The Ethics of Standing on a Soapbox

EDIT: This was before Elon Musk used nasty language to "defend" himself against a man who risked his life to help save those children. Him doing that really reinforces the necessity of the conversation I begin here.

Today, I wanted to write about mistakes, but there is a discourse going on right now surrounding tweets by Elon Musk and Hank Green, that I find interesting. Rather than focus on the issue of job creation itself, the foundations of the issue seem more important.

One of the first lessons I really took to heart was “defend yourself.” It was a big moment for me, crying on my bed after getting bullied the entire day at school, when my dad asked “what did you do about it?” And I told him “I walked away.” If my memory serves me correctly, my dad couldn’t understand this mentality. The issues affected me emotionally, and I didn’t deal with them. If you read my last blog, you’ll know that I don’t sit by idly anymore, but back then, I never defended myself, just my friends. I was scared to, to be honest. I had been shoved, hit, and pushed over too many times to really think about standing up for myself.

So, I walked away. In some cases, this made me an emotional volcano, it made me joyless, it made me sick. But in other cases, it made me the “bigger man.” The world is situational, and the reality of it all is, there is no easy way to know when you’re allowed to “clap back.”

While even the most devout readers might not be able to tell, I lost my original blog last week. I had to reformat and repost everything under the cover of a site backup, so I don’t have metrics anymore. But say, I had 100 views on every blog, and 50 of each of these views had “total user engagement,” which means that person stayed on the page for long enough to actually read the piece in its entirety. Do I, as a writer, have a responsibility now to be couth? Or am I free to speak my mind, since your participation in this blog isn’t mandatory? Could I litter this blog with radical opinions and persuasive language, or is that ethically untoward?

Now, let’s transform this. What if my blog had a bigger following and I had a few employees, an editor, a graphic designer, maybe even some merchandise. At that point, my words can affect their livelihood, no? I’ve hired people for their skillset, and now what I say affects more than just me and my engaged readers. At that point, do I need to be careful with what I say?

It’s a tough call. I think the reason I enjoy writing so much is because of the honesty and rapport I can have with you, the invisible reader. I can’t ever know who the 100+ average viewers are, and I certainly can’t know who is of the engaged 50%. All I can know, is what I think and what I write. This is the only factor I am in control of. Meaning, I need to use that effectively.

I can’t solve the issue of two men who are way smarter than me. Hank Green and Elon Musk are inventors and entrepreneurs of the highest caliber. From my perspective, they are exceedingly successful. But, if I had to give them advice, I’d say there’s more to life than being right or wrong, which is the second biggest lesson I ever learned in life.

So, when you’re being attacked, what’s more important? Being the “bigger man” or fighting back? Does this change when you’re the visionary of several massive publicly traded companies? It depends on the scale of the attack, right? In many ways, Musk is a victim, but that doesn’t make his comments less incendiary, and as Green says, they’ve both benefitted greatly from the skills of others.

I’m a strong proponent of the idea, that as long as you’re not hurting someone, what you do is justifiable. But sometimes, inaction, or even action with risk, is necessary to navigate the troubled waters that come with an interconnected world. Fact is, it’s not easy to let someone tell you how you should feel, or what you should be doing. Additionally, it’s very easy to let negative emotions take over when someone mistreats you. So, where can we, as humans, even go from here?

So you think someone with a large base of “followers” has an obligation to be a role-model? We can, of course, further relate this to world leaders, musicians, or even parents. The word for this is responsibility. Words and actions can affect anyone, and it seems like certain individuals might have the capacity to create more links in a chain of woe than others.

Suddenly, I’ve found myself in a mire of social issues that I didn’t intend to bring up. As in, what are the obligations of a human in a connected society? Age old motherly advice kicks up, telling me that the only obligation is to be yourself, but my mom also taught me that when I don’t have something nice to say, I shouldn’t say anything at all. Which, in many ways, puts the entire conversation back at the start, because what are the ethics of being unkind, when you’re being attacked?

I get that I’ve wandered off here, and somehow wounded up at the trail’s head, which might just speak volumes about the importance of this issue. We live in a world where being an “influencer” is a real title.

While the issue is fresh in your head, tell me how you feel about it in the comments. Is there an ethical gold standard we should all abide by? Or is there an ethical tax bracket system where the more followers you have, the higher standard you’ll be held at?

Personally, I’m still torn. I’m passionate, and I know I’ve said more than I should on many occasions, and that I struggle to hold my tongue, but I also know that given the chance, I’ll try to hug a hater before I hurt them.