What's Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies

by Tim Urban

In October of 2022, PayPal announced an impending policy change that would deduct $2,500 from the accounts of users who sent, posted, or published material that “depict, promote, or incite hatred or discrimination of protected groups or of individuals or groups based on protected characteristics (e.g., race, religion, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation, etc.)” or those who “promote misinformation.” David Marcus, former PayPal president, criticized the policy, tweeting: “A private company now gets to decide to take your money if you say something they disagree with. Insanity.” Liberals around the world recoil when they hear stories about China’s “social credit score,”⬥ which is said to blacklist people who aren’t deemed to be “trustworthy citizens.” Blacklisted people, unable to buy train tickets, buy a house, or do a large number of other basic things, are essentially banned from society. Tech companies, with the ability to block people from reaching their followers, selling their books, marketing their restaurants, or accepting payments for their business, have the same kind of blacklist power. America doesn’t have a social credit score—but these are stories of people effectively being blacklisted.

I said earlier that my problem with Social Justice Fundamentalism isn’t the ideology itself. I strongly disagree with most aspects of SJF, but there are hundreds of ideologies floating around today’s world that I don’t like. My problem is with SJF’s tactics—the fact that it’s an expansionist golem that attempts to spread itself not through persuasion but through bullying, smear campaigns, loyalty oaths, guilt by association, and other coercive measures.

This is what we have to remember when we read about some high-profile person getting canceled for defying SJF. No political group in a liberal society should have the power to destroy a person’s livelihood or reputation at will. When a group does have that power, it reveals a big crack in the society’s liberal armor. Once that crack becomes apparent, it will be exploited again and again, to increasing degrees, like a spear pushing deeper and deeper into the society’s vital organs.

Common-humanity rhetoric Look at a successful progressive movement of the past and you’ll hear a lot of “common-humanity” rhetoric—the kind captured by civil rights activist Pauli Murray in her essay An American Credo: I intend to destroy segregation by positive and embracing methods. When my brothers try to draw a circle to exclude me, I shall draw a larger circle to include them. Where they speak out for the privileges of a puny group, I shall shout for the rights of all mankind. This kind of language, which speaks directly to people’s Higher Minds, builds the broad coalitions that can create seismic change. SJF speaks instead to people’s Primitive Minds using the “with us or against us” language of “common-enemy” rhetoric—while stigmatizing common-humanity rhetoric like “there is only one race, the human race” as bigotry. Common-enemy rhetoric creates division and limits the movement’s size and ability to make enduring change.

Free speech is the only nonviolent tool for criticizing and challenging the status quo. It is the engine behind every social justice movement in American history, from the abolition of slavery to gay marriage. In any society, it is the little guy who relies most on free speech. But SJF takes the opposite stance, framing free speech as a tool of the powerful and something marginalized groups need protection from.

In their book The Coddling of the American Mind, Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff share a list of “common cognitive disorders” that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy practitioners believe cause anxiety and depression, and they note that many of today’s young people are actively being trained into the precise kinds of thinking CBT aims to eradicate—like overgeneralizing, all-or-nothing thinking, blaming others, and focusing on the negatives.

The first part of our solution is awareness, and the gateway to awareness is humility. We all spend time in Unconvinceable Land as Attorneys, sometimes even as Zealots. We all identify a little too much with certain ideas. We’re all unknowingly standing on Child’s Hill with at least a few topics, where our level of conviction far exceeds our level of knowledge. When it comes to the beliefs we hold most sacred, we’re all prone to confirmation bias. In one way or another, we’re all gullible, all in denial, all delusional Disney protagonists. We all have out-groups and we all dehumanize the people in them. We’re all tribal. We’re all hypocrites. We’re all wrong. Because we’re all human.

So the first call to action is: Put your own mask on before helping others. Do a self-audit. Where in your internal life is your Primitive Mind holding the reins? What are the triggers that activate your Primitive Mind and leave you buried in fog? Where do you tend to be at your best—consistently high rung, wise, and grown up? What is it about those moments that gives your Higher Mind such a strong advantage? Can you replicate that elsewhere? Think about your beliefs. Play the “why” game with them, like an annoying four-year-old. Why do you believe what you believe? When did those ideas become your beliefs? Were they installed in you by someone else? Are they beholden to some tribe’s checklist of approved ideas? If they are authentically yours, when were they last updated?

Think about your values. If you love a political party or a movement because it stands for your values, and that party or movement slides away from those values, are you sticking with it out of tribal loyalty? Or because your values have truly changed alongside it? If the party or movement has departed from your real values, stick with your values. If you do, you’ll be accused of having changed—of having “left” the party or movement.

Think about the beliefs of those you disagree with. Do they have any merit? Could you state them to your opponent, in all their complexity, in a way that would make your opponent say, “Yup, that’s what I believe”? Or would you oversimplify or misrepresent those beliefs? If you can’t steel man your opponent’s beliefs, you don’t yet know whether you disagree with them or not. Everyone believes they are fighting on the side of the good, the right, the vulnerable—even your opponents.

Think about people or groups you hate. Who are you disgusted by? Remind yourself that this is almost always a delusion of your Primitive Mind. You certainly don't have to like everybody. But when you’re disgusted by a person or a group of people, you've gotten swallowed up by human craziness. When you find yourself here, try one of these exercises to snap yourself out of it: Think small. Imagine the little details of the life of the person you’re hating: the sticky note they leave in their kid’s lunchbox, the calendar on their wall with little plans written in the squares, the leftovers in their fridge from last night’s home-cooked meal. Like you, everyone else is ultimately just trying to be happy. Think big. Read about the universe. Nothing makes hatred seem more ridiculous than internalizing how vast time and space are. Doing so makes me want to turn to anyone who will listen and hug them and say, “We both exist! On the same tiny planet at the same exact time! Hi!”

Think outside yourself. Every person has a unique childhood, a unique set of traumas, unique mental health issues. There are many people not lucky enough to be born as intellectually or emotionally intelligent as you were, not lucky enough to have an upbringing like yours. You have no idea what kind of grief, heartbreak, or other misfortune another person may be suffering through. However awful someone is acting, it would probably make a lot more sense if you could spend a few minutes inside their brain.

Awareness is a necessary but not sufficient condition for us to right the ship. Because awareness + silence changes nothing. This is where the second ingredient comes into play.

Courage Courage is an Outer Self project.

Marcus Aurelius once wrote, "If it is not right, do not do it. If it is not true, do not say it."

Life, liberty, and property” were the inalienable rights defined by Enlightenment philosophers like John Locke. In the U.S. Declaration of Independence, the Founders altered the phrase to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” But the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment says “No person shall … be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”