Suppose a black guy is shot by a cop. I have absolutely no information about it. I don’t know if the black guy was shot, for example, accidentally or in a conflict. I don’t know if he was armed or not. I don’t know if the cop shooting is black or white.
I know nothing about it.
Now — should I have an opinion on this matter?
The obvious answer is “No, I should not,” but that’s not the real answer.
In this #HotTake non-culture culture, I should definitely have an opinion.
Based on what, if i have no information?
Based upon my tribal sympathies and chauvinisms, is the answer.
See, anyone can condemn a cop shooting once they know the actual facts and the facts turn out to show that the victim was innocent and the cop was blameworthy, fast on the trigger or negligent or what have you.
But if I wait to know the facts, what does that say about me as a person? It says nothing about me — again, anyone can see the facts of a bad shooting and then say “That was a bad shooting.”
No — to establish yourself as on a higher moral plane than other people, You have to offer a strident, emotionally-hot opinion without knowing anything.
Because only if you don’t have the proper facts upon which to make that determination can you successfully advertise the fact that you are knee-jerkedly siding with BlackLivesMatter.
(Or, for that matter, with cops, if that’s your preference.)
Again, this is not a game of showing that you’ve come to a reasoned judgment after the evidence has emerged and you have apprised yourself of it.
Bad people can use the power of reason too, after all. Racists can see a shooting was bad, if the evidence proves the shooting was bad.
The game is not to make a reasoned, fact-based judgment — because that says nothing about your default sympathies, tribal allegiances, and ideological priors.
The game is to make an unreasoned, non-fact-based judgment, a judgment based only on emotion and allegiance and chauvinism — because that, unlike a fact-based judgment, shows where your heart is.
That’s why people in the #HotTake culture pressure others to take positions before any facts are actually known — facts are for the emotionally cold.
Ace, “Our #HotTake Culture and Why It Exists, and Open Thread”, Ace of Spades H.Q., 2016-08-26.
May 17, 2018
QotD: Emotion beats the facts (to post on social media)
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