One of my favourite scenes in Monty Python’s classic, Life of Brian, is when Brian, upon waking up, goes to the window and flings open the curtains to discover hundreds of adoring fans have gathered outside. Brian, is, of course, completely naked. (Graham Chapman nude is peak British Comedy….)
That’s not my favourite bit. After tossing on a robe and cap, he encourages the crowd to disperse. The crowd, thinking him the messiah, agree with his every word.
“Look. You’ve got it all wrong,” yells Brian at the throng. “You don’t need to follow me. You don’t need to follow anybody! You’ve got to think for yourselves. You’re all individuals!”
To which the followers reply as one: “Yes, we’re all individuals!”
Brian yells again: “You’re all different!
“Yes, we are all different!” The crowd roars back.
The camera cuts to a member of the crowd. “I’m not,” he says, and his friend quickly shushes him.
Brian: “You’ve all got to work it out for yourselves!”
The crowd: “Yes! We’ve got to work it out for ourselves!”
Brian: “Exactly!”
Crowd: “Tell us more!”
I’ve been thinking about this after watching discussions about the whole Venezuela thing.
One person shares a post about how the people have been without gas, electrictty (that’s what they wrote…) and food for years because of Maduro, who was “selling that oil and keeping the money for himself while the people starve…”
And, while everyone is talking about how the US is just doing this to get their hands on that sweet, sweet Venezuelan oil, “Just know the citizens of Venezuela care less about that…they just want freedom.” In the comments were lines like
And helping people that are starving and being politically oppressed? That’s a good thing.
But the methodology? Might not have been the best. It will take a while for the implications of what has happened to shake out. Will the leadership of the country improve? Or will it just wind up replacing one corrupt dictator for another. I don’t know.
I do know that moments after seeing that meme on Facebook, I saw news stories where Venezuelans are protesting what happened.
Almost like they didn’t fit the narrative being created by the meme.
We do this a lot, us humans. We create a story—whether we be left or right, Christian or coal miner, non-binary or ballet dancer—through which we try to give order to the world we live in.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes, it doesn’t leave room for information and ideas that don’t fit nicely into that narrative. We declare that ALL PEOPLE feel this way, or act this way, or should feel or act this way, and if they don’t, they are dismissed.
Because, while some Venezuelans protested the arrest of Maduro, some probably celebrated it.
And many? Didn’t do either, but went about their day to day life.
I’m not here to say that the ones who protested were right or the ones who stayed home were wrong. Just that different people have different ideas and different opinions.
It’s easy for us to lump everyone together. “Venezuelans just want freedom,” or “Canadians are polite.” But what do we do when we bump into an impolite Canuck, or a Venezuelan who supported Maduro, or maybe just one who is not happy with the way that the US walked into their sovereign nation and kidnapped their head of state?
It’s part of our larger tendencies to put people into buckets. “You are this, therefore you go there.” It’s easy to classify, then ignore people.
Maybe its a function of the way our political system works. 50 percent plus one agree with you, and you can roll over all objections.
Me? I’m more of a 50 percent minus one sort of person. When you don’t have a majority, you are forced to find consensus. You have to talk to other people, and listen.
And it is in this last state—when we are actually listening, actually paying attention—that we learn. Not just about the other person, but about the world around us and, if we are willing to put the effort in, about ourselves, too.
Look. When I was 19, I drove down to California, then over to Texas before coming back to Tumbler Ridge. Ten years ago, I did my first, last and only (so far) trip to the Dominican Republic. Those two trips mark the closest I’ve ever been to Venezuela. Heck, every time I’ve written the word, I’ve written it wrong. I know next to nothing about the country, other than what is being presented on the news, half of which is probably AI generated or otherwise misleading.
I saw a video online showing Venezuelans celebrating Maduro’s capture, but it turns out it was from a protest from a year-and-a-half ago.
(The video, by the way, was shared by Donald Trump.)
The CEO of Graphika (which, despite the ominous K is dedicated to tracking how online networks are manipulated), says in a story over on Cyberscoop: “What we’re seeing so far is quite typical for high-attention geopolitical events: tactics designed to shape narratives and generate engagement while the ground truth remains fluid.”
And by the time the truth is finally understood? Well, there will be enough misinformation, disinformation, AI slop and bad faith memes for anyone to make sense of it all, so we can all just retreat into our own preconceptions, safe and warm. Or maybe, just maybe, we could remain open to the possibility that not everyone fits the narrative that we ascribe to them. Because we’re all different.
Well. Except for me.
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
