The Case for "Logic Duty": Beyond Social Media's Quick Judgments
If I could, I would get rid of social media. Why? Because it encourages quick thinking, opinion agreement-seeking, judgment, and rejection, all of which effectively block the logical thinking and benefits that logic brings to society. What's wrong with quick thinking? It fails to filter out psychological biases. And opinion agreement-seeking, embodied by the "like" button on Facebook and similar platforms, polarizes debates. If Gill expresses an opinion I share, but in a slightly stronger formulation than I would accept, I might still feel compelled to 'like' it to show support for those who share my views and to signal our collective strength to others.
What’s wrong with judgment and rejection? It might seem obvious, but from a brief social media post, people often generalize to the whole identity of a person and reject them as fundamentally flawed. This goes against logical thinking because, as I elaborate in Logic in the Wild, logical thinking involves slowing down, taking time to consider various points of view, and trying to find coherence among our opinions. Logical thinking encourages us to slow down and think things through collaboratively, not combatively.
I would eliminate social media because, while it does generate some benefits and allows connections that would otherwise be very difficult, all things considered, I feel social media do more harm than good. Of course, that’s a fantastical and impractical idea. Social media are unfortunately here to stay. So, what’s the alternative? I propose introducing a “logic duty” in society. Think of it like jury duty, where any citizen can be called upon to spend a certain amount of time serving a civic duty in a trial until a reasonable verdict is reached that represents a deliberative decision from the community.
Logic duty would involve being called upon to spend a certain amount of time serving a civic duty to deliberate on dialectical issues—issues that are controversial in society, that have established camps and shared opinions that are incoherent as a whole. A “logic jury” would be tasked with finding coherence among diverging views and proposing a resolution back to their community or society. I didn’t invent this idea. It’s modeled after deliberative democracy, and some experiments have already been conducted, which suggest hope for an alternative way for society to debate deep issues other than relying on keyboard warriors in social media wars.
