I Need You (to agree with me)
For a hot minute, it came as a terrible disappointment; realizing this person I so admired might not, for once, share my views felt like a punch to the gut. That is, until my analytical brain kicked in, and started snooping around — why d’you need them to agree with you on everything?
And indeed, why do we?
In complaining about online toxicity, what a lot of us actually mean is the hours of seemingly endless arguing with those pariahs that might dare hold a different view from our own. Oh, we pull out all the stops to convince, cajole, shame, and sometimes straight up bully our opponent into agreement.
And sure enough, we invent a story where in doing this, we are actually heroes. We are contributing to the re-education of the old, the poor, the stupid, the left-wing, the right-wing, the extremists and the hermits who’ve been living under a rock. We’re doing them a service, because irrespective of who they may be, they’re wrong. And we are right. Why so? Because it’s our story, and do you remember any fairytales, growing up, where the hero wasn’t always right?
From a strictly individual perspective, our desire for agreement seems harmless enough. In a scenario where we are both protagonist and narrator, having others agree with us is no mere whim. Rather, it’s an imperative, one on which our very survival may hinge.
From a very early age, we learn that agreeableness suggests a higher survival rate. As infants and toddlers, we need our primary caregivers to like us, else we risk going without nourishment and protection. It seems extreme, but only because you’re reading it as an adult. When you’re two and Mom is the only semblance of safety, you lack the common sense that says of course she won’t just abandon you if you irritate her.
Furthermore, in order to gain their approval, we unconsciously train ourselves to bend and shimmy to accommodate our caregiver’s particular likes and dislikes. We learn to agree with their views, to laugh at their jokes, and to share in their little oddities and particularities. This is not to say the jokes aren’t actually funny, just that we’re biased to find them amusing (at least for a time), regardless. It’s also how so much emotional scarring appears. A child desperate for survival will mould themselves to their parent’s character, be it toxic or healthy.
And then, we grow, and going off of that childhood lesson, we move forward into the world knowing our best bet is to agree. To identify a pack that shares our value and belief system. Either that, or we might just starve. On a subconscious level, the stakes are, indeed, pretty damn high.
It’s natural then, and to an extent healthy, to seek out peers, and to form relationships with people with similar ideas and values. It always has been, yet the arrival of the Internet seems to have escalated things to a ridiculous, and worrying degree.
Before the inception of the world wide web, one only knew of people who shared in his beliefs on a fairly small geographical scale. Sometimes, you were lucky enough to find like-minded folk in your village or town. Perhaps you created friendships with someone who lived on the other side of the country, but your choices were fairly limited in terms of socialization. Which naturally forced people to suppress their need for agreement (undoubtedly, still existent in one’s inner world, but kept in check, as all impulses must be), and coexist with people they disagreed with.
The Internet changed all that. It put us in contact with millions of “like-minded people”, for a start, which rapidly created the illusion of a very strong pack. A pack so strong, in fact, that it eventually grew to challenge the natural order of the forest, and unleashed our own inner tyrant. If apps like Tinder create the illusion of endless options, the Internet itself cements the beguiling deception of absolute right. In the digital world, I can triumph, clutching my own (skewed and biased) beliefs alone, for I am many. Yes, my peers may be faceless, nameless, tags on a screen, but enveloped tight in their bosom, I am safe. I am pack.
And I won’t, should you cross me, hesitate to tear out your throat.
Yes, the Internet does us a disservice by enabling and encouraging herd mentality, but I believe there’s deeper forces at play. On a psychological level, and particularly in this age of disinformation and social alienation, we’ve actually allowed ourselves to believe in the mythical supreme truth by which one party becomes the pitiable outcast, while the other is crowned the victor.
And in our own stories, we are always the victor. My own opinions, beliefs, ideas, and political inclinations must be supreme truth, because they suddenly can be. Lost in the shadows of my faceless pack, I no longer need to play nice with my disagreeable neighbour. And even if I, bowing to my overriding human soul, laid down my arms and sought truce, I would immediately be cut down. Because the world is cruel and merciless, so I must shout harder, be tougher, pelt arguments I heard elsewhere. Because Lord forbid they hit me, instead.
What does need for agreement say about us?
Again, I was shocked to find my friend (which inevitably must mean total agreement in all things, no?) held different views from my own. Yet, the more I allowed my irritation to run through me, the clearer my own insecurity became to me.
On some levels, this person and I were immensely in tune. Moreover, their input had helped me a great deal in some personal matters. Their sudden disagreement cast doubt over all that shared history. Could my friend still be my friend in a difference of opinion? Could this person still have intrinsic value, and play their assigned important role in my life if we no longer saw eye-to-eye?
I went through a series of rapid-fire questions that helped me recalibrate,
If I need them to agree with me, it automatically signals insecurity. Which part of this particular belief am I insecure about? Is it the concept itself? Do I perhaps not know enough about this problem to form a firm opinion? Where could I improve my knowledge?
Is it actually my belief I’m defending, at all? Many of us never escape that survival mechanism of automated agreement. More often than we think, we’ll quit jobs, divorce, and even go to our graves defending views that, when you break them down, aren’t even our own. We inherit and adopt beliefs and ideas from our parents and peer group and wear them like a borrowed identity. It’s understandable, perfectly so. The need to belong is, after all, a natural human necessity, and we’ll do almost anything to earn that safety, even if it means going to war with another human being who did us no greater harm than disagreeing on a matter far removed from us both.
Am I feeling powerless? Much too often, our vitriolic disagreements issue from a profound feeling of powerlessness. Verbal altercation is at its core a power struggle. We argue so that we can win, in turn demonstrating our higher standing in the hierarchy. I am, by default, smarter than you, more well-read, more politically aware, more empathic (because so much of our current discourse is masked behind holier-than-thou “good intentions”).
Except, if I’m relying on someone else’s capitulation to “win”, the battle, if battle it needs be, is already lost.
None of this is to say that any argument is a waste of time. I firmly believe we should argue and defend our views. If you believe in something with all your heart, I hope to heaven you have the wit, knowledge and temerity to defend your opinion. Just make sure it’s your opinion you’re defending. And as you go, maybe keep an eye out for your own personal well-being. We so easily accept that the people we know and love are closeted monsters because they disagree on some or another “important matter” we often forget we’re all just human beings, and most of us, well-intentioned enough at heart. So remember, that person you’re chasing out of your life defending borrowed beliefs might prove a better friend to you and your personal growth than the person who first fed you said beliefs in the first place.
Thank you for reading! I’m fairly scatterbrained, and this was one of the many random subjects that pique my interest.
I recently put out my first book (the first in a fantasy trilogy), and am working on the next two. So there’s a chance I’ll be talking about that, sometimes.
So if you’re someone who enjoys that kinda writing, well, why not subscribe? It’s free. And I’m desperate. So there, honesty.
