Category: Echo chambers

I very much appreciate the prayer above. My prayer, not nearly as thoughtful, sadly, betrays my shallow expectations. A veiled request to love our neighbors well. “Lord, help us quit screaming at each other!”

The election over but it is not the end, it is the the beginning. What our nation will look like during the next four years, and beyond, will be largely determine by whether we can stop screaming at each other.
Rhetoric for unity, peace, cooperation, et al, will not, cannot, be heard until the screaming stops. An obvious question is “How do we stop screaming?”. To answer that question we need to understand why we are screaming at each other. It is my premise that Why we have been, and will continue to scream at each other is because almost everyone resides in an echo chamber ¹An echo chamber is a metaphorical description of a situation in which information, ideas, or beliefs are amplified or reinforced by communication and repetition inside a defined system. Inside a figurative echo chamber, official sources often go unquestioned and different or competing views are censored, disallowed, or otherwise underrepresented. The echo chamber effect reinforces a person’s own present world view, making it seem more correct and more universally accepted than it really is. (Wikipedia). It is the simple adage: “Birds of a feather stick together”.
Despite some pleasant post election rhetoric, each side, rather than un-circling wagons, are reinforcing defensive positions. The election has been conceded but not the fight.
Echo chambers exist because of our tribal instincts as human beings.

Despite all the contrary rhetoric, contemporary Americans are not highly individualized: we are tribal, in the extreme. It is the group, however constructed, that gives identity, for the identity that is sought is one that covers us, that hides our vulnerability and gives us the safety of those who agree. A tell-tale sign of this dynamic is found in our culture’s anger. Anger is largely driven by shame and we can affirm our tribal protection only by shouting at the outsider. Everything outside the group threatens to unmask us. To an increasing extent, the group to which we belong is that set of people who share our anger.
Fr Stephen Freeman

Humans are designed to be tribal. We are wired to organize ourselves socially into in-groups (our own group) and out-groups (others’ groups), and to organize ourselves cognitively so that our reasoning processes and even our sensory perceptions support in-group solidarity. “Believing is belonging,”
Jonathan Rauch

Life in an echo chamber is paradoxical. There are positive experiences of belonging (comfort/identity) and strengthening of our beliefs (rightness). Negatively, living in an echo chamber has potential for unhealthy even destructive outcomes. Whether we are right or wrong, our echo chamber has potential for harmful and/or destructive consequences. Living outside an echo chamber is a rare exception.

Dynamics of echo chambers

Using the concept of natural frequency (resonance)²Natural frequency is the frequency at which a system tends to oscillate in the absence of any driving or damping force. can help us understand the dynamics of echo chambers.

Accepting I am not a physicist, let me propose an analogy between the physics of natural frequency and echo chambers. Supposing the natural frequency of our echo chamber is ƒ_r [rightness]. An external application of ƒ_r[rightness] will cause the echo chamber to oscillate and achieve resonance — i.e. “resonate with us”. In simple terms, “playing our tune” or “on my wave length”. The application of ƒ_r[rightness] at increasing amplitude can grow enough too, as in case of a glass, shatter the object.

Perhaps the analogy breaks down with destruction, but, at a minimum, it supports Nicholas Kristof’s assertion: “Whatever our politics [beliefs], inhabiting a bubble makes us more shrill.” When we are exposed to continual reinforcement of our rightness, it will result in unhealthy consequences [i.e. screaming at outsiders].

We scream [become shrill] at one another because we live in echo chambers sating ourselves on ƒ_r. Because we are human echo chambers will always be our preferred residence. Eliminating echo chambers is not realistic,
Neither is Eliminating input of ƒ_r an option; reinforcement and validation of beliefs and values is crucial.
Because we reside in an echo chamber does not mean we are evil people. However, the nature and character of echo chambers is such that if we choose to reside in an unmitigated echo chamber the trajectory of our lives will bend toward evil not good.

Destined to dwell in echo chambers, how can we survive and thrive ?

Surviving and Thriving in Echo Chambers

Consent echo chambers are a reality.. Hopefully this post is helpful.

Embrace our fallibility. Counterintuitively, mitigating the power of echo chambers requires acceptance that we, as humans, are fallible. The reason we reside in echo chambers is because of our desire for confirmation that we are infallible. The most significant human trait that sustains and encourages the proliferation of and participation in harmful echo chambers is our unwillingness to entertain the possibility that we may be wrong.
Self-delusion is the adhesive which keeps us confined to echo chambers. Self-delusion is a two-sided coin: One side the delusion of omniscient, the other side the delusion of infallibility. Unfortunately, whichever side comes up, we lose.

Myth: My opinion/belief is TRUE, therefore I have no reason for concern.
The negative impact of echo chambers is indiscriminate. Relative to negative outcomes, it does not matter whether we are right or wrong. If we are certain of our opinion/belief, the reverberations within our echo chamber confirm our certainty, deafening and blinding us to any dissenting voices. In our self-deluded infallibility, we are able to justify responses, that we would never otherwise consider, toward any and all dissenting voices.

Self awareness is essential to surviving and thriving in echo chambers.
To see and truly understand ourselves is the only antidote to the self-deceiving nature of echo chambers. Self-deception is a path of least resistance. The lure of self-deception is so consuming that any thought that we can will ourselves into self-awareness is, ironically, self-deceiving. We become self-aware when we are exposed by light from external sources, stripping away shadows of self-deception, leavingus profoundly naked and humiliated. In those moments that we cannot only see who we truly are, we are also able discern who we should be and what changes are needed to transform us.

Humility is a product of self-awareness.

Absent of any driving or damping force a system, subjected to increasing amplitude of its natural frequency, will oscillate to its destruction.
Humility, produced by awareness of fallibility, is a dampening force which can modulates the amplitude of ƒ_r permitting validation and confirmation of beliefs to occur while overruling the impulse to scream.

SUMMARY

• our human default is tribal.
• self-delusion is a plight of those residing in an echo chamber,
• self-awareness is essential to surviving and thriving in echo chambers,
• there is inherent resistance to self-examination,
• prevailing, relentless narratives engender fear and rejection of dissenting voices.
• Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change minds. More education/information is not a solution. [even what presented in this post] We are faced with the discomforting reality that any solution must come from outside ourselves.
• ever-present and complex, echo chambers are an obstacle to a society characterized by virtuous human values.

Conclusion

For too many of us it’s become safer to retreat into our own bubbles, whether in our neighborhoods, or on college campuses, or places of worship, or especially our social media feeds, surrounded by people who look like us and share the same political outlook and never challenge our assumptions. In the rise of naked partisanship and increasing economic and regional stratification, the splintering of our media into a channel for every taste, all this makes this great sorting se em natural, even inevitable.
And increasingly we become so secure in our bubbles that we start accepting only information, whether it’s true or not, that fits our opinions, instead of basing our opinions on the evidence that is out there. 
_{Obama farewell speech}

The poor in spirit do not commit evil. Evil is not committed by people who feel uncertain about their righteousness, who question their own motives, who worry about betraying themselves. The evil in this world is committed by the spiritual fat cats, by the Pharisees of our own day, the self-righteous who think they are without sin in because they are unwilling to suffer the discomfort of significant self-examination.
The major threats to our survival no longer stem from nature without but from our own human nature within. It is our carelessness, our hostilities, our selfishness and pride and willful ignorance that endanger the world.
Unless we can now tame and transmute the potential for evil in the human soul, we shall be lost. How can we do this unless we are willing to look at our own evil?
The major threats to our survival no longer stem from nature without but from our own human nature within. It is our carelessness, our hostilities, our selfishness and pride and willful ignorance that endanger the world.
_{M. Scott Peck – People of the Lie}

STILL ON THE JOURNEY

• 1
  An echo chamber is a metaphorical description of a situation in which information, ideas, or beliefs are amplified or reinforced by communication and repetition inside a defined system. Inside a figurative echo chamber, official sources often go unquestioned and different or competing views are censored, disallowed, or otherwise underrepresented. The echo chamber effect reinforces a person’s own present world view, making it seem more correct and more universally accepted than it really is. (Wikipedia)
• 2
  Natural frequency is the frequency at which a system tends to oscillate in the absence of any driving or damping force.

Pathway to Surviving and Thriving in Echo Chambers

Coming to the conclusion of this series of posts, the intent is to suggest some understandings I believe necessary to navigate the turbulent waters of life in a society dominated by echo chambers.

For too many of us it’s become safer to retreat into our own bubbles, whether in our neighborhoods, or on college campuses, or places of worship, or especially our social media feeds, surrounded by people who look like us and share the same political outlook and never challenge our assumptions. In the rise of naked partisanship and increasing economic and regional stratification, the splintering of our media into a channel for every taste, all this makes this great sorting seem natural, even inevitable.And increasingly we become so secure in our bubbles that we start accepting only information, whether it’s true or not, that fits our opinions, instead of basing our opinions on the evidence that is out there.
Obama farewell speech

Accepting that echo chambers are a fact of our existence in today’s society, two important questions remain. First, how can we survive that experience? Secondly how can we thrive in the on-going reality of echo chambers?

To survive the experience of echo chambers, it necessary to understand the breath and depth of the peril we face.

• Echo chambers can be a catalyst for evil.

The poor in spirit do not commit evil. Evil is not committed by people who feel uncertain about their righteousness, who question their own motives, who worry about betraying themselves. The evil in this world is committed by the spiritual fat cats, by the Pharisees of our own day, the self-righteous who think they are without sin in because they are unwilling to suffer the discomfort of significant self-examination.
The major threats to our survival no longer stem from nature without but from our own human nature within. It is our carelessness, our hostilities, our selfishness and pride and willful ignorance that endanger the world.
Unless we can now tame and transmute the potential for evil in the human soul, we shall be lost. How can we do this unless we are willing to look at our own evil?
M. Scott Peck – People of the Lie

Certainty, conviction, and dogmatism reduces our anxiety in the face of life. Having all the answers feels good. That’s the upside. The downside is that certainty, conviction, and dogmatism makes you suspicious and wary toward people who have different beliefs. And that suspicion sows the seeds of intolerance.

Richard Beck

• Residing in echo chambers can be dehumanizing.

Living in an unmitigated echo chamber can dehumanize ourselves and our dissenters. It is a dark place that brings out the worst in us. Erwin McManus describes that place as a biopsy of our souls. A context where what is inside of us is pulled out and made public, revealing any malignancy within us. Aberration becomes normal.

A relentless bombardment of filtered information and media affirms and reinforces our beliefs and biases. The deeper our convictions about our rightness, the more we believe we are omniscient. In essence, we transmute into God and cease to be responsible to anyone but ourselves. In that sovereignty,  we are no longer restrained by a virtuous human nature, but are free to act in ways, inhuman or otherwise, necessary to protect our rightness. We abdicate our humanness . Correspondingly, we see our detractors as less than human and deserving of our actions.

We all seem to exist in huge feedback loops, squelching dissent, and growing more extreme in our thinking, blithely ignoring evidence that our respective positions might be wrong. In fact, we want little to do with each other.
Michael Frost

In the absence of a realistic understanding of echo chamber’s potential for malevolent outcomes, we will be content to revel in our self-delusion of omniscience.

In the digital age, it is unrealistic to think we can opt out of echo chambers in our daily experience. The important question is, how can we thrive?

Five keys to thriving in echo chambers.

1.  Recognize and cultivate the positive potential of echo chambers.

There is opportunity for good. Echo chambers can function as a “deliberating enclave”.

…“enclave deliberation,” … defined as “that form of deliberation that occurs within more or less insulated groups, in which like-minded people speak mostly to one another.” … (Sunstein)

The main value of deliberating enclaves is not that they increase conversation across differences, but that they enable like-minded people to make progress in what they agree about.

2.  Continually seek to be self-aware.

The human mind is an overconfidence machine . The conscious level gives itself credit for things it really didn’t do and confabulates tales to create the illusion it controls things it really doesn’t determine . David Brooks

3.  Continually evaluate your beliefs.

A good place to start [evaluating beliefs] is to be particularly critical of sources that support your beliefs. “I’m always the most suspicious of beliefs that I have or conclusions that I come to that are in line with my own ideology,”  “So if I have a particular worldview and something supports my worldview, then I have to be especially suspicious of it. Because that’s when I’m going to be most vulnerable. Because that’s when I’m going to be most vulnerable. That’s when my motivated reasoning and confirmation bias are going to try hard to engage… but that’s exactly when you should question it the most. It’s a high-energy state, and it takes a lot of vigilance and a lot of practice and a lot of dedication. It’s a life-long practice, and there’s no shortcut to that. You just have to really be dedicated to policing your own thinking.”
Dr. Steven Novella

4.  Intentionally engage dissenting beliefs through media and relationships to achieve understanding.

Alex “Sandy” Pentland in “Beyond the Echo Chamber” commends the concept of social exploration.

Social explorers spend enormous amounts of time searching for new people and ideas—but not necessarily the best people or ideas. Instead, they seek to form connections with many different kinds of people and to gain exposure to a broad variety of thinking. Explorers winnow down the ideas they’ve gathered by bouncing them off other people to see which ones resonate.

5.  Never forget that you are fallible. With every interaction we experience, we must remind ourselves “I could be wrong.”

“Truth is not something we possess, it is, hopefully, a goal to which we strive.”  M. Scott Peck

Epilogue:

This post concludes a six month journey which began during our winter hiatus in Florida. An excerpt from my first blog post explains why I began writing on the subject of echo chambers:

The subject of echo chambers has become increasingly personally relevant. After recognizing my self imposed political/social echo chamber, I made a decision to dampen the echoes and open myself to different sources.

My efforts have met with mixed success. The peril of trading one echo chamber for another is real. The most significant result of my decision, thus far, is that it has become a catalyst for more serious thought and investigation into the character and nature of echo chambers. This blog post is the first, in what I hope to be a series of posts, addressing questions, ideas and issues that I have encountered related to echo chambers.

Although this post concludes this series, the subject remains of significant interest to me. I have been sensitized to the reality of echo chambers and there are few days that I do not encounter explicit or implicit references to them in my reading or listening. I expect that I will continue write on the subject.

In the beginning, as I became more and more interested in echo chambers, my enthusiasm and passion grew. I initiated this series of blog posts through which I hoped to stimulate some interest on the part others. My assumption was that everyone would see the importance of understanding echo chambers. It did not take long to discover that conversation about echo chambers ranked somewhere behind conversations on race and religion. In an attempt to receive some constructive criticism, I asked numerous people if they would read my posts and give me feed back. With one or two exceptions, my requests went unheeded. Although disappointing, that experience confirmed what I was learning about the difficulty  of addressing the challenge of echo chambers personally and societally.

Additionally, I experienced the reality of  Facebook’s ability to control and influence the information we send and receive. Based on anecdotal evidence, I found that my blog posts on echo chambers, unlike other subjects, rarely showed up on my friends timelines. I interpret that as a result of impersonal algorithms, not something directed to me personally. Unfortunately, the result is the same.

I am undeterred in my belief that echo chambers are a threat to our democracy but more importantly, a threat to our humanity.  M. Scott Peck states it well:

The major threats to our survival no longer stem from nature without but from our own human nature within. It is our carelessness, our hostilities, our selfishness and pride and willful ignorance that endanger the world.

George Ezell
Wilmore, KY

1. I know I am right.
2. I think that I am right.

Who are we?

Are we #1 or #2?

The truth is that we are both. Each of us has the inclination to protect our rightness and because we are “right”,we have permission to use any and all tools at our disposal to protect the “truth”. We believe we will do so in a civil manner, but sheltered by our echo chamber we are released from any constraints  of civility.

To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are.    Eric Hoffer

Humility is not about having a low self-image or poor self-esteem. Humility is about self-awareness.     Erwin McManus

The most difficult thing in life is to know yourself.    Thales

The following citation, in reference to a recent Starbucks incident, further illustrates the importance of self awareness.

Starbucks has an ambitious plan to try to address discrimination and unconscious bias by training nearly 175,000 of its workers one afternoon later this month. According to David Rock, director of the NeuroLeadership Institute, eliminating bias would require people to become completely self-aware and objective about their own thoughts, and Rock says no one’s found a way to do that.

“Any strategy that essentially relies on people to try not to be biased is doomed to fail; that’s the heart of the problem,” he says.

A prerequisite of self awareness is the greatest challenge to surviving and thriving in echo chambers. To see and truly understand ourselves is the only antidote to the self-deceiving nature of echo chambers. Self-deception is a path of least resistance. The lure self-deception is so consuming that any thought that we can will ourselves into self awareness is, ironically, self-deceiving.

Self-awareness occurs when we are exposed by light from external sources which strip away the shadows of self-deception and leave us profoundly naked and humiliated. It is in those moments that we cannot only see who we truly are, we are also able discern who we should be and what changes are needed to transform us.

Three examples of dramatic events of self-awareness from the Bible illustrate the power of such events to change lives. 

Apostle Peter

“Even if everyone else falls to pieces on account of you, I won’t.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Jesus said. “This very night, before the rooster crows up the dawn, you will deny me three times.”

Peter protested, “Even if I had to die with you, I would never deny you.” All the others said the same thing.

All this time, Peter was sitting out in the courtyard. One servant girl came up to him and said, “You were with Jesus the Galilean.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I swear, I never laid eyes on the man.”

“I don’t know the man!”

Just then a rooster crowed. Peter remembered what Jesus had said: “Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” He went out and cried and cried and cried.

King David

The Lord sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor.  The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle,  but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.

“Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.”

 David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die!  He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.”

Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man!  

Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.”

Saul of Tarsus

Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest  and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem.  As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.  He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

 “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.

“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied.  “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

It is my opinion that humans are incapable of  truthful self-awareness without external influence. Those influences can range from serendipitous, confrontational, coincidental to self-imposed. They maybe characterized as spiritual, dramatic, tragic, unjust, prophetic and/or mystical.

Every one of us, in the course of our lives will encounter many and varied external influences which can give us, at least, a glimpse if not an indelible view of ourselves. When we recognize those encounters and become more truly self-aware, the trajectory of our lives will bend toward virtue.

The following are two examples from my own experience.

A significant part of my career at Ford Motor Company included working as an internal consultant for organizational change, specifically training and development in participative  management. Effective communication skills were a critical factor to any success. Accordingly, I had the opportunity for my communication skills to be assessed and improved. I must admit that, at that time, my opinion of my communication skills was very high. In fact, I felt the assessments were unnecessary. A part of the assessment was to participate in a role play exercise which involved conflict and required skillful communication for resolution. The exercise was video taped.

After completing the exercise, I was pleased with my performance and was looking forward to reviewing the video.

The video was shocking. In my mind I had been polished and convincing, skillfully controlling the situation and reaching a satisfactory  resolution.  What the video revealed was angry, intimidating facial expressions and body language. My demeanor was controlling and  arrogant.

For the first time, I recognized what others had known all a long. I  was not the person I believed I was. With that realization, I began to understand why many prior difficult interpersonal circumstances had puzzled and frustrated me and defied resolution. That occasion of truthful self-awareness was a turning point which changed me profoundly.

The second example also relates to my communication skills, but in a different context. My confidence (arrogance) regarding my communications skills displayed itself in my role as a father. Five children were a convenient opportunity to utilize my gift. I seemed to be doing reasonably well with our first three children, all boys. The arrival of two girls was a game changer. Thankfully, I was able to translate my professional skills into may role as father. I was pleased with my ability to communicate with our oldest girl who, at the time, was in her early teens.  It was on the occasion of Father’s Day that I received a card from her.

Appreciative, but a bit puzzled, I opened the card.  I can   only describe my reaction as stunned. It was a moment of self-awareness that I have not forgotten. My image as  a “great communicator” was revealed for what it really was, self delusion.

The peril of unmitigated echo chambers is their inherent character to impede, if not block, external influences which would otherwise provide opportunity for truthful self-awareness. We become blind and deaf to anything other than that which affirms our self-deception. As a result, progress toward thriving healthily in an echo chamber requires at least two personal responses:

1. …intentionally develop a sensitivity to the routine external influences that we encounter in our daily lives. (Essentially, “stop and smell the roses”).
2. … make intentional choices that will expose ourselves to external influences i.e. social relationships, community, neighborhood, family, friends et al.