I recently finished a great biography of Benjamin Franklin– he was a remarkable man, with a fantastic optimism in America. He embodied (and was one of the first to articulate) many of our country’s great ideals. In America, he said, “People do not enquire of a stranger “What is he? but, What can he do?”
It's a great insight, drawing a contrast to a Europe that was driven by hereditary wealth, status, and privilege. It is hard not to feel that recently, we have not been living up to Franklin’s ideal. It feels we have become preoccupied with what people have. We seem to care a lot less about what they do. Online, our world seems to glorify money and wealth, and give little regard for the doing– raising families, coaching little league, showing up for each other.
But in my clinic, in my neighborhood, I see people working hard to live good lives– to grow, to be kind to each other, to help out. My neighbor still has my table saw I loaned him a week ago (hi Mike!), and he is always happy to help me out when I need to borrow a tool. I had a conversation with a woman in the office trying to understand what it means to be a good parent– and later with a man who is going to couples therapy with his wife because they want to strengthen their relationship. Over and over again, offline, I see people trying hard to embody Franklin’s America. To show up for each other, to do the hard work of living good lives.
In our public discourse, I see something entirely different. I see incredible cruelty to people who want nothing more than to live the American dream. I see callousness and a glorification of trolling. Offline, I see considered deliberation about difficult decisions. Online, I see expertise dismissed by loud voices who are “just asking questions”-- and the ignoring considered answers.
The split between the online world and the offline world is remarkable. What people want– and what the algorithms amplify and promote, could not be more different. The challenge is that we live in an attention economy– attention translates directly to status, wealth, and power. This means that the fastest path to wealth, status, and power is to attract attention. But volunteering for a local charity, showing up for the PTA, or listening to a friend who is struggling doesn’t generate views, doesn’t translate into likes, and doesn’t add to the follower count.
Our perception of normal is shaped by what we see– and most of what we see is online. We become accustomed to a long engagement with a thought lasting 42 seconds, and then get frustrated and confused when things take longer. We see fantastic effortless wealth and success, so assume it's normal and resent that we don’t have it. We think the influencer lifestyle of yoga in Bali or crypto millionaires is somehow normal. It's not– it's a curated fantasy that is designed for online consumption– not real life.
We risk losing something essential if we let this shift go unchallenged. A society that values possessions over contributions will inevitably grow hollow. Communities do not thrive because a few people accumulate immense wealth, or yell louder, or post more often. Communities thrive, we thrive, because ordinary people invest in each other—through their work, their time, their care. That is the America Franklin envisioned.
So what do we do? First, we recognize the distortion. We remind ourselves that social media is not reality. It is a performance, an amplification of the loudest, most extreme voices. We can choose to make it our reality by engaging with it, or we can choose to participate differently—to celebrate the people who are quietly doing meaningful work, to model the values we want to see reflected in our culture. The outrage cycle feeds on our engagement and attention– and dies of asphyxiation when we do not give it oxygen.
Second, we can prioritize our offline lives. We can make sure that our admiration, our attention, and our gratitude go to those who show up, who build, who teach, who help. We can invest in relationships that exist beyond screens. We can ask each other Franklin’s question more often: What can you do? And perhaps just as importantly: How can I help? Franklin started a host of mutual aid societies in his lifetime, bringing together his community for community protection, aid, libraries and educational institutions.
Third, we can be intentional about where we direct our attention. We can choose to direct our attention away from our screens, away from the loudest voices, and away from the manufactured online outrage. Instead, we can put our attention on the people we love, the communities we live in, and institutions that make our lives better. We can stop performing for social media algorithms and instead start connecting with people that matter to us.
Franklin believed in the power of individuals to shape their communities. That power is still ours—let’s use it to shape our world for the better.
Cheers,
Doc
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