Two things are simultaneously true:

1) We have a duty to understand our history in order to avoid spreading misinformation and fauxccultism
2) Reliable historical sources are often inaccessible, and the language with which we tell people to do research smacks of elitism

🧵 1/
The reason that people get and perpetuate bad information, especially from online sources, is not that they're actively trying to spread lies. It's also not that they don't care enough to look for the truth. It's usually that those are the sources most available to them. 2/
Not everyone has academic research skills. Most people don't know how to identify a primary source versus a secondary source, how to chase citations, how to identify an authoritative author, or how to read critically through author bias and unfounded claims. 3/
Those skills aren't inborn. They have to be taught, and they usually aren't taught until college (if at all). Most of the people we scorn online for saying stupid shit (especially teenagers) have never been taught how to critically engage with information. 4/
Does that negate the stupidity of some of the information out there? Of course not. But it does mean that the sneering vitriol we cast at these people, as if they are morally to blame for not just "doing the research" or "reading a goddamn book," is misdirected and unhelpful. 5/
These people are trying their best. They're often new to Paganism or occultism, presented with a glut of information, and genuinely trying to sort through it to find what's good. But no one has told them how, and when they get it wrong, we all roll our eyes and snipe at them. 6/
The reason people default to TikTok (and to a lesser extent, YouTube and podcasts) is that TikTok is free and accessible. It's the 2020s version of AngelFire websites with neon text. It's the easiest place to get a lot of information. 7/
If you haven't been taught how to critically evaluate the things you're told (about witchcraft or any other subject), you're not going to choose dense, expensive academic books over short, easy-to-understand, FREE videos. Why would you? 8/
Even if you wanted to read books, how would you identify which ones are worth reading and which ones are drivel? Without prior knowledge, how do you look at a book and know, "Ah yes, this author definitely knows what they're talking about?" 9/
Something I think about a lot, working in higher education: Don't punish people for not knowing things. If people aren't discerning between good and bad information, and are spreading shit takes, the solution is not to scoff and dismiss them. Rather, the solution is twofold: 10/
1) To make good information more accessible. Not everyone is an academic researcher, and not everyone is going to read difficult academic books. That's okay! We should make the information from those books part of the mainstream, so that people can still learn. 11/
Let's get rid of the assumption that everyone has to have read Hutton et al. in order to be a qualified, informed witch. Instead, let's focus on teaching and crediting the ideas from those texts so that non-academics can be qualified and informed, too. 12/
2) To focus on teaching critical reading skills in this community, so that people can learn how to discern the good from the bad and can start judging for themselves what information is reliable. 13/
As a general rule, I think most people want the good info. Nobody *wants* to base their practice on lies and misinformation--on the contrary, so many people, especially beginners, are paralyzed with fears about doing it "wrong." 14/
If you teach people (in a productive, nonjudgmental way) how to sift through information for themselves, they will use those skills. But the key is to actually teach them, rather than punishing them for not already having skills that all of us had to be taught at some point. 15/
Yes, misinformation is bad. But so often I think the way we talk about misinformation and bad takes is more about making ourselves feel like we're better than others, rather than equipping misinformed people to learn. 16/16
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