When a controversial event occur, it feels like the world goes into a frenzy. Everyone talks and everyone has an opinion. Social media is in a craze. Instagram stories are reposted left and right. People cite statistics they read on Twitter after a single Google search. Your mom is up in arms when you just wanted to call home to catch up with family.
The Roe v. Wade overturn, impending climate change doom, FTX collapse, and Elon’s acquisition of Twitter are all examples of controversial events.
It’s not easy to make sense of the mayhem. Is anyone even trying to? Are most people just reacting? Where are the facts? The real facts. Are they even worth trying to find? How do you know when you’ve found them?
I want to understand what, how, and why. All three are important for me, not just addressing the outcome, but also understanding the system behind it and how it led there. I think that is needed to for lasting change. Usually understanding what is the easy part, even if people are saying different things. The how and the why are much harder.
I don’t have refined strategy for understanding things, but I have crafted a framework to help make sense of what I hear, by who, and what to expect of it. Here are the four levels of social analysis:
- Emotional — 95% of analysis. The immediate and loud reaction, focused only on the outcome of the event. People have a high-level opinion of whether the event is right or wrong. Limited facts, or just echoed facts, back up an opinion. You can find this type of response all over social media or talking to someone at a party. Most people don’t have time to dive deeper. They react and they’re loud. They rarely change their opinion because they’re not really here for a discussion. This analysis is static, but it’s a useful signal. It provides a high level sense of what people feel and believe to be right or wrong.
- Rhetorical — 3% of analysis. This is the discussion from the non-expert sense makers. They aren’t the lawyers for legal matters or investment bankers for financial matters. They are the generalists — the podcasters, the independent journalists, the successful in their random field. The discussion tries to make sense of how and why. They focus on both sides of the story, maybe with their bias, but leveraging their expertise to understand the event at a deeper level. These are the conversations that can happen for hours, with targeted, non-emotional discussion points. Those that come into this level of social analysis with an open mind may walk away with a changed opinion, new insights, and a deeper understanding. This analysis is dynamic.
- Expert — 2% of analysis. Despite the outcome, despite the rhetoric, what really occurred here and what does it mean? Does the 200 page Supreme Court document have a solid case, even if the outcome seems wrong? What was SBF really allowed to do with the money — is it so different from other companies? What do our lawyers say when they analyze the legal documents in a way only they can with their education? What do our scientists say when they study the underlying data and statistics of climate change? Most people simply cannot play here. This requires domain mastering that only many years of experience and education provides. Experts may distill their knowledge down, but it easily lands misinterpreted in the emotional and rhetorical analysis worlds. Not necessarily because the experts did a bad job communicating, but sometimes because other levels are not listening, or are not able to listen.
- Philosophical — <1% of analysis. The world, government, society, or more generally, system, allowed something to happen where the outcome isn’t aligned with what society seems to expect or value. Why? Is that really the case? Where is the foundational breakdown? What structure isn’t working the way it should be and what change needs to be made? Are things actually working as intended? How is the process broken, what other systems are interfering, how has the landscape changed to become what it is today? This is the philosophical root of understanding why and how. These people are highly knowledge in multiple domains. They have a knack for seeing patterns, making sense of ambiguous topics, and can pull information, trends, and knowledge across a variety of domains. If they are successful, the root of the event is uncovered along with an understanding of how all the systems played together to get there.
