By V.T. Clark | March 14, 2020
Growing up, the Twilight Zone was a Saturday morning favorite, only to develop years later into a New Year’s and Thanksgiving tradition and watched first on SyFy and before the era of Netflix and Prime binging marathons. Ranging from spooky tales to social commentary on both politics and culture, there was always the anticipation of the start of a brief scene, followed by the recognized theme song, and finally the intro and ending commentary by Rod Sterling. Of all the episodes, one episode stands out especially in light of current events, The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street. With the subtle message surrounding suspicion and prejudice, Rod Sterling observed at the end:
“The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices…to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill…and suspicion can destroy…and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own.”[1]
In many ways, not only in the field of apologetics but whether it’s a daily conversation, social media or simply searching for information, confirmation bias in the daily world can often rear its head and moving conversations from civility and rational understanding, to emotional-filled claims and searching for specific information to back up presumptions and personal beliefs. In the apologetics world, confirmation bias understood to be the tendency to search, interpret, recall, and even lean toward specific views that confirm one’s firm belief or claims. Confirmation bias can be seen as a form of cognitive bias to back up or hold up ambiguous evidence as proof for a firmly held existing position without consideration of either the fluidity of a situation or in many cases basing decisions to feed either overconfidence in personal beliefs or maintain face in light of contrary evidence. Confirmation bias in many cases seen not only in politics but emotionally charged ideas and beliefs and even persistence despite the presentation of contrary thoughts or ideas.
Somewhere on Youtube, there’s a video where the speaker presents a method called the 72-hour rule. The basis is, in any news event, no matter the topic, it takes 72 hours or three days, for enough details to emerge to warrant a response or idea of a given situation or topic. The basis for the 72-hour rule is one to instill calm versus panic, and logic over irrationality. As a character in the Twilight zone episode observed, in the video, the idea is to prevent the dissemination of rumors, bad information, and even paranoia and panic, and instead allow a time frame to gain enough if any information to make a decision or assessment about a topic in a calm, but logical manner.
With the fast-paced nature of news and the proliferation of social media posts quickly turning from one hot topic to another, there are many things to gain from both the 72-hour rule and the Twilight Zone episode. One is sometimes the perceived monsters might be human nature itself and the tendency to quickly be tossed from one side to another (Ephesians 4:14), due to the influence of the telephone game-like nature of social media and the rating push for news in media in the modern world. Especially when there are pressing matters affecting our world today, from rumors of possible wars to pandemics, there is a need for a call to calm and not only cooler heads, but the time allowed for information to process cycled through and eventually settle on the real story in the news or wherever one gets one information.
There is the need today for the time needed not only for real research not based on 140 characters, photo memes or “reshares”, but practicing the example of distinguishing primary sources from secondary sources. Either way, the tendency for everyone to weigh in with an opinion regardless of contemplating both the cost and the investment, demonstrates an observation Tom Nichols made in his article, “The Death of Expertise”[2] where everyone with access to the Internet becomes an expert without the need of the expertise. Instead of genuine sharing of information, which is beneficial regardless of the side, everyone fights to confirm their side of a view without contemplating the information that lays in the middle. So instead of productive discussion, discussions become criticism and in some cases accusations on Maple Street while the truth lays within reach of the residents arguing and posturing.
The danger of confirmation bias is the ease the Internet has become to find not only general or primary sources to research, but in many cases, secondary sources that offer some information, but enough opinion to lean one way or the other without really providing any real information to either party. Confirmation bias can lead to overconfidence which borders on arrogance (1 Samuel 2:3; Romans 12:3; Luke 18:9-14; Proverbs 12:15). If there is anything to gain from a television episode, an article on the loss of expertise or simply from a major event that ends up dividing than uniting, in the quest for understanding, it is easy to get caught up in enough misinformation where neither party comes to an understanding nor truth can come to light.
In apologetics, where the goal is to defend and share the faith and the truth of the Scriptures, it is easy to encounter many times, people who are so determined to not think beyond their own beliefs or refuse to look at any evidence beyond what they are determined to look at, conversations can easily turn to argument and rather than develop relationships or unity, discord can instead take the place. If there is something to learn from “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” and especially during times of crisis when social media especially is flooded with information from different directions, sometimes the simplest thing is instead of persistence, stepping back from a situation and taking some time, even 72 hours to come back and look at what is presented along with countering evidence with different eyes, being open to learning and not simply to proclaim.
But also, in times of panic, when there is a need for calm, instead of presenting waves after waves of information, less from a standpoint of insisting on reading the information, there’s a need to turn the focus on efforts to encourage, develop dialogue or simply be there to listen which is the hardest for anyone to do in any conversation. Humanity lives in a time and place, where information is now endless and changing at a rapid pace. In an instant, all forms of normal no longer become normal, but instead of looking for scapegoats or pointing out what’s wrong with everyone else, there comes a need instead to look for common ground, and ways to work together as a team, not as rivals. If we are to take anything away from the episode “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street,” it is how easy to give in to fear and even suspicion and let it destroy the best of us and instead turn us into the worse and even the very monsters we fear are hiding in the unknown.
As Christians, we are a call to not give in to the spirit of fear (1 Timothy 1:7 ) because we know no matter what, all things will work for the glory of God and a testament to Him (Romans 8:28). In the Bible, “fear not” is used approximately 80 times and it’s because God knows the enemy, Satan, uses our fear against us to turn our eyes away from Jesus Christ, to turn our focus God is in control despite whatever it is going on, and we all have a reason for the hope we have to share with others. (1 Peter 3:15-16). Despite what is happening in the world right now or what could happen, there will always be something happening on a day to day basis in our 24-hour news saturated live. However, God is in control and we have the opportunity each day to serve and represent Him by the way we choose responsibly to respond to news events, to daily life circumstances and more than anything, to respond like a living testament to Jesus Christ.
[1] “The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street”. 2020. En.Wikipedia.Org. Accessed March 14, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monsters_Are_Due_on_Maple_Street.
[2] Nichols, Tom, and Tom Nichols. 2014. “The Death Of Expertise”. The Federalist. Accessed March 14, 2020. https://thefederalist.com/2014/01/17/the-death-of-expertise/.
About the Author
VT Clark received a Masters in Theological Studies from Liberty University, Rawlings School of Divinity, and a Bachelors in Christian Ministry with a minor in biblical studies. VT is currently working on a certificate in Apologetics from Biola University while waiting to begin a doctorate in May in the Bible Exposition program. In the meantime, when not teaching Bible studies or apologetics, VT is a fulltime geek and nerd whose focus is on family, missions both local and overseas, and culture.
© 2020. BellatorChristi.com.
[…] demonstrates an observation Tom Nichols made in his article, “The Death of Expertise”[2] where everyone with access to the Internet becomes an expert without the need of the expertise. […]
[…] “The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices…to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill…and suspicion can destroy…and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own.”[1] […]