Discussion for article #232788
[quote] ⌠to bemoan a âPC culture,â in which we ask people to consider how their words and actions might affect other people, and hold them accountable
when the effect is negative. [/quote] Often referred to, in decades past, as The Golden Rule.
It was preached to me by my republican, Catholic parents every day and mentioned in the sermon almost every Sunday of my entire life.
And now, suddenly, itâs strictly a liberal âvalueâ?? WTF, O?
What happened to the 'Merica I grew up in?
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Well, because thatâs not what Chait was really arguing against. He was arguing against the use of PC tactics for hijacking discussion, suppressing debate and stifling creativity. Mostly, he was arguing against the primacy of the offended in cultural discourse. Chait didnât âtroll the left,â he made a good point.
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The thing is, itâs hard to shake it off. Being yelled at by strangers on the Internet is rather similar to being yelled at by strangers in real life.
If youâd ever been in a physical confrontation you would know that âbeing yelled at by strangers on the Internet isâ nothing like being yelled at by strangers in real life.
Anonymous keytappers arenât likely to ever have the courage of their convictions and come out in the real world.
REFINED TROLLS
Iâm talking about the ones who pick your argument apart, but without calling you a fat cunt. Iâm talking about the smart ones. The ones with accurate data. The ones who, on the surface, at least, seem interested in a dialogue.
With those haters, the roly-poly Darth Vader doesnât help much. Because thereâs a chanceâa good chance, if weâre honest with ourselvesâthey might be at least partially right. And if theyâre not right, theyâre at least arguing coherently, more or less respectfully, and in good faith. These arenât haters hating just for the sake of hating. So is this a âshake it offâ situation?
Maybe your article could have used more fact checking. Yes, maybe they are right. One thing they are not, they are not trolls.
I was an early and vocal critic of GW Bush. This earned me mountains of trolling emails and even some snail mail hate mail. Right-wing sites made crap up about me and routinely libeled me: http://wizbangblog.com/content/2004/09/13/on-the-trail-of-1.php
It doesnât mean squat.
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There is no doubt that online trolls yelling doesnât remotely compare to being yelled at in person, with the up close rage, the almost physical intimacy of it, the latest threat of violence. But that doesnât take into account something different, which is the one the internet can allow masses of people to aim their virtual fire against a single person. Thereâs a real lord of the flies element to it. And the internet allows people to coordinate, gang up, hound. This is not nothing. Iâm not saying cry me a river. Iâve dealt with this stuff for more than a decade and you donât hear me talking about it. But if youâre a focal point, it delivers an element of toxicity that is a real thing. It affects you.
Especially for women (but not just for women), death threats are weird. Theyâre not fun. Sure, itâs hard to come up with more than a few maybe any examples of anyone whoâs followed up on one. But thatâs not necessarily a reassuring things when itâs you. Because how do you know? How do you find out? When do you write it off?
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In retrospect, Iâm grateful to the C-PAC oddballs that hacked my Twitter account and Iâve not âtweetedâ sinceâŚAn OK news aggregator but otherwise a pointless waste of time, in my humble opinion.
A gay male troll and a female Wiccan troll (believe it or not) back on the old Eschaton site got so pointlessly nasty for the crime of others enjoying my jokes that I left the site after years of very enjoyable posting there.
Incidents of offline meat space trolling within the family and without got me reading up on bad behavior, human evil.
Here are Scott Peckâs 4 distinguishing signs of the âEvil Personality Disorderâ:
a) consistent destructive, scapegoating behavior, often quite subtle.
b) excessive, albeit usually covert, intolerance toward criticism, narcissistic injury.
c) pronounced concern with a public image, self-image and life style of respectability including pretentiousness and denial of hateful/vengeful motives.
d) intellectual deviousness, with an increased likelihood of a mild schizophrenic-like disturbance of thinking at stress points.
Iâm confused. I find it really odd that people who make (what you recognize to be) valid, legitimate criticisms of your argument are still to be recognized as âhatersâ and trollsâRefined Trolls, to be sure, but still somehow illegitimate. So there really is an important continuity between those who make vulgar, personal insults and those who engage in rational debate?
I come from academia, where debate is the name of the game. Does that mean that this debate, even if nominally respectful, is all in good faith? No it certainly doesnât. But to dismiss all those who have a different point of view as hateful individuals whose motivations are fundamentally suspect is sort of shocking to me.
Am I being a âhaterâ now in taking issue with this point? I certainly would not have thought so. If thatâs how I am being perceived I am absolutely not interested in having this discussion. Discussion and debate is or can be fun, as well as instructive. If we reject the possibility of well-meaning disagreement and only prize everyone nodding their heads along in unison I think we give up way too much. Indeed, if we treat contrary viewpoints as things only to be grudgingly acceptedâas indications of our higher charactersâI think we are giving up way too much.
Or am I somehow misinterpreting this essay?
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I think you need to worry only if there is an obsessive stalker-type troll or if someone sends you something to your home.
Only one threat ever got to me and that was a letter in my mailbox saying they would kill my dogs. I took this seriously because someone might think they could get away with that and they had taken the time to find my address.
Other than that, the shouting of annonymous trolls never bothered me.
BTW, I had the Freepers of Free Republic on my case. So I do know about focused vicious hatred. But for all their keyboard hate they never lifted a finger in real life.
www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1216512/replies?c=1
Free Republic
Martin Heldt and the FOIA Requests In June 2003, self-described Clinton, Iowa farmer and former railroad brakeman Marty Heldt posted an article "MISSING IN âŚ
View Replies - Free Republic
www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1210662/replies?câŚ
Free Republic
Sep 11, 2004 - Internet activists led by Iowa farmer Martin Heldt and retired Air National ⌠of Free Republic ~~The New Face of the Fourth Estate since 1996.).
Is THIS the source of the âMemosâ? - Free Republic
www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1214064/posts
Free Republic
Sep 12, 2004 - Marty Heldt
I donât think the use of the word âhaterâ here should be taken at face valueâthe first impulse of people who receive lots of hate on the interwebs often end up using that blanket term. What Chloe is trying to do is check that impulse, parse the haters, and give them designations.
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Yes, I see that. But having a spectrum of trolls or âhatersâ implies there are important similarities between them. I seriously question that move. When someone gives me good, thoughtful criticisms on a paper Iâve written I donât view that person as my enemy in any sense, but as my friend. I thank him or her if possible and mean that genuinely. I have learned that when people simply accept everything you say and tell you itâs great, that often means it simply made no impression whatsoever. People making the effort to actually read and think about what youâve written and respond to it critically is often a compliment.
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With those haters, the roly-poly Darth Vader doesnât help much. Because thereâs a chanceâa good chance, if weâre honest with ourselvesâthey might be at least partially right. And if theyâre not right, theyâre at least arguing coherently, more or less respectfully, and in good faith. These arenât haters hating just for the sake of hating. So is this a âshake it offâ situation?
Maybe the person responding doesnât have good communications skills. But if someone is making valid points in good faith then why call them haters? You may actually be wrong. By pointing out the error they are then doing you a favor.
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The best kinds of critics, Friedman writes, âare taking a hard look at your work and are not loving it.â They have expertise in your field and whose criticisms of your work (not of you) are thoughtful, and deserve thoughtful engagement. This is not the category into which Refined Trolls fall.
Of course Chloe gets that criticism from friends and respected colleagues is a good thing. This isnât what this piece is about.
Yes, good point. I now feel at least somewhat relieved. But I guess, other than the label, I donât see how she is distinguishing Refined Trolls from the âbest kinds of critics.â Surely it canât be on the basis of whether or not they know you personally? Or whether the critic is a recognized expert in the field?
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I share Matthew1961âs confusion about the distinction between legitimate critics and âRefined Trolls.â One of the points implicit in Chaitâs article â which I think overall was obnoxiously high-handed and full of problems, but also contained a few legitimate observations â was that come on the âlefty internetâ (to use the term in this piece) refuse to credit the good faith of those who disagree with them. Disagreement itself becomes harmful, a reproduction of harm or privilege or whatever. And I just donât get that. This article seems to be making a similar claim â that whatever the author says is right, and pointed disagreement is illegitimate, or âtrollingâ (whether or not ârefinedâ).
That said, I think itâs weird to write a personal email to an author with whom you disagree, unless you know them personally. That doesnât contribute to discourse or the public marketplace of ideas in any appreciable way, and it does seem to carry a significant risk of communicating personal hostility. Is that the point thatâs being made? Help me understand.
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This article seems to be making a similar claim â that whatever the author says is right, and pointed disagreement is illegitimate, or âtrollingâ (whether or not ârefinedâ).
That was my impression as well - that there is no distinction between someone spewing nothing but profanity and threats, and one making a reasoned argument, except a difference of degree. It seems like there is no room at all for someone to argue against without being labelled a hater. That seems like a self-defeating attitude for a public writer who will inevitably be dealing with criticism. Though I do agree with your last point about personal emails.
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I think the difference she is looking at is between people who employ effective criticism with the aim of derailing your project and those employ constructive criticism with the intent of strengthening your project.
It is simply discouraging to deal with folks who look only at those things that you got wrong. And sometimes that discouragement is precisely what they are intending to produce.
That said, I personally do not care why people are making a criticism but only whether they are right about the problem they are highlighting and if so, whether it is a fixable problem or do I need to rework my ideas substantially.
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Maybe. But I think the fact is that one rarely really knows the motivation of the person criticizing you, certainly not from a brief exchange on the internet. This article is interesting in that it addresses the question of what the experience is like of being harshly and perhaps unfairly criticized. Being on the receiving end of that makes one inclined to project all sorts of negative motivations onto oneâs critic. But the fact that one can sometimes be wrong in oneâs projections could also be part of this discussion.
In any case, Iâm not sure why the aim of derailing someone elseâs project necessarily qualifies one as a troll and not a legitimate critic. Krugman, e.g., is always criticizing phony arguments for austerity programs. That his larger aim is to derail the whole move toward austerity (in the current economic climate) does not by any means invalidate his criticisms or make him a troll.
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(1) Responding to trolls just encourages them. Ignoring them frustrates and infuriates them.
(2) Your comment on Chiat amounts to trolling and contains a planted axiom. You shouldnât be encouraged by my pointing that out.
Krugman responds to the data â he checks the outcomes to predictions and I think he would acknowledge points that the austerity proponents got right.
When I talk about derailing a project I think Iâm thinking about this more in terms of ends and goals â seeing that women get a fair shake â rather than in terms of means â discouraging hate speech aka political correctness. Austerity I see as an incorrect means â like snake oil in economics.
Yes, and I agree to a point. But Krugman is committed to the aim of more robust social programs on moral grounds (not just economic)âthat is one of his larger ends. And he often points out that âausteriansâ are using their bad argumentsâas he shows them to beâwith the larger aim of destroying the social safety net; in fact, one reason their arguments are so bad is that they donât really believe them, but are just looking any excuse to get rid of the hated âentitlements.â
So here is a case of a definite non-troll (if there ever was one) who is definitely not on board with the larger project of those with whom he disagrees. I would have my suspicions of a point view that had as one of its consequences the result that what Krugman is doing is illegitimate.
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