Nolan Higdon, lecturer at Merrill College and the Education Department at University of California, discusses his latest book co-author with Mickey Huff, Let’s Agree to Disagree: A Critical Thinking Guide to Communication, Conflict Management, and Critical Media Literacy (Routledge, 2022). Covering the cultural performance of “social justice,” Higdon argues the need for critical thinking skills while noting how social media gives users a “delusion of power” whereby they believe themselves to be an authority on all topics such that when disagreement occurs, blocking has become the default means of interaction. Higdon focusses upon the importance of constructive communication and for individuals to learn how to have their ideas challenged and, at times, to being uncomfortable by fomenting productive relationships of communication instead of the present-day dumpster fire that social media encourages. Considering big tech’s hold over information, Higdon historicises the involvement of DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) in everything from mass surveillance tools to drones to the internet while noting how big tech is quite happy to do business with whomever is in power while trafficking in the “progression of neoliberal capitalism.” Higdon elaborates how major media and big tech have misrepresented working-class criticisms of the economic shutdown during the coronavirus pandemic by spinning the January 2021 demonstrators in Washington, DC as “white supremacists” and “gun nuts,” marginalising any discussion of class. All this while big tech silently removes social media accounts and certain information from the internet.
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