This is a really hard question for me. My values dictate that opposition should be by dint of argument. The solution to bad speech is more, better speech. If we're not willing to speak out against people who are making poor arguments, especially *influential* people making poor arguments, we're missing the boat.
However, I am sympathetic to avoiding doing battle with the truly non-influential. Someone who publishes a story in The Atlantic? Worthy of disagreement for certain. Some random dude in a comments section or Notes? Maybe not.
The best I've been able to do is to do some minor engagement with a person on the issue, and if I get lots of hate and / or over-emotionalism with no real substance, just cut bait. I remember early in Notes' history I had an interaction with someone about free speech and online bullies on Notes. I expressed sorrow for their trolling experiences, and wanted to understand what they thought should be done, and which tools they'd already tried to use, and each query I made landed me heaped with abuse from them. After the third attempt to understand their point of view, I just wrote them off. I'd looked into their other posts, and saw that they often bombastically castigated their enemies online, and it seemed that most of the hate they received came from the groups they'd rather rudely engaged. At that point, I figure they have set their asshole filter to *encourage assholes* and that's why they had such a problem with trollish content and "bullying" (which they were engaging in themselves).
In all the time I've been posting opinions and having arguments I'm only aware of one person ever changing their perspective (he switched from pro-Brexit to Remain and publicly credited my contribution to his change of heart). The rest of my time directly engaging with people was wasted. I can't speak for you, of course.
As for the answer to bad speech being more good speech, I think that's always just going to just mean he who shouts the loudest. Which I'm not keen on at all.
Plus, I go back to my point that an objectionable view is only amplified when we start arguing about it. That's why we're here now. Katz made everyone aware that there are a few numpties who like swastikas. If he hadn't, they'd still be in deserved obscurity.
"In all the time I've been posting opinions and having arguments I'm only aware of one person ever changing their perspective (he switched from pro-Brexit to Remain and publicly credited my contribution to his change of heart). The rest of my time directly engaging with people was wasted. I can't speak for you, of course."
I think a direct line of "I talked with this person and they changed their mind" is quite rare. However, I can't say the number of times I've changed my mind after mulling over several different people in different contexts making variants on an argument, and that ultimately opening my mind to being changed. That is the value of engaging: it's not to "win" the argument (unless we're talking about political persuasion on, say, a specific bill), but rather, to push the person along that road (if that's feasible -- it often isn't) and to persuade bystanders who observe the discussion. There are almost always people watching.
"As for the answer to bad speech being more good speech, I think that's always just going to just mean he who shouts the loudest. Which I'm not keen on at all."
We have to choose to either speak or not. If we choose not to speak, we don't get to choose some other method of enforcing our values. If we want our values to be embraced in the laws and culture, we *must* speak (unless we are willing to use alternative methods to persuasion; I'm unwilling to do so under the vast majority of circumstances, and hope everyone else feels the same). This is also why I say we should speak when it comes to influential voices, but when it comes to people with little influence, the best choice *is* often not speaking.
"Plus, I go back to my point that an objectionable view is only amplified when we start arguing about it. That's why we're here now. Katz made everyone aware that there are a few numpties who like swastikas. If he hadn't, they'd still be in deserved obscurity."
Like I said, I don't object to the idea that there are times when it's better to avoid speaking. Merely that I'm conflicted on it, because it's hard to figure out when it is disadvantageous to speak, and I certainly think Katz would have been best not engaging this, but then, I believe Katz's article was only tertiarily interested in getting Nazis deplatformed...or really in Nazis at all.
I can only speak of my personal preferences, but I have grown tired and bored of people injecting themselves and their values into other people's exchanges - and they would do it less if they were ignored. This evening I'm looking at a couple of 'anti-Zionist' types (oh that term covers so many possible perspectives on Israel) sealioning everyone under Jon Haidt's latest piece. Of course, they're keen to promote their values into the culture, whether invited to or not.
I guess that's the distinction that matters for me. I have a compact with readers who support me, whereby I'll always respect and engage with good faith pushback such as yours. But I mostly keep comments restricted to real supporters so that I don't have to tolerate the narcissism of people who free float around, looking for 'debates'.
Your bystander point is well made. The guy who switched his Brexit view was mostly a lurker on my Twitter, before he said I'd changed his thinking. Thank goodness I never debated him, or he would probably have just doubled down haha!
I suppose that's one of the behaviors social media (even comments sections) tends to engender: bringing one's perspective into a discussion where it's not really at issue or relevant. I'm certainly guilty of that from time to time: taking a point someone else is making within one context and using it as a springboard to a perspective I have that's isn't terribly relevant within that context.
I think you're obviously right to say that often what one person feels is persuasion may end up causing exactly the opposite of the intended reaction.
It would be interesting to try to distill a set of axioms or a rubric for when it makes sense to speak vs. not speak.
Aye - the best way. Love the phrase "People who are thick as mince are best ignored with extreme prejudice". I live in hope that this can be in some way encoded in social media without resorting to political judgement. However the pressure to make 'metrics go up' disincentives this as outrage produces higher engagement than other sentiments, as we know.
I enjoyed an article and title (from someone with experience of running social media at least) when Elon took over twitter: "A social media site isn't rocket science - it's harder". I cant' find a link to it now.
In the pub, we knew to ignore the pub-bore. On social media we don't manage that sufficiently yet.
Another essay this makes me think of is about "Status As A Service" (describing humans as "status-seeking monkeys") by Eugene Wei.
I'm also extremely wary of ego. My ego was pricked when someone described me as 'alt-right' and it was actually quite hard not to bite. Social media is junk food for our egos. Glad you liked the piece. My ego appreciates it.
This is a really hard question for me. My values dictate that opposition should be by dint of argument. The solution to bad speech is more, better speech. If we're not willing to speak out against people who are making poor arguments, especially *influential* people making poor arguments, we're missing the boat.
However, I am sympathetic to avoiding doing battle with the truly non-influential. Someone who publishes a story in The Atlantic? Worthy of disagreement for certain. Some random dude in a comments section or Notes? Maybe not.
The best I've been able to do is to do some minor engagement with a person on the issue, and if I get lots of hate and / or over-emotionalism with no real substance, just cut bait. I remember early in Notes' history I had an interaction with someone about free speech and online bullies on Notes. I expressed sorrow for their trolling experiences, and wanted to understand what they thought should be done, and which tools they'd already tried to use, and each query I made landed me heaped with abuse from them. After the third attempt to understand their point of view, I just wrote them off. I'd looked into their other posts, and saw that they often bombastically castigated their enemies online, and it seemed that most of the hate they received came from the groups they'd rather rudely engaged. At that point, I figure they have set their asshole filter to *encourage assholes* and that's why they had such a problem with trollish content and "bullying" (which they were engaging in themselves).
In all the time I've been posting opinions and having arguments I'm only aware of one person ever changing their perspective (he switched from pro-Brexit to Remain and publicly credited my contribution to his change of heart). The rest of my time directly engaging with people was wasted. I can't speak for you, of course.
As for the answer to bad speech being more good speech, I think that's always just going to just mean he who shouts the loudest. Which I'm not keen on at all.
Plus, I go back to my point that an objectionable view is only amplified when we start arguing about it. That's why we're here now. Katz made everyone aware that there are a few numpties who like swastikas. If he hadn't, they'd still be in deserved obscurity.
"In all the time I've been posting opinions and having arguments I'm only aware of one person ever changing their perspective (he switched from pro-Brexit to Remain and publicly credited my contribution to his change of heart). The rest of my time directly engaging with people was wasted. I can't speak for you, of course."
I think a direct line of "I talked with this person and they changed their mind" is quite rare. However, I can't say the number of times I've changed my mind after mulling over several different people in different contexts making variants on an argument, and that ultimately opening my mind to being changed. That is the value of engaging: it's not to "win" the argument (unless we're talking about political persuasion on, say, a specific bill), but rather, to push the person along that road (if that's feasible -- it often isn't) and to persuade bystanders who observe the discussion. There are almost always people watching.
"As for the answer to bad speech being more good speech, I think that's always just going to just mean he who shouts the loudest. Which I'm not keen on at all."
We have to choose to either speak or not. If we choose not to speak, we don't get to choose some other method of enforcing our values. If we want our values to be embraced in the laws and culture, we *must* speak (unless we are willing to use alternative methods to persuasion; I'm unwilling to do so under the vast majority of circumstances, and hope everyone else feels the same). This is also why I say we should speak when it comes to influential voices, but when it comes to people with little influence, the best choice *is* often not speaking.
"Plus, I go back to my point that an objectionable view is only amplified when we start arguing about it. That's why we're here now. Katz made everyone aware that there are a few numpties who like swastikas. If he hadn't, they'd still be in deserved obscurity."
Like I said, I don't object to the idea that there are times when it's better to avoid speaking. Merely that I'm conflicted on it, because it's hard to figure out when it is disadvantageous to speak, and I certainly think Katz would have been best not engaging this, but then, I believe Katz's article was only tertiarily interested in getting Nazis deplatformed...or really in Nazis at all.
I can only speak of my personal preferences, but I have grown tired and bored of people injecting themselves and their values into other people's exchanges - and they would do it less if they were ignored. This evening I'm looking at a couple of 'anti-Zionist' types (oh that term covers so many possible perspectives on Israel) sealioning everyone under Jon Haidt's latest piece. Of course, they're keen to promote their values into the culture, whether invited to or not.
I guess that's the distinction that matters for me. I have a compact with readers who support me, whereby I'll always respect and engage with good faith pushback such as yours. But I mostly keep comments restricted to real supporters so that I don't have to tolerate the narcissism of people who free float around, looking for 'debates'.
Your bystander point is well made. The guy who switched his Brexit view was mostly a lurker on my Twitter, before he said I'd changed his thinking. Thank goodness I never debated him, or he would probably have just doubled down haha!
I suppose that's one of the behaviors social media (even comments sections) tends to engender: bringing one's perspective into a discussion where it's not really at issue or relevant. I'm certainly guilty of that from time to time: taking a point someone else is making within one context and using it as a springboard to a perspective I have that's isn't terribly relevant within that context.
I think you're obviously right to say that often what one person feels is persuasion may end up causing exactly the opposite of the intended reaction.
It would be interesting to try to distill a set of axioms or a rubric for when it makes sense to speak vs. not speak.
Aye - the best way. Love the phrase "People who are thick as mince are best ignored with extreme prejudice". I live in hope that this can be in some way encoded in social media without resorting to political judgement. However the pressure to make 'metrics go up' disincentives this as outrage produces higher engagement than other sentiments, as we know.
I enjoyed an article and title (from someone with experience of running social media at least) when Elon took over twitter: "A social media site isn't rocket science - it's harder". I cant' find a link to it now.
In the pub, we knew to ignore the pub-bore. On social media we don't manage that sufficiently yet.
Another essay this makes me think of is about "Status As A Service" (describing humans as "status-seeking monkeys") by Eugene Wei.
I'm also extremely wary of ego. My ego was pricked when someone described me as 'alt-right' and it was actually quite hard not to bite. Social media is junk food for our egos. Glad you liked the piece. My ego appreciates it.