Friday, December 31, 2010

Anonymous political blogging, civility, and me

A few days ago, Dr. Dawg wrote about Don Cherry's obnoxicity and went on to say a few more things about politics, blogging, and Canadian sensibilities:
Canadians, even in 2010 after four years of rule by Stephen Harper, pride ourselves on our good manners. It’s one way we measure ourselves against Americans. More importantly, it’s how we get along. But that doesn’t mean we’re impervious to the transgressive urge, even if we transgress in safe Canadian ways.
Check out the no-holds-barred blogosphere: we (well, many of us) swear, we insult, we’re actually rude. I wonder how many of those bloggers and commenters, many hiding behind aliases, behave face to face with others? Would they be pleased or shocked if their kids talked that way to their schoolmates?
My suspicion? In their daily lives they’re polite, even reserved; considerate of others; soft-spoken, and they’re bringing their children up the same way. Typical Canadians, in other words.

...

But civilization has its discontents. We fetter our basic desires and instincts in order to live peaceably with each other. We create rules and boundaries. Order is imposed upon disorder. Part of ourselves, however, is suppressed in the process. Where does it go?
We create channels for its expression. The Internet, as a newsgroup commentator once said, “is where I can get in touch with my inner a—hole.” Why not? It’s virtually (but not entirely) consequence-free. We don’t stand physically face-to-face, our body language setting off numerous responses and counter-responses that call us to order.
There’s little or no accountability. We don’t have to work with these people, they don’t live on our street, and all they’ll usually do is respond in kind—then you all shut off the computer and go to supper.
They’re images, in fact, caricatures with whom we bloodlessly do battle, and for whom we in turn are the same thing. Shooting off one’s mouth in a safe cyber-environment is the work of a few minutes, steam from a safety-valve.
There's a lot of truth in that. But I have a few observations. First of all, the main reason that I chose to adopt a pseudonym is because I intended to talk about some personal stuff some of the time online, NOT because I wasn't brave enough to take on (say) Terry Glavin under my own name. Once I adopted the pseudonym I let my hair down in other ways, both in good fun and in being confrontational.

And I don't think that there's anything particularly wrong with this semi-anonymous internet battling. As a matter of fact, I think it's healthy. It's true that in person I'm actually rather diminutive, as well as basically easy-going. One right-winger who I encountered in graduate school said a number of times that I was "all right for a lefty" which I took under advisement, especially since he said his first inclination had been to smash me in the face when I spoke up during our first seminar together. One-on-one with fleshy counterparts I'm generally polite, soft-spoken, and diplomatic (at least that's what I think).

But I think civility is way overrated in many instances. Especially with online political debates. When we're blogging or discussing online with a pseudonym, we're acting as symbols for the political ideologies or orientations that we're arguing for, not so much as 100% real people. As such, "fergusrush" or "nonny" or "bobolink" or "krynaghtum-pants" or any of the other trolls I've insulted in the past aren't real people either. They're symbols. They're symbols of stupidity and nastiness. As such, I don't feel any compulsion to remain civil while arguing against their stupid, nasty, brutish ideas.

Canadian Cynic (who is apparently on "Twitter" now) has voluminous archives from his old blog where lie preserved multiple demonstrations of the utter stupidity of right-wing viewpoints. He's 100% rude to those cretins and they deserve every bit of it.

Because, what are we talking about here? Politics. War. Justice. I'm sure Barack Obama is a fascinating individual. I've heard that Bill Clinton oozes charisma. I'm sure that I could probably kick-back and enjoy a drink with any number of military or business world denizens and that many of them are fine people to their families and friends and the people they meet one-on-one in their everyday lives.

But then again, they might be complicit in stuff like this:

Research Links Rise in Falluja Birth Defects and Cancers to US Assault

• Defects in newborns 11 times higher than normal • 'War contaminants' from 2004 attack could be cause


Continuing:
The latest Falluja study surveyed 55 families with seriously deformed newborns between May and August. It was conducted by Dr Samira Abdul Ghani, a paediatrician at Falluja general hospital. In May, 15% of the 547 babies born had serious birth defects. In the same period, 11% of babies were born at less than 30 weeks and 14% of foetuses spontaneously aborted.
The researchers believe that the figures understate what they describe as an epidemic of abnormalities, because a large number of babies in Falluja are born at home with parents reluctant to seek help from authorities.
One case documented in the report is of a mother and her daughter who after the 2004 battles both gave birth to babies with severe malformations. The second wife of one of the fathers also had a severely deformed baby in 2009.
"It is important to understand that under normal conditions, the chances of such occurrences is virtually zero," said Savabieasfahani.
Iraq's government has built a new hospital in Fallujah, but the city's obstetricians have complained that they are still overwhelmed by the sheer number of serious defects.
See, the thing is, I've lived too long in a world where these atrocities were made and where they continue to be made, to worry about such a thing as "civility" when maddeningly stupid people make stupid decisions based on stupid opinions that produce these horrors.

I also think that the right-wing got a lot of mileage out of mocking the left and the things we accomplished and that it's past time that we returned the favour. So, while I don't go in for cowardly death threats, or lying to prove a point, or ignoring things said by opponents that puncture my arguments, I do use insults and scorn against people who dredge-up stupid nonsense that produces real-world suffering.

EDITED TO ADD: For what it's worth, when I attended the Canada Day rally at Queen's Park after the G20 abomination, there was some doofus there with a pro-cop sign and I lit into him and told him he had shit for brains.

14 comments:

Beijing York said...

The birth defect item just has me aghast with our collective cruelty. I hope to see Bush, Blair, Cheney et al hauled before an international court for genocide and other crimes against humanity before I die.

thwap said...

Beijing,

I do too, but I'll settle for stephen harper and crew going to jail for war crimes in Afghanistan and maybe Paul Martin and his accomplices in Haiti if there's still time.

900ft Jesus said...

thanks for this post, thwap. Pretty much how I feel about the rude thing.

As for pseudonyms, some of us have jobs that while we're told we can blog and comment on our own time, the reality is we'd bring a lot of grief down on our heads if we used our name, and we'd probably do too much self-editing.

Have a great year, thwap. You're ok for a dipper :) Kidding. I learn a lot, here.

thwap said...

900,

I take it you don't want to smash my face in then?

I'm genuinely flattered to read your last little bit there. ("Sniff!")

But you're right about the deadening effect of jobs on ordinary people as bloggers. Self-censorship.

And, there's also the thing that while we wouldn't want to insult family and friends to their faces, we wouldn't actually mind if they read somewhere that voting for stephen harper is an act of vile stupidity or ignorance.

Mark said...

Canadians aren't polite at all. I believe that's a myth. I would never say what your "right-wing" buddy said in professional or academic setting in Canada or the US, but I've found people in Canada (right, left, center or whatever) tend to say things like that all the time because chances are good that there won't be any consequences.

However, down here...you never know. I socialize and work with enough registered Democrats and Nader voters to know that they own guns, play high school football, and join up with the USMC at rates comparable with Republicans.

thwap said...

Mark,

In another grad seminar our teacher (from Texas, but now at Cambridge UK) opened up the discussion and two students both started to talk at the same time, after which both went "You go first." "No, you go first."

He chuckled about stereotypical Canadian politeness.

I think there's something to that, but I also think it masks an increasing coldness.

OTOH - a friend of mine stayed with some of his in-laws relatives in the USA and when the husband found out my friend was reading Al Franken he proceeded to roar at him ("like a barking dog, I couldn't make out a single word he was shouting") until his wife yelled at him to get ready to go out to dinner.

My friend's wife decided they'd best go and as they were pulling out of the driveway, the right-wing shit-head stuck his head out of the upstairs bathroom window and roared some further incomprehensible gibberish.

I wouldn't make too much out of any of this stuff.

But right-wingers brought the tragedy of Iraq, and corporate Dems perpetuate it. And arguments that we on the left are Taliban-lovers or "Shariabolshevist" enablers are just out-and-out drivel.

Mark said...

I think its more than just a mask for coldness - it's a cover for mindless conformity, homogeneity, dullness, sanctimoniousness, ignorance, stupidity, hypocrisy, and inefficiency and a fundamentally conservative culture, in a way the USA could never be.

thwap said...

Say Mark,

While I've got you here, would you mind telling me how you can justify the USA causing those birth defects in Falluja?

Mark said...

I'm not pro-war, *but* what does CDN opposition to the War in Iraq or the War in Afghanistan (or support) really mean? It's not like Canada is capable of a sustained offensive military operation overseas. At least my opinion means something, as the US is, for better or worse, capable of using their military overseas.

thwap said...

Mark,

And what is your opinion? And why is it important whether it means something in practical terms as opposed to mine?

You're asking a bunch of questions that aren't related to anything that I've said.

I meant to say though that while you're obviously entitled to your loathing of Canadians, I'm going to have to disagree with you about the facts of the matter. It isn't patriotism that makes me dispute what you say. There isn't all that much difference betwixt our cultures and Canadians are way too smug about what good differences do exist.

But when it comes to:

"mindless conformity, homogeneity, dullness, sanctimoniousness, ignorance, stupidity, hypocrisy, and inefficiency and a fundamentally conservative culture"

I think US-Americans on the whole are at least as bad as us Canucks if not more so.

And the whole point of my post is that the culture and the political system of which you are so proud is the sickening monstrosity producing that appalling human suffering in Fallujah.

What was it all for? Saddam's role in 9-11? Nope. Saddam's ties to Al Qaeda? Nope. Saddam's WMD's? They didn't exist? To bring democracy to Iraq? Nope. To enhance women's rights? Nope. (They've regressed in post-Baathist Iraq.)

Iraq's oil? DING-DING-DING-DING!!

We have a winner.

The USA invaded that country on a pack of lies, fomented sectarian conflict, ruined MILLIONS of lives, laid the ground with poison, all for the oil that they could have had simply for the asking.

Why didn't they ask? Because the US political elite are deluded simpletons and fuck-ups who believe their own lies (that Saddam Hussein was devoted to the USA's destruction and world domination).

And while we're sitting here having this nice conversation, with you normalizing and rationalizing this sickening culture (whereas I, you'll note, despise both the US and Canadian mainstream political scene and propose radical alternatives), ... in Iraq, dozens of young families, impoverished by war, are now struggling to deal with providing for severely crippled babies thanks to the US government.

Of course, to mention any of this simply isn't done in polite elite US company. Something to do with ignorance, hypocrisy, greed, stupidity, etc., etc.,

My point isn't about USA-Canada. It's about right and wrong, stupid and not stupid.

Mark said...

Seriously? You believe that "No blood for oil" line? If it was about oil, that's one lousy ROI. Tanks, bullets, and jets ain't cheap. If they wanted the oil that badly working with the regime, like the Europeans would have been a lot cheaper.

Really. I find the moral outrage of fine upstanding Canadians very touching. But it doesn't pay the bills or help me learn visual basic or solve fermi equations so....

Marky Mark said...

For what it's worth, not everyone who blogs or comments is a partisan or is consistently "left" or "right," with many being one way on certain issues such as social issues and another way on other issues. For those people the debate really does contribute to an evolution in thinking and an increase in understanding of what others are saying.

Not everyone you diasgree with is a "troll."

Also, when you go "offline" and actually meet some of the people you've been screaming at, it's very different afterwords, and I think that's a good thing.

Marky Mark said...

(afterwards)

thwap said...

Marky Mark,

I think the left-right distinction still has validity, and that's why I use it.

And it's simply not the case that I think everyone who disagrees with me is a troll or stupid.

I loathe the Liberal Party of Canada but I've said time and again that i respect a lot of Liberal bloggers.