"Where are your solutions?"

(A logical fallacy often used to challenge my open-minded messaging)

For as long as I’ve been writing (articles, blog posts, books, etc.), recording and appearing on podcasts and other shows, and giving public talks, I’ve aimed to bluntly challenge conventional wisdom and encourage sovereign thought without compromise.

In return for doing the work of digging up and speaking uncomfortable truths, I’ve often heard the passive-aggressive refrain: So, what’s your solution? 

This is a transparent attempt to deflect from the reality that the questioner has no rational reply to my points and thus cannot defend their stance.

On some level, they comprehend that to start questioning beliefs that have become part of their literal identity is a path toward a painful reality collapse. 

Rather than run the risk [sic] of having to admit they and their teachers may have been misguided, they attempt to derail my efforts by implying that unless a critic expounds a specific strategy for change, their assertion is basically worthless. 

Such a reaction conveniently ignores the essential role critical analysis plays within a society where problems — and their causes — are so cleverly disguised. When discussing the future, the first step is often an identification and demystification of the past and present.

Besides, how much value would “solutions” (mine or anyone’s) hold while we are still in the midst of myriad manipulations? I believe that if we began detaching ourselves from a sinister system designed to control us and began dismantling that system, we'd create a space in which we could suddenly discern paths and options presently invisible to our heavily conditioned minds.

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Side note: I sometimes make very specific suggestions in my articles, e.g.

What all these Substack posts and comments won't accomplish

What Hurricane Helene can teach us about algorithms & discernment

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Some outside inspiration for anyone who is resistant to introspection:

“Re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book. Dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem.” (Walt Whitman)

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“We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community … The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us.” (Dorothy Day)

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“Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.” (C.S. Lewis)

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“Try your best to make goodness attractive. That's one of the toughest assignments you'll ever be given.” (Fred Rogers)

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I could go on for days, but I’ll end with:

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