In light of being open to criticism, I think it is important to understand where our fiercest critics are coming from and try to take their perspective into consideration without compromising our ideas. As I read through the comments, it is clear that our language, often perceived as “snark,” plays a big role in how people view and interpret our ideas.
As the debate on ItsGettingHotInHere unfolded last night, I found myself in a tricky situation. Environmentalism, and the youth climate movement in particular, is a huge, if not defining part of my life. My friendships, my work, and my passions seem to revolve around this crazy movement. So, anger expressed on ItsGettingHotInHere in response to Breakthrough posts has a profoundly personal impact, as some of my closest friends are the ones feeling it. Anyone who knows me knows that my friendships make up the core of my life. And I have never been someone who likes conflict—I love bringing people together and rarely (to a fault) find any reason to criticize.
Because of this background, I have spent the past two weeks speaking my frustration with the potentially divisive nature of Breakthrough, and many of my peers here are rightly sick of my “let’s just get along” approach. But I also resonate with the ideas at Breakthrough.
I believe we offer important contributions to the climate movement. I decided early on to keep an open mind, and have come to find that I am inspired by the stuff that goes on in this office, and am truly impressed by these people with whom I have the privilege of working for the next 10 weeks. And, as Helen’s articulate post points out, I believe that constructive criticism is healthy. This summer will be an extraordinary learning experience for me as I learn that I simply can’t agree with everyone as I continue to form my own voice and opinions.
When thinking about my initial responses of frustration, I realized it primarily stemmed from tone and language. I was initially so blinded by the Breakthrough “snark” that I didn’t even look at the arguments. Snark elicits an emotional response in people—it certainly did in me. No matter what research or well thought out argument backs up the content of the criticism, one word—be it “stupid” or “irrelevant”—can be the only thing people hear. In work where we value our own relevance in our cause and respect from our peers, we must acknowledge that words like that can only make people close their minds to us and become more divisive than the criticism itself. If we aim at constructive criticism, we need to make sure we provide an opportunity for those critiques to be heard.
So this is my call to all at Breakthrough. Let’s pay attention to language. Framing and presentation are extraordinarily important, and can be the difference between allies and adversaries. Let’s remember compassion, even when we criticize. And, let’s make sure criticism is only part of our summer together.
And, for anyone else here, be open to criticism. I certainly am trying to be. Take an in-depth look at the ideas, which will develop better throughout the summer. There are some challenging ideas presented here, and ones that may be threatening. But I believe, and you may disagree, that they deserve some careful consideration.
Hey Lindsey,
Thanks for this post. It sums up what I was trying to say in my comment last night very well. I asked you very clearly to “cut out the inflammatory tone” — I never told you to stop criticizing. I don’t believe that IGHIH is the right place to be posting criticisms (do it all you want on your own blog here), but I’m not going to stop you from posting to IGHIH because I believe it should be open to everyone in our movement.
Yochi
Very eloquent, Lindsey
Watching language and tone is especially true for communication over the internet. Cyber communication versus in-person communication is like the difference between tapping out a song and singing a song. Your audience is less likely to understand your tone over the internet. Therefore, clarity is essential.
A lot of conflicts are not actually deep on a ideological level–they are simply human reactions to feeling personally offended or attacked.
Let’s get to the meat of the issues by insuring our discussions are not clouded by dangerous assumptions about our audience or careless language choices.
No matter how right anyone thinks they are, the best way to win people over is with some R-E-S-P-E-C-T. We all want to find the right answers so we can kick some global warming ass, right?! Right.
True to character, a very reconciliatory and reconstructive post by Lindsey. Thanks.
However trite, I’ll only add that any post will not be met at face value, but understood through the sinuous expectations of the readers.
You at Breakthough Generation have been handed a formidable challenge. As representatives of Shellenberger and Nordhaus, you are expected to criticize, expected to find fault and not yet expected to present solutions. Unless you make it otherwise, your words, however well-meaning, may be met with the assumption that they will divide not progress, and be stalely dismissed.
Please don’t make it so. You have been given the opportunity to work all summer towards finding a solution and I am confident that you will make great progress. But don’t cry wolf on this one. Don’t give reason to expect derision so your words are dismissed or dissected before any real solutions are presented.
Lindsey pressed the need to pay attention to the words within your criticisms. I ask that you step back even further in understanding why people react viscerally not cognitively to your posts. What have they learned of your message that makes expect to fight rather than to think?
Great point Carol. As always, I think your perspective is a valuable one.
These underlying assumptions present us with the challenge of making our message extraordinary clear, relevant and substantive.
I hope we all can rise to the challenge.
With so many indifferent or opposed to action on the carbon issue, I would think that Breakthrough and the Climate Youth Movement would be looking for common ground to advance carbon reductions. Certainly there are many ways to get there, but getting the public more interested and involved is key. I would think cooperation in areas possible would yield results both groups would find beneficial.
I agree entirely, and I hope that collaboration will be a big part of what we do this summer.
Understanding differences, as well as similarities, is usually a good place to begin any collaboration. I think that is where we at Breakthrough can really work hard to improve– clearly identifying what we are trying to do, so those differences and similarities can be found.
[...] person’s voice, obscuring participants’ internal conflict – as powerfully expressed by a recent Breakthrough Generation post. A friend here in Minnesota introduced me to a new term yesterday after we read all of the critical [...]
Hi, I’m glad someone brought this up. I am a liberal, but it does annoy me that liberals tend to feel that they are morally superior, and it shows in the way they talk and write. That was actually why I am often turned off by many liberal groups and causes and was initially very skeptical even of the environmental movement (in addition, of course, to the fact that many traditional environmentalists seem to be merely anti-development). Of course, being righteous and ranting is fun. I do plenty of it, but definitely, liberals need to realize that those writings are more for yourself and people who already agree with you than an “official” statement of what you really think on the subject. On the other hand, “inflammatory” things get noticed and you get more responses. So perhaps some indignance every once in a while is needed.
On unity vs. disagreements, though, I think that actually there is a lot of value in presenting your ideas to the outside world (outside of Breakthrough) as a group. That is, arguments and posts about Breakthrough should mostly stay in Breakthrough. Even though a House Divided can still be strong, I don’t think you can really deny that part of why Democrats have not been pushing through their agenda is because of a lack of cohesion.
I’m sure I don’t understand very well what is going on with all this bickering. I’m just a passer-by who really likes the breakthrough book and the idea of the think-tank, but it seems like people at other blogs feel that Breakthrough is kind of invading their space. I think it’s wrong to accuse them of wanting to just agree with each other. Blogging is politics, too.
Your entitlement of breakthrough in language would seem to me to be a misplacement. I would suggest a breakthrough in discussion or knowledge about a particular subject.
I have written a 500 page dictionary: Albright’s World Fonetiks Dikshunare. Please see also Cleareducation.com.