A word of advice for blogger and commenter alike
“If you’re arguing on the internet, you’ve already lost.”
Ah, if only it were so easy…
Elias Isquith
Elias Isquith is a freelance journalist and blogger. He considers Bob Dylan and Walter Sobchak to be the two great Jewish thinkers of our time; he thinks Kafka was half-right when he said there was hope, "but not for us"; and he can be reached through the twitter via @eliasisquith or via email. The opinions he expresses on the blog and throughout the interwebs are exclusively his own.
Maybe it’s the Libra in me but I have these arguments all the time within myself. Well, what about this? Well, what about *THIS*? Well, what about *THIS* AND THEN *THIS*? WELL WAHT ABOUT HITLER???
And so on.
When I come to the internet to talk about things, sometimes I encounter new arguments that I’ve never considered and that’s awesome. Sometimes I encounter counter-arguments with which I am already familiar and then can give my counter-counter-arguments. Sometimes those give counter-counter-arguments that I’ve never considered.
And that’s awesome.Report
I agree. Arguing on the internet – if you’re arguing with the intent of understanding the other person’s position and not just proving yourself right, and if the person’s position is one that it’s worth understanding [understanding someone’s arguments for believing Obama was born in Kenya is valueless] – is an excellent way of learning about other political positions. It’s harder to learn about them through real-life discussions, since most people don’t discuss their political opinions at the drop of a hat in real life (and those who do tend to be rather annoying).Report
It’s harder to learn about them through real-life discussions, since most people don’t discuss their political opinions at the drop of a hat in real life
Co-sign this. The value of the internet is primarily in that you can engage with people and not learn their factz, or knowledges, but their view of things. You learn stuff all the time. Especially – at least in my view – that rational, thinking folks hold about 92% of the same moral, political, institutional beliefs. Then there is the ideology that creeps in. And you start trolling.Report
Katherine – I agree.
Arguing with certain people, however, just pisses me off. Elias’s advice comes at an opportune moment for me.Report
The value of a site like this is that so much of the discussion is rational, intelligent, and worthwhile. It’s a vast wasteland out there: even Balloon Juice is well above average, and LOOG is a complete anomaly. Being asynchronous and impersonal helps too: when you get pissed off, you can just step away from a conversation for anywhere between a few minutes and forever. That lets us discuss with some civility topics that in real life would turn into screaming matches or fistfights.Report
Remember: This is a corner of something else entirely. If it’s representative of anything, it’s representative of someplace entirely non-representative.Report
I thought I’d acknowledged that by saying “complete anomaly”.Report
Yeah, I was building on that.
I was also drinkin’.Report
Kate, Barry is an Hawaiian-Kenyan-Marxist. We decided this some time ago. I consider ‘annoying’ an art form.Report
Who’s this we you’re talking about, kemosabe?Report
Bob and I and the other Elders of Zion.Report
So what would one say about folks who argue about fantasy novels on the internet?Report
lonely!Report
Nah, *before* the internet they might’ve been lonely, but now they have an abundance of people to argue about fantasy novels with.Report