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The Bubble

I'm in it.

Let me explain. After the U.S elections in November, I deleted my Twitter account. Then I deleted my Facebook account. Finally, I deleted my Instagram account. Along the way I shuttered GoodReads in favor of StoryGraph, filtered out many unsavory news sources from my Google News feed, and blocked any account that even hinted at conservative/right-wing/MAGA apologist content on Bluesky (Bluesky makes it blessedly easy and fun to block accounts). I subscribed to Parker Malloy's newsletter and Wired too. I gave money to Matter News.

Liliane Lign sculptures, "Liquid Reflections/Series 2 (48")" (foreground) and "Liquid Reflections/Series 2 (40")" (background). Pictured at the Mumok Museum in Vienna.

In short, I've curated my online experience in such a way that I am subjected daily to near constant and unapologetic left-leaning viewpoints. Some would argue this is bad. They would say I'm in a bubble, a liberal echo chamber. Those people would contend that disengaging with people who hold different viewpoints than me is an abdication of my responsibility to engage and learn. How, they ask, can I do my part to bridge this great political divide in our country if I'm unwilling to even hear what the other side has to say?

As an intellectual exercise, that's a fair question. In terms of practical considerations though, it is wanting. That's because what it does not provide for is an exit strategy. That is, how long am I expected to listen, and to what end? What happens when all my earnest listening does nothing more than expose fundamental moral differences? What recourse do I have when I've heard enough to know that what I'm hearing is morally repugnant, self-serving, or some calamitous combination of both? Is there a point when I can rightly declare that I've heard all I need to? Where I'm allowed say, "You, fellow citizen with whom I disagree, are attempting to defend the indefensible. You are seeking to provide justification for that which cannot be justified."? Because frankly, I'm there.

By design, I have literally no idea how people in the MAGA-sphere are defending the actions of this current administration, and really, I don't care to know. That same ignorance holds firm in questions related to our own state's governance. At the end of the day, I do know this: with rare exception the arguments presented boil down to little more than a thin (and thinly veiled) gruel of hate, fear and avarice. 

So yeah, that bubble? I'm in it. Thankfully, it's a pretty big bubble full of a lot of big ideas; ideas like trans rights are human rights, no one is above the law, all persons should have bodily autonomy, black lives matter, science is real, vaccines are good, censorship is bad, no person is illegal, capitalism is a crime, prisons should be abolished, free Palestine, ride a bike, punch a Nazi, lift up the poor, embrace diversity, fight for equity, promote inclusion. And the list goes on...  

   

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