Congratulations, You’re Brilliant. Here’s Your Trophy

When I was a kid, no one got a trophy just for showing up. The introductory adverbial clause, “When I was a kid,” just cost me 75 percent of my readers under forty, and questioning participation trophies shooed away many others. People in the first half of life don’t give a fig about pre-digital existence, and they’re tired of oldsters criticizing their cherished plastic “hardware”—even if it’s only holding up spider webs somewhere in their parents’ basements. So, now that the youngsters have fled, we can continue.

We’ve watched our children and grandchildren garner every flavor of affirmation. It’s statistically impossible for everyone to be above average, but grade inflation rarely worries about statistics. And the kids who understand math aren’t being fooled. A standing ovation loses significance if the audience never sits down.

What rational person would believe he’s insightful after consuming a steady diet of praise from sources that specialize in praise? That would be us.

You don’t believe me? Click on your favorite AI bot and offer the insight that Margaret Mitchell, Vladimir Nabokov, and Jane Austen have a gift for making Scarlett, Humbert, and Emma fascinating even though they are often unsympathetic characters. You will be extolled for your sagacity with such acclaim that a faculty position in comparative literature at Princeton should be awaiting you.

Go to another AI bot and suggest that these authors are brilliant for making these same protagonists odious despite being slightly interesting, and you will be assured that only Harvard deserves a reader so perceptive. Congratulations, you just received your participation trophy.

This isn’t limited to literature or chatbots—our politics run on the same reward system. Suppose you consider Donald Trump the grandest president since Lincoln. Your web browser constantly confirms your opinion with essays and videos from respected journalists who echo your sentiments. And if you consider the current president to be the worst since Buchanan, historians almost climb out of your computer, affirming your conviction. The internet rarely challenges convictions that generate clicks.

We all know that AI is an equal-opportunity brown-noser. After all, they’re trained to give us what we want. Internet algorithms are not mysterious—though we’d be hard-pressed to write one—so browser clicks beget similar content. I think we’re better than this, and it’s high time we began competing in the arena of complicated thoughts and ideas.

We can find a better blueprint in our own history. Virtually every ranking of U.S. presidents places Washington and Lincoln in the top two spots. The leading figures in Washington’s administration—John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton—could not have been more ideologically diverse. Washington wasn’t building a trophy case; he was building a country.

Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin terms Lincoln’s cabinet a “Team of Rivals.” He chose his election competitors, William Seward, Salmon Chase, and Edward Bates, specifically because they brought different skills and opinions.

Here’s your assignment: read one source you distrust, listen to one neighbor you’ve written off, and resist the next flattering headline that confirms what you already believe. Washington and Lincoln didn’t build anything lasting by surrounding themselves with applause. Neither will we. The trophy case is full. It’s time to get back on the field.