Vilification...is it necessary?
Posted by minesayn 7 years, 8 months ago to Philosophy
I love the discussions here, but is it possible to have civil discussions without all the name-calling and vilification? I personally think it is, but... To me, it is like the grammar and spelling issue. Once there is name-calling, opinions (while possibly valid) tend to be discounted. Just wondering if I am the only one who wants civil discussions on issues.
I just can't help it when it comes to coping with the tyrannical infliction of outrageous stupidity.
https://www.google.com/search?q=georg...
https://www.google.com/search?q=georg...
One of the major reasons the left have been so successful in public discourse is that their opponents give them the benefit of doubt but they do not return the favor. The time for handing our opponents needless advantages is past.
Even if your opponent "deserves" a rude reply, the real consequences are to yourself.
If someone else is uncivil, that is their problem, not yours.
Moreover, the real debates are not across party lines, but within them. If some millennial nihilist blogger calls President Trump a Nazi, that does not carry much weight within the Republican leadership. OTOH, if it were here in the Gulch that we began pointing out that the President's nationalist-socialist policies of market protectionism, border walls, and fear of aliens is known from history to lead to total disaster, that might be understood.
But I will also echo what CBJ said that we do have some control over how we react to such name calling. A wise man once said “He who takes offense when no offense is intended is a fool, and he who takes offense when offense is intended is a greater fool.”
And it was a long, slow process. But it became so ingrained that even the gentle Quakers and Amish have their shunning for transgressions that are merely deviations from custom, not the actual harming of a person or the cause of material loss. "She is not simple", a moral condemnation among them, would be a backhanded compliment here in the Gulch.
But, as Jerome Tucille pointed out It Usually Begins with Ayn Rand. The anthology The Virtue of Selfishness included an essay from The Objectivist Newsletter, "How to Live a Rational Life in an Irrational World." The answer: never fail to pass moral judgement. That essay did close with the warning that you do not need to actually announce your verdict to the guilty. It is often socially inappropriate to do so, but, at least in your own mind, you must be clear on the issues.
That said, Ayn Rand and her inner circle did promote a nice, poetic vocabulary of condemnation. It enabled followers to craft epithets such as "range-of-the-moment context-dropping Kantian social metaphysician."
On the other hand, facts are real. Someone who advocates placing others above self as an abstract principle actually has their hand in your pocket -- and ultimately around your throat.
I say that quite consciously. Many of us here and in "Objectivish" circles are in protective services: police, military, courts. The harsh reality is that protecting others often requires the ultimate price. That said, however, we are not kamikaze. In fact, those in protective services are specially trained so that what seems like derring-do to the outsiders is actually practiced routine. On the other hand, nothing about fire fighting is routine, and when fire fighters are lost, it is usually in teams. As individualists here, the very concept of teamwork may be alien to many.
Moreover, in this forum in particular, but also online in general, we tend to write short statements. I am easily one of the most verbose here, but I write for a living, and this is all an exercise for me before going out to my day job. Even so, we all tend to risk being misunderstood because we write ad hoc. And writing does not carry the emotive meanings of face-to-face interactions. It is why we often invite each other out for a beer to discuss something. That usually never happens, as we live far apart, but the intention is that we recognize the limitations of writing.
I also offer an upside to moral outrage, especially in forums such as this. We tend to share common values. When someone expresses an opinion that we perceive as outside that norm, we are taken aback. "If you believe what I do, how can you believe that other claim?" I think that the problem there is ultimately internal. Their deviation causes you to question your own beliefs. Before that can happen though, cognitive dissonance closes off those pathways, and the internal questioning never happens. Just for example, some of my best friends have been communists.
http://www.livescience.com/2044-monke...
“The latest findings suggest that a sense of fairness is deeply ingrained in human evolutionary history rather than the idea that it's a more cultural response, and thus, learned from other humans.”
But that is not moral condemnation.
A moral being is of necessity a volitional being, a self-aware entity. The matter is not well-explored, but I believe that humans could not be moral before the invention of writing, certainly not before the development of conceptual language.
Conceptual language may not be unique to humans, but it is distinct from mere animal calls. I grant that ravens have a "language" of 30 calls, and in three "dialects" -- or so I have read. It is acceptable. But that is not the same thing as we are doing here.
Without conceptual language, moral condemnation is impossible.
Is it really necessary to do this (and no, I am not saying that you personally have done this, CBJ)?
I must admit whether I agree or disagree with the person's opinion, once I see this kind of rhetoric and incivility, I tend to dismiss the person. Am I the only one who feels that way?
Here, I just ignore the writers who used "Hitlery" and "Shillary." It was easy to do because their comments were vacuous. Name-calling was the limit of their ability to engage.