Why I hate democracy
Only joking, I love democracy. This article is actually about why I hate people who only read the headlines of articles or news stories.
How many times have you spoken to someone who has only glanced at the headlines - maybe the few bullet points below it - and regurgitates a hot take with complete authority and confidence? Or perhaps made a swift value judgment call on a person before they can even explain themselves? Same goes with short snippets on videos, or TikTok. Many headlines might even betray the very core of a title if you read a little further (like this one).
A great example of this is the Daily Mail, famous for having long and winding headliners with baked-in value judgements (Millions to get bumper pay rises in Budget: Chancellor Rachel Reeves is set to announce 6% hike in National Living Wage to at least £12.12-an-hour - as small business owners voice fears) The article title is long, winding, and partially misdirects the issues it explores… but that’s not the point. It’s one of the most popular news sites in the world, and the actual content is rarely browsed by its readers. It’s nearly always the headline, then the two or three bullet points below it, followed by the misguided comments at the end.
Some topics don’t need it. If I Google whether a Marvel movie has a post-credits scene, I don’t especially need to know whether Thanos wanted to romance the very concept of death herself etc. But there are many other topics where it is either politically contentious, inherently complex, or a dangerous cocktail of both. And we have crafted a culture where we value fun-sounding bites or sentences over a deeper understanding of almost anything. We now look for swift gratification - to understand a topic in full based on out-of-context snippets, like piecing together a puzzle without understanding the full picture.
And I believe this is really important to solve. Democracy assumes a well-read and informed public making sound decisions on how a country should we run. If we continue to brutalise facts into a tepid facsimile of their former selves, then I may end up hating how our democracy will evolve.
