Proportional Investment

Or: just why exactly Thanksgiving is unbearable, and how it's your fault as much as it is Aunt Jones's.

The too long, didn't read version of this is that critical evaluation needs to scale with emotional investment or you're just another dunce. Onward to the weeds...

You know about weaving then attacking straw men. It's disingenuous at best, lazy at worst. The term is also now shorthand for 'I don't like your argument,' unfortunately, which is a shame but that's how language goes with trickle-down misuse from our culture's intellectuals. Digress.

If you value your own opinion, you need to steelman it. If you actually put work into challenging your own notions, finding the most informed opposition and digging into wells of evidence, you'll find things you didn't consider. They will at the very least add nuance to your original position and increase the ease of refuting counterclaims.

"But Territory, I don't have the time or energy for that. I've got kids, and Netflix, and Twitter, and my wifehusband and I work full time in demanding jobs and we still can't pay the bills."

Spoiler: Relevant image

This was me, every night. This is how I became Sodium Man.

That's fine. Just stop talking about politics.

"But I heard that x/y is a woke fascist good feminist or white supremist bad feminist."

Yeah, and at what age do you learn that you can't trust those claims? 30? 45? 85? 110? You're running out of time. Think about it critically or stop thinking about it at all. Every individual capable of cognition has a personal responsibility to adhere to this principle. This isn't 'echo chambers' or the 'algorithm' trying to rile you up. Stop externalizing. Take responsibility for your own level of information. You didn't stop being a free agent as soon as your opened an application on your phone.

If you don't have the time to look into it, don't. Then move on. It's either important or it isn't. It either matters or it doesn't. Match the degree of emotion or engagement with the level of critical thought.

J.K. Rowling and the allegations against her are one example. No intention of side-tracking here, our opinions on that are moot—how we got there is what matters. I have met countless, countless people that parrot she is transphobic, but never actually looked at the content of her open letter or tweets in question. It's a dangerously innocent question I ask, as well:

"Oh, well what did she say?"

No one ever knows. Again, and I will carve this into your forehead if needs must, I do not care what you actually think about J.K. Rowling and you shouldn't care what I think either, but if you made up your mind without reading her tweets or open letter, and worse, experienced any kind of outrage (in her favour or against) about it without gathering evidence, you're part of the Thanksgiving dinner problem.

It is you. You're just as bad as Aunt Jones.