Searching for a healthy disagreement

It wouldn't do if we were all the same would it? Or so says the cliché. Yet, while I agree that life would be pretty dull if everyone agreed, I also reckon that we're all in danger of suffering from a lack of variety when it comes to views of the world.

Where has this thought come from? Well, it's something that I've been pondering for a while but was sparked further thanks to an aside in a column by John Harris for the New Statesman. In the piece, about Labour losing its traditional heartland, he wrote of what he called the 'John Peel mistake'. He explained:

Circa 1969, the DJ wondered why one of his favourite albums was not in the charts: “Everyone I know’s got a copy,” he said. Back came the reply: “No – you know everyone who’s got a copy.”

Harris uses it when touching on Corbynites who are struggling to fathom why mass rallies won't necessarily result in electoral success yet, for me, it's a neat idea that helps explain a problem.

Photo: Unsplash

Take the EU referendum, for example. After the vote, many people were shocked by the outcome. How could we possibly have voted out? Often people's Facebook timelines had, in the run-up to June 23, been full of people explaining why they were voting Remain. Yet Facebook just lets us see the views of our family and friends. If everyone you know voted Remain it doesn't mean that everyone wanted to Remain, it was just that you don't know the Outers.

Is that a problem? Maybe not, you might think. You're perfectly entitled to be friends with whoever you want and there's nothing wrong with finding companionship with like-minded people, clearly. But, does this all mean that we understand each other a little less?

It's also a particular problem if we choose to get our news from Facebook. Through social media we're not getting the news, we're getting a biased view of the world based on the likes and interest of us and our friends. It all needs consuming with a hearty dose of salt.

This is one of the ways in which online news needs to improve. An old fashioned print publication contains a whole host of articles. Until I buy and flick through one I don't know what I might find interesting. A print paper tells you about conflicts in far flung lands that you weren't aware of, offers you opinion articles from people you don't agree with and covers themes and topics that you wouldn't list as your 'interests' but are interesting nevertheless. I don't know about you but I find it hard to search out the same breadth online and feel my knowledge and understanding of the world has suffers as a result.

Perhaps I'm lazy and need to search out a better reading experience. It is hard though, especially when you are lead to much of what you read online. The trouble is that people are riddled with contradictions. I obsessively follow football so would, you'd presume, be interested in other sports such as Formula One or rugby. That'd certainly be the assumption if you were selling to me. Yet, as it happens, I don't. I like Doctor Who but wouldn't watch most other sci-fi, I haven't seen half of the 'must see films' that most people my age have watched and I'm a bloke with bugger all interest in flash cars. If I'm lead down any of these seemingly natural paths my attention is lost.

I happen to think we should celebrate the ways in which we are different from the norm, not lazily conform to what we're supposed to like. The music charts have, in one way, been diminished as a by-product of streaming. It's all too easy to listen to the existing top 20/50, meaning that those songs get even more plays and stay where they are. I don't want my news to become a similar 'vanilla' assortment of favourites.

I also think we're in danger of letting all this fuel further intolerance of others. It's dangerous to only surround yourself with those who agree with you as it can easily give you an inflated sense of being right. I've increasingly tried to tell myself that there are very few times in which there is a right or wrong answer in life.

If you are certain you're right, you're less likely to want to even hear the view of someone who disagrees - whether that's on something trivial such as music, film or sport or something such as Brexit.

I'm not sure what the answer to all of this is. I can't help thinking that a little healthy disagreement would be a good start though.

I saw the BRITs...without needing to bother watching

I didn't watch this year's BRIT Awards, yet I feel as though I saw it.
I tend to find all awards ceremonies are back-slappy bores that take themselves far too seriously, especially the BBC's annual Sports Personality of the Year smug-fest.

But as I parked myself down for a night following my beloved Nottingham Forest from afar (Twitter refresh takes a bit of a hammering on such occasions) news of a 2-1 win was interspersed with the latest from the O2.
It's a strange modern phenomena that, through Twitter, we often become accidentally familiar with the minute-by-minute details of a host of things we wouldn't chose to follow.

Without flicking over for a single moment I could tell you that Taylor Swift's UK charm offensive continued to pay dividends with a performance that went down well, Sam Smith teetered on the brink of becoming the male Emeli Sandé but won yet another award and Take That seemed to underwhelm.
In fact, judging by my timeline, the allure of the second coming of the Take That lads has worn off - seemingly due to a combination of dubious tax arrangements and middle of the road material.
I even tweeted a lame 'Tax That' pun at this point. Yep, that's right, tweeting along to something I'm not watching or bothered about. Odd.
Still, at least the vitriol wasn't as universal as it was against Kanye. By general consensus most people would've preferred the whole of his performance to be muted, not just the rude-worded bits.

And then The Fall.
Within seconds, probably before most of the live audience had had chance to take in quite what had happened, I'd seen Madonna's moment.
It was an event made for social media - perfectly fitting into a Vine and ripe for countless parodies, hashtags and one liners.

I'd be tempted to feel sorry for Madge - the backwards tumble must've hurt - but you feel the whole incident probably did more to promote her album than any performance could've done.

The tabloids lapped it up with hastily rearranged pages. Sorry Sam Smith and Ed Sheeran, you boys are bumped off by a bump, upstaged by a stage malfunction and overtaken by material on the Material Girl.
The Sun, sharp as ever, won by plumping for 'The Fallen Madonna (with the big boob)' as its headline - again seen on Twitter later that night.

So there you go - Swift, Smith, Take That, Kayne and Madonna. All gleaned without even looking for it - all while my attention was primarily on events at the City Ground.
I'm sure some academic has a term for this somewhere - unintended consumption or passive audience engagement probably.
It's not the first time either. The Eastenders killer, Bake Off results, X Factor...there's a plethora of things I don't watch and have little or no interest in that I'm exposed to on Twitter.

Still, Forest won. And the goals were on Twitter, even if not quite as quickly as Madonna's mishap. And maybe anyone silly enough to follow me feels the same when I 'inflict' Question Time on them each week?