I disagree

With you. With my wife. With my kids. With my parents. With my boss. With everyone I work with. With every other Rails developer. With everyone on BlueSky. With everyone.

At least, on some things.

And that’s ok.

I still love my wife and kids, work with my colleagues, meet and help other Rails developers, follow people on BlueSky and generally interact with all these people I disagree with.

We don’t disagree on everything but I’m sure we’ll disagree on many things.

If I walked out of the room and walked back in to meet myself, I’d probably disagree with him too. In fact, I’d almost certainly disagree with myself because my communication is not perfect and lossless so, even when meeting myself, I wouldn’t be able to know that we agreed on everything. Actually, do I even agree with myself? Are my thoughts entirely consistent with each other? Unlikely 🤷‍♂️

Last November I cast my votes, in order of preference, in our general election and I disagreed with every single candidate I voted for. I think I disagreed less with my first preference vote and disagreed more with my fifth or sixth preference. But I will actively cast a vote for someone, and their party, who I disagree with on some things in order to ensure that someone else who I disagree with more does not get in. And since we have The Best Electoral System In The World™, those politicians have to work with people they disagree with. They have had to form a coalition government with the people they were campaigning against just a few weeks ago.

All of life, like ALL of it, requires us to either engage in some flexibility with the people we interact with or we need to choose some selective ignorance about them. Whether it’s local communities, society at large, sports clubs, schools, business, whatever: We all live in a shared world, with shared infrastructure, shared spaces, shared climate and, in order to live and enjoy some of the privileges of this wonderful life, we need to be able to share them with people we don’t fully agree with.

Some disagreement with other people is inevitable and healthy but it’s ok to also feel conflicted when someone associated with a sport, books, music, or web programming framework you love turns out to be pretty far down the wrong end of the shit-head scale.

I recently watched this video which is a deep-dive into the recent Neil Gaiman story and, more importantly, how we should feel if an author we liked falls from grace. I didn’t know much about Gaiman but the video resonated with me because there probably is someone we look up to in our lives and they will inevitably let us down.

My takeaways from that video are firstly that we shouldn’t feel bad about enjoying the art even if the artist turns out to be reprehensible. The art and the artist are not the same thing and enjoying that music, or book, or web framework does not mean you inherit the flaws of the creator. They are not their art, and you are not them. It’s not a transitive relationship. And we can feel angry and betrayed and disappointed but we shouldn’t feel guilty. It’s not our responsibility to police the entire world.

The second thing I took away: we should not raise these creators to the level of celebrities. We should not give them power over us, should not make them our moral authorities, should not allow ourselves to worship them like heroes.

I like this take. I think it helps us to understand that here’s this thing, this book or movie or web framework, that we enjoy. It has value to us. It enhances our life. That’s ok. That’s the art—it’s a simple thing that exists in the world—but we don’t need to idolise the complex, messy, artist behind it.

We don’t need to promote them, worship them, listen to them speak on anything that isn’t their art. We don’t need to elevate them beyond simply being the person who created this thing. Their lives and opinions should be of no more importance to us than those of the chef in the restaurant last night or the worker who made the cutlery we use.

When I watch a movie, I have not done extensive research on the actors and director to ensure their lives are morally acceptable to me. When I read a book, I generally know nothing about the author. When I discover a new band on Spotify, I don’t check on their political views. I do not interrogate my doctor or physio about their lives to ensure they fit my idea of “good”.

When I type rails c it sure doesn’t feel as if I’ve just given a big thumbs-up to whatever shit-take DHH has just published on his blog. I’m not over here running gem install fascism.

The thing is, I don’t care about literally anything DHH has to say that isn’t 100% about Rails. I don’t care what sort of moment he’s having or which extreme view he’s decided to cosy up to today. I don’t care about his social commentary. I don’t follow his blog or subscribe to his feeds. I’m only aware of any of his views when those outraged by it decide to push it into my life. It’s those people who are giving him more power, and elevating his status, outside of the one narrow place where he might deserve it.

DHH is not my moral and political compass. Neither are the authors I read, the actors on my TV screen, or the bands I listen to.

Their art has some value to me but, outside of that very very narrow thing, the artist does not.