How to stay sane in an age of division review – toxicity in the digital age
“Stories bring us together. Untold stories keep us apart.”
While many of us were baking banana bread, pretending to take up new hobbies and spending far too much time on the internet, Elif Shafak set out to answer one of the most pressing issues of the modern age: how to stay sane in an age of division.
Her answer comes in the form of a small booklet made up of ninety pages. The conciseness is, perhaps, designed to appeal to the shortened attention spans many have experienced since lockdown. And it works, the entire book is easily breezed through in little over an hour.
Shafak evaluates the “the age of division” as a result of two contrasting conditions of humanity that often refuse to coexist; wanting to be heard and being willing to listen. These conditions are, in Shafak’s view, exemplified by digital culture and the increasing polarisation of the online world.
If in 2020 the internet feels as if it is the only space in the world without coronavirus, in the 1990s it felt like the internet might be the only space in the world where everyone could have their voice heard. Instead, it is so oversaturated with those trying to shout the loudest, almost no one gets heard: “How is it possible that in an era when social media was expected to give everyone an equal voice, so many continue to be voiceless?”
The author’s premise is that the “systematically unheard” will, in turn, refuse to listen to views outside their own. Thus, putting the onus back onto the voices which refused to give a platform to these voices in the first place. But both parties are complicit in this dichotomy, “the moment we stop listening to diverse opinions is also when we stop learning,” she writes.
The voices of some have always been given the platform to speak louder than others, but the issue we face more than ever today is how easy it is to turn off the views you don’t agree with. “Group narcissism”, as Shafak defines it, is the desire only to hear views and opinions that align with your own. This is a conscious or subconscious trait of much of the modern world; living and breathing in echo chambers. And these Echo chambers are more isolated than ever because of the hundreds of thousand algorithms that analyse our likes and beliefs online every day, curating content to reaffirm and cement our views. In time, this slowly breeds extremism, through constant, unquestioned existence, sheltered from any disagreement.
The flaw in Shafak’s argument is, of course, is that many of the politicians who have their views readily listened to more frequently than anyone else are arguably some of the worst listeners out there (or so it seems). But overall, Shafak makes a good point on the polarisation of the internet and the transformation of social media from a forum of discussion and diverse opinion, to a space where views must be unwaveringly final. This breeds mass cancel culture when mistakes are made, with many users dismissing any opportunity to learn and grow.
If coronavirus is the earthquake, the aftershock will come in a crisis of meaning, Shafak writes: “our dictionary is in flames.” The crisis has both brought longstanding issues to the surface and provided valuable time for reflection, basic words such as “democracy”, “normal”, “happiness” and “selfishness” have become shapeless in meaning, she argues. We must rewrite the rules for society.
At the core of a successfully reconfigured society, Shafak believes, is identity. “A human being, every human being, is boundless and contains multitudes,” she writes. By committing ourselves to echo chambers dominated by unchanging views we whittle away at our boundlessness until we conform to one neat identity. “We should not encourage such singular identities but embrace all identities and belongings,” she writes, “and in doing so make more connections with others.”
Throughout the book, Shafak annotates her peacekeeping with anecdotes about her life from childhood, to finding success as a novelist and moving to London. The most resonant story comes from the description of her three-generational upbringing with her mother, who went back into education after Shafak was born, and grandmother who raised her, while her mother studied. The three women are used to exemplify the need for inter-generational social cohesion in the modern age. There was once a consensus that “we inherit our circumstances, we improve them for the next generation,” she says, “my mother and grandmother had an entrenched belief that tomorrow, almost by definition, would be brighter than yesterday.”
Sadly, this belief does not withstand the crisis and tragedy of today. For months we have lived with the overbearing knowledge that we are headed into higher death rates, a global recession, a brutal winter, a second wave; tomorrow has become scarier than yesterday.
And what about the generation that has been given, by one hand, better education and opportunity than their grandparents could have dreamt of? But on the other, a worsening climate crisis that might be too late to undo and a global pandemic to top things off. How does the younger generation accept the circumstances they have been dealt and put their energy into the optimism of trying to improve the world for the next generation? It is no wonder, as Shafak puts it, that “ours is the age of contagious anxiety.”
The middle three chapters focus on an alliteration of the emotions defining the past few months; anxiety, anger, apathy. What we must do, Shafak believes, is turn these emotions into a force for positive change. Take the anger and the outrage and use the strength of emotion to connect with others in the same boat; “I equally doubt anger by itself is a guiding force and a good friend in the long run.”
And finally, Apathy. The biggest challenge of all. After months of death, devastation, and disaster “how do we simultaneously remain engaged and manage to remain sane?” By refusing to fear complexity or emotion, Shafak writes, analyse the emotions and channel them into productivity: “We all have the tools to build our societies anew, reform our ways of thinking.”
Shafak may not have provided a foolproof method of staying sane through these trying times, but I doubt such a method exists. Instead, she does something better. She offers an antidote to the hatred and division that defines today, through articulate and well-grounded argument that even the grumpiest would find hard to dispute. When the crisis is over, and the dust has settled let’s hope our leaders take a leaf or two out of Elif Shafak’s new book.
How to stay sane in an age of division by Elif Shafak is available now from Hachette for £9.99.