Instant Experts
There was an obscure folk singer who lived in the high arctic called Ted Wesley. I listened to his music when I lived there and a lot of what he sang about resonated with me at the time while living in an isolated little town. Sadly his music has faded into obscurity, and as of December 2021 he's no longer with us. I can only find one album, bootlegged, available to give a taste of his music, and not a single instance anywhere of the song that has stuck with me over the years.
That song was entitled “Instant Expert” and was a lament about people who knew nothing at all about life in the far north who would fly up from “down south” and become instant experts on all things arctic, invariably screwing things up for the people who lived there after they got their consulting fee and flew back “down south”.
I'm reminded of this song almost every time I talk to Americans.
And yes, that specifically: Americans.
#NotAllAmericans
If you've got your back up already because I'm generalizing, and have your mind snapping shut at the notion that you might be part of this, feel free to apply the #NotAllAmericans hashtag and carry on reading.
Just be aware that I may very well be talking about you, so read and think: do you act in this way?
The unbearable weight of conversation
So, let me begin with an illustration of the problem. There's a pattern there. See if you can spot it. (If you're American you likely won't. Which is a huge part of the problem.)
Conversation #1
American: I couldn't live in China. That “social credit” system is just too Black Mirror for me! Me: “Social credit” isn't a thing. American: Yes it is! I read/heard about it in <insert American media>. Me: Yes. You did. It's fabrication. 100% false. It doesn't exist. You are being lied to. American: HOW WOULD YOU KNOW!? Me: I live in China. I live with a Chinese SO. I work in a Chinese company with Chinese coworkers. Nobody knows what you're talking about here if you say “social credit”. American: You're probably working for the CCP! Me: OK, you don't believe me, how about these American sources with detailed analysis of what “social credit” really is and how it really works based on translations from original laws and policies, complete with original sources, side-by-side translations, and detailed analyses? American: Oh. I guess it isn't a thing. Me: You figure?...
Conversation #2
Same American: Everybody knows that Chinese companies are just arms of the government. Me: No they aren't. Same American: Yes they are! I read reports in <insert American media>! Me: No. They really aren't. You're being lied to. Same American: HOW WOULD YOU KNOW!? You probably work for the CCP! Me: I live in China. I live with a Chinese SO. I work in a Chinese company with Chinese coworkers. I'm in a position of trust with the boss. I know every facet of the business from the ground up. I know for a fact there's no government involvement in business beyond the usual issues of licensure that every company in every nation in the world deals with. Same American: Oh. I guess I might have been wrong. Me: You figure?!...
Conversation #3
Same American: I won't do business with China until they admit to the massacre of students at Tiananmen Square. Me: There was no massacre of students at Tiananmen Square. Same American: Yes there was! Me: No. No, really, there wasn't. Same American: I SAW THE PICTURES! Me: You saw some pictures, yes. Taken out of context, moved geographically, all to further a narrative that was more acceptable to the rich people who owned your newspapers in 1989. Same American: Are you claiming there wasn't a massacre!? Me: No. I'm saying there was no massacre of students at Tiananmen Square. Same American: What are you talking about? Me: The massacre was of rioting workers and was the culmination of months of nationwide unrest that even included minor officials and PLA soldiers in cities all around the country. The massacre happened at Muxidi, several kilometres away from Tiananmen Square. Same American: But I saw video of tanks leaving the square! What about Tank Man!? Me: Tank Man wasn't in the square. And didn't get run over either, no matter what you think you saw. Same American: But I did see the video of him getting run over! Me: No. You didn't. Here's the full video footage, before editing for news. Same American: Oh. ... Maybe I was wrong. Me: You figure!!?!... Same American: Why are you being so angry? Me: 🙄
The pattern
Americans have a firm belief that they are the aforementioned Instant Experts™. They have Strong Opinions™ which they believe are Perfectly Valid™ and will fight to hold on to those beliefs at all costs. If you introduce information that is contrary to these Strong Opinions™ you are in for a draining conversation where, no matter what your relative levels of knowledge and information, you have to beat down the Strong Opinion™ (which, recall, is Perfectly Valid™) with ever-increasing amounts of proof until finally, outside of the worst of the extreme left and extreme right, they'll accept the correction.
A full-on battle royale. Every. Time.
And this is just incredibly wearying. Even friendly Americans with nothing but the best of intentions (who are not as common as you'd really wish of a world power!) have a strong tendency to be this way: they challenge everything, telling people who work in a field, live in a place, etc. what it's “really” like and won't take anything on authority, even after a repeated pattern of the person they're talking with knowing their shit.
Literally every time I speak to an American—including friends—I steel myself for Yet Another Battle Royale. I steel myself for being mansplained, whitesplained, westsplained, etc. I steel myself against the curse of the Instant Expert rearing its ugly head again and fucking up my day and the relationship.
The solution
There are actually two solutions. One is on my end (and is frequently done by others too: like how LGBTQ+ groups in China deal with this problem vis a vis American LGBTQ+ groups): avoidance. I find myself, over time, withdrawing from interactions with Americans. I ask myself when about to talk “Are you ready for another endless slog of smacking down mis- and disinformation?” And increasingly the answer is “no” and I disengage. I move on to someone else who isn't making me ask this question.
This is probably a sub-optimal solution for those who wish to actually converse, so this is where the other solution comes in. Unfortunately I don't think Americans are actually able to implement this, so the first solution is the one that is going to keep going on until, in the end, Americans find the people around them who aren't American are just not talking to them anymore. (Like the aforementioned Chinese LGBTQ+ groups.)
This second solution is based on something Americans are absolutely terrible at: humility. Something deep in the American psyche—some profound insecurity—makes admitting that they don't know something anathema. Yet, that's the first step to the real solution to this.
So have the humility to understand you don't know everything. This is true of literally every human being on the planet, incidentally. Just by way of example, the Library of Congress (only one of the very large libraries on the planet) has almost 1400km of bookshelves. That's about 40 million or so books. If we assume 250 pages per book, that's 10 billion pages. A good reading rate for non-fiction material is two pages per minute. That's five billion minutes. 83 million hours. 3.5 million days. 9.5 thousand years.
Ignorance is normal. No, it's inevitable. Embrace it and instead of trumpeting proudly on shit you don't know, take the opportunity to learn instead.
That means don't tell someone living in China for 20 years, deeply embedded by family and working life in the nation, how things “really work” there. Don't tell epidemiologists how diseases spread. Don't tell soldiers how battles are fought. Don't tell Hindus what they actually believe. Don't tell Byzantine historians ...
You get the idea.
The solution is to be humble. To listen. To learn. To ask instead of tell. Do that and you'll find that you won't be dismissed as “instant experts” and avoided with a rolling of eyes so hard that the person in question has to reach around blindly on the floor to pop the eyes back into their face.
And in the process you get two of the greatest joys of life: companionship and learning.