the even-handed tone you’ve adopted. It actually makes me feel a little ashamed of my lines in the sand, but the plan the future president has laid out just isn’t acceptable to me. I agree that the degree of polarization is odd, and I suspect that much of it on the left comes from the fact that the messenger is Trump, who carries so much of what many of us consider disqualifying baggage (some of which I wrote about). I really wish the republicans had nominated Nikki Haley. I think the country would be in a much better place had that been the case.

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    • Well, the echo chamber is a pretty safe place. Besides music with subliminal messaging, I’ve decided I need to start poking my way out of the echo chamber. Probably easier to do this on facebook rather than a blog. Do I start ‘friending’ the opposition?

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  10. Good post and I can relate. I tend to stay away from people who disagree with me, especially lately. I don’t like conflict, and right now, I need a break from all things political. But there are lots of ways to make quiet changes–donate to good causes, vote, slap bumper stickers on your car, and be nice to all. And I think that your writing does make a difference. Not everyone who reads something like this will leave a comment. But they might still think about it.

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    • Strangely, in my county where more than 2/3 of the population voted for trump, there is almost no one in my life who did. One friend from a volunteer organization did, but I only know this because I saw he had a yard sign, not because he talked about it. Susan & I have talked about getting one of those “all welcome here” signs for our yard, and a bumper sticker is a good idea. I’ll keep writing because I can’t help myself, at least until the justice dept shuts down online dissent.

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