Are we living in an 80s film?

80s films were fun.

You knew who the good guy was, there was a villain you could shout at, plenty of fighting, and you knew that there would be some kind of satisfying showdown where the good guys always won.

But there was also meaning: characters had flaws to overcome, and in their struggle we would learn something of the human experience.

There was nuance and meaning, and some of that seeped in as brain food, but at that age we didn't care about that, and such films became an excuse to hit each other with sticks.

Have at ‘em, Bruce.

To be true to playacting the scenes, there could be no gagging. Bruce Campbell’s Ash had to invest in the scene completely. No matter what the lunacy was surrounding them, the characters had to be completely earnest.

WE knew it was silly, even the actors did. But the characters didn’t.

Fast forward to today, and it’s not the characters having these serious partisan battles over ridiculous things: It’s us. Some are even playing the role of the earnest warrior in their efforts to make film characters more shallow while making themselves just as abstracted without realising it. That’s pretty funny!

Why do we do this? And what does social media have to do with it?

Twitter is a wrestling pit.

The game of Twitter is not to learn or connect, it is to signal belonging to a tribe, and how willing you are to smash 'enemies' of that tribe.

A Twitter engagement gives the participant time to do only two things: Declare your own position, and insult or dismiss opponents of that position.

Just like being in an action film, beating up the ‘bad guy’ feels good! You get to be the good guy, declare your allegiance and status, and triumph. Good guys win! Hoorah!

'Well that gave me a rush,' we say from our high horse as we bathe our brain in dopamine and self-righteousness, looking for another enemy to lance.

And so you do. You turn on anyone with ever more slight deviance from your own position, lance them, and wave a shiny-armoured hand to our tribe in the gallery for our favours in raised thumbs.

A victorious knight at the Arizona Renaissance Fair

There's the game: The payoff is in praise and status, not understanding.

Neither engaging in good faith nor seeking to understand the opinions of other player are advantageous to playing the game.

Reading source material is detrimental, since facts have a pesky way of showing that you were wrong to some degree, and knowing this takes you away from the wall on the extreme side that you fight for.

And it is important to show your tribe how sincerely you believe the beliefs. Gaining sympathy for the other side of the argument means spending mental energy blotting it out again.

So to keep your position, you must remain ignorant, and be repulsed by any information counter to that of the tribe, for fear of being outed.

We are those 80s film characters: Completely unaware of the ridiculousness of the situation, yet fighting earnestly, sincerely believing that we're on the right side of it.