Extending the Venn

Playing 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon to Avoid Engaging on the Issues

“Um, he’s sick. My best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who’s going with the girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious.”

-Simone Adamley

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was the first VHS my family owned after I fished it out of a K-Mart bargain bin as a 7-year-old kid and begged my parents to buy it. Because I watched the movie no less than 50 times (singing along to what I thought was “Dark Ashamed”), Simone’s quote above covering for Ferris’s absence comes to mind often when I see Twitter arguments materialize.

Some people might be more familiar with the pop-culture game “6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” in which you try to connect any actor, living or dead, to Kevin Bacon through connections to other actors in 6 films or fewer. As an example, take Kevin Bacon and Edward Norton. Kevin Bacon was in Sleepers with Brad Pitt, who was in Fight Club with Edward Norton. Only one degree of separation exists between them. Of course, if you’re a movie connoisseur at all, you know that there are no degrees of separation between Bacon and Reba:

Either of the above demonstrates what is now the default tactic when arguing over contentious issues: extending the Venn diagram. Paint the opposition as allied with other scoundrels by connecting them through one or two (or more) seemingly logical bridges, then attack the new chimera as a whole. Politicians have been doing this for years, or maybe forever. People must believe the tactic is effective because it’s employed ad nauseum, even when the logical bridges are stretched to comically idiotic lengths (see Godwin’s Law). I think “extending the Venn” at best presupposes a lack of sophistication in one’s audience, and at worst assumes everyone outside one’s orbit (and socio-political allies) is an abject moron.

The Covid-19 discourse has been particularly susceptible to this tactic. It’s striking how many — particularly in the professional class — seem to think that they cannot waver from anything other than full-throated defense of everything the politicians and talking heads on the “good team” tout. Relevant Covid-19 topics over the past two years include lockdowns, circuit breakers, business closures, school closures, WFH, masks, mask mandates, vaccines, vaccine mandates, vaccines for children, and more.

The goal in extending the Venn is push the opposition (or your detractors) as far into the fringe as rhetorically possible by enlarging the circle containing their position to try and encompass a more extreme one down the line, and the one after that if possible. Take the following position: “Proof of Covid-19 vaccination should not be required to participate in the routine trappings of society, such as dining, shopping, going to the gym, etc.” Many on Twitter, including verified folks in the medical/public health professions and even public officials, would immediately (and reflexively) try to pin such a position as far down “anti-vax” line as they could. In their minds, there is no room for anything that could conceivably be used to foster dissent.

Some of you may read that last paragraph and thought to yourself, “Yes, Craig, but so many bad-faith actors out there use defensible or nuanced positions as a Trojan horse for their real thoughts.” So what? Dishonest people are everywhere. Of course someone who is against vaccination writ-large will also be against vaccine mandates to work out at your gym, but we can’t suspend reasoned debate of particular issues (requiring a 5-year-old to be vaccinated or the family can’t eat together at a restaurant, for example) based on some idiots who think they can co-opt a reasonable position in order to bring more people into their “microchipped” Facebook group.

We need to stop racing to the bottom by assuming everyone is either in the enlightened class or the idiot class — and then working to make sure any quasi-normies are quickly categorized appropriately. Many countries are better able to deliver nuanced public health messaging to their citizens because the polarization there hasn’t infected every single crevice of society. One might hear: “Get vaccinated because it might save your life, but we’ll wait a bit on the 3-year-olds based on competing (exceedingly low) risk profiles” or “Masks all day on children haven’t made a material difference and don’t pass a cost/benefit test.” You can disagree with these statements. What you shouldn’t do is quickly try and extend the Venn diagram to make sure these statements are equated to wanting to kill grandma or thinking Covid isn’t serious by whipping out your 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon game and saying, “Oh, so you agree with [some lunatic grifter] who also thinks that we shouldn’t mask 3-year-olds in daycare?” On the daycare mask thing? Sure. On the Bill Gates microchipped me and I stood too close to a gold-fringed flag and flew through “chemtrails” thing? Nah, not those.

I understand the current political landscape, and I understand that social media has mainlined purity tests into our veins. But I don’t like it. In fact, combatting this is one of the reasons I started The Issue (and I discuss it in my About section of this newsletter). The antidote is to disarm first and forever from the tactics above (and similar ones). Don’t be a politician, even if you’re a politician. People are eminently capable of seeing through this nonsense to issue itself. They may not be the ones who clap like seals online for banal, eyeroll-inducing takes so they can participate in racking up Twitter “wins” for their team, but they’re there.

PS: My apologies for the long break between newsletter posts. I’m going to work harder to make sure I’m more consistent going forward. Thank you for taking the time to read!

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