My Echo Chamber Against Yours

There’s a strange feeling I get when I hear an opinion very different to my own. After all, how often does it happen these days?

I spend hours a day with my wife, with whom I share many of the same points of view. My brothers, born and raised in the same household hold the same position as me on many issues.

The office is rarely the place to hear challenging opinions, so it’s easy to assume that the people with whom I work share my viewpoints on plenty of matters.

And, of course, when I glance at my social media channels I am certain to read the familiar talking points I have memorised about politics, sexuality, religion, and the rest..

This is the echo chamber in which I live.

I enjoy it here.

However, there’s one dimension to it which is causing me some concern.

The online echo chamber to which I am a part is where I spend a lot of my free time. It makes sense to me, mostly. It comforts me, and I feel totally wound up in this online world of YouTube videos, podcasts and Twitter threads.

It’s like being part of a tribe of millions, all shouting and cheering together. Marching in vaguely the same direction, belonging to the same team. It makes us all feel great to share the same values and, perhaps crucially, stand against the same people.

And that’s where things get difficult for me.

The other voices in the chamber curated for me by YouTube, Facebook, Google, etc., have enemies.

The Left, third-wave feminists, progressives, marxists, Gen Z. People who think men can turn into women. People with strong views about group identities. People with dyed hair. People who think skin colour is inherently beautiful. People who dislike white people. People who dislike brown people. People who use pronouns different to those I am accustomed to using.

I can feel my blood pressure starting to rise as I think of the people whom my echo chamber label the ‘enemy’.

And that’s what I am starting to resent.

I don’t want enemies.

I want to be able to sit down with a pink haired, marxist, pro-abortionist feminist, trans man with a chip on their shoulder about a white cis-het man like me.

And I want to sit down with them because I am aware that they are also from an echo-chamber.

Like me, they spend time online chanting the same slogans, reading the same books and listening to the same podcasts. Their blood boils when they read my tweets about Jordan Peterson, or my flagrant mis-gendering of a queer celebrity.

When we eventually come face-to-face, I hope we can find some common ground. Some solid foothold upon which we can hold hands and celebrate how amazing it is to be alive.

But, like robots are designed to regurgitate the words of their programmer, we will eventually find ourselves talking the language of our tribes. The opinions of my tribe against those of their tribe. Jordan Peterson’s words against Robin DiAngelo’s. Trump versus Biden. Douglas Murray versus Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. Ilhan Omar versus Ayan Hirsi Ali. Joe Rogan versus Brian Stelter.

We are enemies on an imaginary battlefield. Set against each other by people, and companies who profit from our perpetual disagreement.

“SAD!”