Draft Four: My facts, my truth
The difficulty of changing our minds.
Sean Cole has smoked for 35 years. As he entered his early 50s, he got a medical diagnosis that pushed him to quit. He tells this story in a recent episode of This American Life, one about the troubles we all have with quitting things (or people).
Sean smoked heavily, and many of his habits were tied to lighting up: a few minutes every morning by the window, leaving the office, driving. He felt smoking made him more aware and more relaxed at the same time. But he had to quit so he turned to a worldwide best-seller, Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking.
What the book does is reframe the need to smoke into its opposite: the joy of not doing so. It wants you to switch sides, from being a smoker who quit, to identifying as a non-smoker. The latter presupposes temptation is gone and challenges the idea of withdrawal as more that a mild inconvenience. Thus, if you can’t quit, maybe you didn’t follow the instructions close enough.
Although Carr’s method has worked for many over the years, it’s not working for Sean. He feels guilty for failing. Stupid for craving something that makes him sick. As any good reporter would, he goes on a quest to understand what’s up. On route he stumbles on science showing that nicotine can indeed make one feel both more focused, and more relaxed. But withdrawal is real, and quitting can feel like giving up something that was working for the body (while simultaneously destroying it).
Sean talks through the scientific evidence with Andrew Huberman, now a superstar neurobiologist with an incredibly popular podcast, who says he has a neurobiological theory about why Carr’s book works despite its ignoring of the science:
“What [Carr] did is, he tried to bypass all the deeper biology of dopamine-acetylcholine addiction, et cetera. And what he did was, he said you’ve got a forebrain. Your forebrain can tell itself stories. By telling itself stories, you can set context. So let’s tell yourself a story.”
Those that quit using the book largely quit because the new story (me as a non-smoker) displaces the other one, sometimes to the point of addressing the withdrawal. That’s the same idea behind habit changing advice that says don’t just start running, tell yourself a story about becoming a runner.
For some, like Sean, who tells stories for a living, the narrative wasn’t enough. He had been smoking for so long that his biology had changed. Without his cigarettes he felt slower, weaker, unfocused. Learning the science helped him feel less weird. So he decided to have a chat with the guy who runs Carr’s global empire today and told him about Huberman and the science on what makes nicotine so hard to give up. John Dicey – that’s his name – wasn’t buying it (I’m quoting from the show’s transcript):
Sean Cole: You think [Huberman] is wrong?
John Dicey: I don’t think he’s wrong. I know he’s wrong.
Sean Cole: He’s a neurobiologist.
John Dicey: I don’t care what he is.
Sean Cole: Uh-huh.
John Dicey: That’s what – I’m not being disrespectful to him.
Sean Cole: Yeah, no, sure.
John Dicey: He has a theory. His theory –
Sean Cole: Well, it’s based on – it’s based on –
John Dicey: He’s just wrong –
Sean Cole: – tests –
John Dicey: – on many levels. And I’m struggling to understand why there’s a desperation to prove or believe that nicotine does something when it doesn’t. I’ve never heard so much nonsense in my life. I’m sorry. Very nice guy, I’m sure. And I’m sure he believes what he’s saying. But it’s absolute nonsense.
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Got that?
I don’t care what the evidence says.
Tests, research, science are “just a theory”.
I believe something else.
All else to the contrary is nonsense.
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Does this sound like any conversation you might have had or seen online recently?
This summer is hotter than ever. I don’t believe that. There’s evidence that the average temperatures have spiked, and more heatwaves happened in recent years than decades ago. I remember many hot days from the past. You’re a climate change denier. You’re just brainwashed.
The Pride march supports the rights of the LGBTQI+ community. I don’t care what they do, but they shouldn’t do it in public. It’s unnatural. Actually, there is plenty of science that has shown queerness to be present all across nature. That is just anti-family propaganda. Many queer people want to start families, too. That’s not what a family is.
We could keep going.
Just in the last week, Romanian Facebook, that seedy place people over 30 go to argue their days away, hosted a shouting match over a Recorder documentary about police abuse that a cop/influencer believed wasn’t accurately done, and he had his own facts to prove it. After some digital peacocking on all sides, Recorder did a great job of being transparent, showing their method, and backing up their facts.
Still, let me repeat it (and it’s probably a theme of my letters this year): by and large, facts alone don’t change our minds.
The cop/influencer never changed his mind either, he just backed down and apologized for pushing the issue (and trolling), but only after people he trusted pointed out that his behavior was out of line. He stopped simply because the story he tells about himself is not that of a troll, not because he realized his own facts don’t prove his case.
There were other shouting matches in recent weeks – from more innocuous ones on the merits of various bands, to Barbie vs. Oppenheimer of course, to a particularly demoralizing one, spawned by a piece of sloppy journalism about two teams competing in an academic competition – one of boys, one of girls. The news made it look like the boys were favored because their expenses for the competition were covered, while the girls had to pay their own way. It turned out it wasn’t like that, and it was just a matter of ranking, and the rules were followed so it looked sexist, when it wasn’t. Then a social scientist made it a mission of proving we are all emotional online (especially if we said “sexism” too soon), and he, acting as the village “logic bully” (a phrase Adam Grant uses to describe what he learned about himself) was going to set everyone straight. It was bitter, vengeful, and demoralizing to follow.
And I’m not even going to go into the proposed changes to the Romanian tax code because that’s a milkshake that brough everyone to the yard, and it got messy real fast.
If in any of these debates anyone hoped their use of facts would change minds, I doubt it happened – because when there is no trust, no safety, no container for conversation, there can’t be any true listening. And online, everyone has their shields up and is watching their back.
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I have my facts. You have your facts.
You believe what you believe.
I believe what you believe is nonsense.
What is our chance to have an honest conversation?
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“For many people, a challenge to their worldview feels like an attack on their personal identity and can cause them to harden their position”, says this professor of human development. We love confirmation of our biases, we reject information that contradicts our views, and – goddamn brain! – we also crave floods of dopamine and adrenaline. “In your brain, they contribute to the feeling of pleasure you get during sex, eating, roller-coaster rides – and yes, winning an argument. That rush makes you feel good, maybe even invulnerable.”
Fighting to win arguments online? Kinda like sex.
No wonder we’re out there hoping to troll ourselves into ecstasy.
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I have a harder and harder time engaging on social media: I posted 42 times on Facebook this year, and not once in my Instagram feed (I use Stories maybe once or twice a week). Part of the reason is that I want to avoid the stimulation of endless fighting – it’s bad for me. I don’t get any pleasure from shouting matches, and I do my best to not become a conflict entrepreneur.
I do believe in occasional callouts of the powerful (don’t just turn the internet on a random person though) and tough conversations about all the topics above, but ideally ones that lead to solutions, not mobbing or despondency. And those are more likely to happen in person, where there is no “enemy”, but a real person you might have differences with.
Many of us crave this – I know I do.
Last week I told you about the struggles the young people I met at Aspire, many of which we got to discuss over lunch, dinner, and drinks. Then, last Sunday, we had 20 amazing young people in our office to brainstorm the journalism of the future. Among the questions these Gen Zs were wrestling with, many were about co-existing in a world where everyone has their own truth. “How can we live with our neighbors without killing ourselves?” Or “how can I drink a beer with a supporter of AUR without getting into a fistfight?”
Personally, I need more journalism willing to answer those questions, ideally from multiple vantage points. But the journalism we have is largely trapped in the same conflict-inducing spiral of pointing fingers and scoring victories against the other side.
And now you know why: winning arguments is exciting.
It’s partly the reason why, a few nights ago, I also had a dozen journalists from various outlets over for dinner. We got food catered, we had lemonade and wine and beer, and we discussed our challenges. Sure: corrupt politicians made the list. So did money and resources. But there was so much else: young journos worrying about not being good enough, licking wounds inflicted by abusive or uncaring bosses, trying to live outside of work and finding it impossible to disconnect, becoming obsessed with analytics although they are not a true measure of impact, wanting to become better and not having the support to grow. And so on.
“Thank you for the safe space”, many said when they left.
We didn’t do anything special. We had food, drinks, a minimum structure to facilitate conversation and to make sure everyone’s voice is heard. (A good rule of thumb for group convos, especially when ideas are discussed, is “no piss”, as Jacqui Banaszynski once said – which means not attacking or contradicting someone else’s idea or experience. That happens every single day at work for many, and it’s not what you want to replicate.)
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One of these journalists messaged me soon after the night ended to say she had a good time. But she couldn’t figure out what I was after in the long run. The answer – beyond some ideas for professional development – is “I don’t know”. But I understand where she’s coming from.
I feel fear and distrust everywhere. We meme part of them away on Insta and TikTok as forms of avoidance. But they are still there. And we push against everything and everyone to see whether there’s a breaking point that will reveal the deception or aggression we’ve grown accustomed to.
Quitting smoking, debating Romanian feminism online, arguing over the tax code or the merits of a journalistic investigation seem disparate moments, no relation. But what ties them together for me is how wound up we are – how ready to defend our truths, how prepped for conflict. There is very little humbleness to go around, and low reserves of curiosity, too. We listen to rebut, we post to have the last word, we regard understanding the other as a sign of weakness.
Often, no matter what side we are on, we act similarly.
I have no clue what to do about this other than do what I’ve done recently: join small groups (dinner-sized is good) or find ways to bring groups together and hope for something less confrontational, less cynical, more generative, more hopeful.
This is hardly scalable, but it might be replicable.
I recommend food and at least a discussion prompt. Here’s therapist Esther Perel on her rules for a successful dinner gathering:
“One big dish that has it all inside where we can all eat from the same pot. Start the party with a good question for the table, and don’t just stay stuck talking to the person next to you. Invite a beautiful mix of friends and new connections so there are some people who know each other very well and others who are there for the first time. Combine familiarity with curiosity and novelty.”
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What Sean Cole did in his smoking story is model a template for us: be vulnerable and share your own difficulties in changing who you are, engage with people who challenge the facts you’ve marshaled and try to understand why they’re resist, stay curious and open to new paths.
Sean ultimately takes his case to a psychiatrist specialized in addiction, who tells him nicotine increases dopamine by 150%, which is 50% more than sex. The psychiatrist also changes his whole framing: The book didn’t work. Nicotine is a tough drug to give up, science is right. And it’s possible your 51-year-old brain can’t story itself out of this problem.
He’s not a failure for not becoming a non-smoker. He is just in his own category of smokers/former smokers, whose brains are less plastic now that they have aged, so any change requires extra help. After 35 years of smoking as a form of fuck you to being alive, giving it up to be healthy is a not easy. It’s a struggle of facts, and stories, and time. But the struggle will generate a new reality if you stay open and curious.
SIDE DISHES
Speaking of trust – what if you can never trust an institution? (Especially a news institution). What if confidence is a better word and something easier to measure?
Every time I think of our phone and social media addictions I go back to this Jia Tolentino essay in which she reviews two books I loved: Digital Minimalism and How to do Nothing.
Yes, anger leads to hate. And the rise of the extreme right in Romania – which is getting many teens excited – is happening right under our noses; this is a great and frightening read on where we stand.
Part of the anger and distrust we’re feeling we’re directing at our own bodies. As someone who is still struggling with his own body image since an accident in my childhood left me with permanent burn scars halfway down my back, this story on body dysmorphia by Andra Mureșan was a welcome embrace.
If you are interested in gathering better, there are few guides as good as Priya Parker’s The Art of Gathering. Read it, and your next event – from the birthday of a friend to a work meeting – can be much better. (A book is too much? Try this 20-minute podcast).
If you are interested in the difficulties and possibilities of influencing others, I had a great time reading this book a few years back: The Influential Mind: What the Brain Reveals About Our Power to Change Others. Tali Sharot is a professor if cognitive neuroscience and this sentence captures a great deal of her advice: “Influence behavior by building on common ground instead of trying to prove others wrong”.
And one last call to help make a change in someone else’s life. We gathered the last issues of the last DoR from stores, and decided the best way to put them to use would be to give them as thank you gifts to 100 people who donate at least 100 lei (20 euros) for transgender activist and film director Patrick Brăila to finish a documentary about his life. We have a couple of dozen left; all are signed by Patrick. Sign up here to get involved!