I have provided here four consecutive replies from a note one of my high school teachers on Facebook posted. I would ask that local friends reply here as well as on Facebook (so that my non-local friends can participate in full); I am of course posting this in the first place for my non-local friends, but also to draw attention to the issue for it is a serious one that nerds take far too lightly.
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Note: I am of course Ryan. "Aaron" is not the Aaron I often talk about on this blog, who was my senior-year roommate and good friend at Purdue. This Aaron is a total stranger. He is roughly one year younger than me and he went to Ivy Tech.
Aaron writes: Jordan, anyone with half a brain knows what the bush doctrine is. I've known about it for years just by watching the cable news networks. This, to me, proves that she never watches the news. Also, it wasn't taken out of context. I think you misspoke.
Ryan writes: "anyone with half a brain knows"
Aaaaaaaaand your post came to a screeching halt. This sort of language:
1) destroys any chance you may have had of earning your ideologic adversary's respect,
2) destroys any chance you may have had of retaining ours, and
3) belies that you're not really here to DISCUSS politics -- you're here to ARGUE politics. That is to say, you're here to talk AT people rather than talking WITH them.
If I am correct, then it is what it is. Otherwise, I'd advise you in the future to not resort to this sort of badmouthing, no matter how frustrated you get with the other person(s) with whom you're debating. Debate isn't about trying to reach a consensus for consensus' sake (where if it was then we'd pull out all the stops and coerce the others into "agreeing" with us). Debate is about reaching a consensus so that all parties involved feel they are making the best choice in good conscience. The easiest way to tell the two apart is when insulting language comes into play -- if somebody told me "only a guy with half a brain would write what you did," I'd know he didn't care about me as a human being at all -- all he wanted was to win a petty argument at my expense.
Not knowing what the phrase "Bush Doctrine" means wouldn't make somebody dumb: instead, it would simply mean that they don't sit around home all day watching American cable news channels. And you know what, I'm sure that the best world leaders don't have time to sit around watching cable TV, either! So I don't see why you'd hold Palin, Obama, or anybody else to that standard. By all means, PLEASE let us have a leader who is more pro-active than the most pious of couch potatoes!
Aaron writes: To Ryan N...
You sir, have been trolled.
Ryan writes: To Aaron C.,
the oldest trick in the book is to try and pass off one's fumble as a troll.
For those of you who don't know what Aaron means by the term "troll," he's talking about a decoy posting where the author deliberately says something false or inflammatory in order to instigate trouble just for personal amusement. In other words, Aaron's trying to claim that the joke's on me and it was all a part of his master plan. (Must have required both halves of his brain, I'm sure!)
You are many things, Aaron: unoriginal, rude, and -- as revealed by your reply -- a regular visitor of the Internet's filthiest nerd haunt, 4chan, or a website strongly influenced by its degenerate culture (e.g. YTMND or the Gaia forums). But clever? Ha, sorry, Aaron: 'fraid that one's not on the list.
Come back when you learn how to do more than copy and paste tired Internet catchphrases. Better yet, come back when you're man enough to admit to your own mistakes and to debate serious matters with maturity and respect.
3 comments:
Meh, the internet is serious business, etc. I guess I'm in the minority, but I hate, hate, HATE online censoring, except maybe in the case of advertising spam. At this point, I expect people online to be rude and frankly, I find that's part of the internet's charm. Anonymity brings out the true person, unbridled and unmeasured. Now, I'm not advocating rudeness; you reap what you sow. But I am saying internet assholery seems like old hat by now, and unless someone specifically requests otherwise, it should be expected. In fact, I'd say rudeness is even more amusing when people online specifically demand civility. We all have the right to offend and I'm not sure any of us should have the right to not be offended.
Anonymity brings out the true person, unbridled and unmeasured.
Why is the sign of true personhood the lack of restraint? Restraint and civility are the marks of true humanity, because they are signs of love, a uniquely human capacity. Whereas, lack of restraint is the mark of animals who lack reason and the capacity to love.
Wow. It got despicable really fast on that facebook post. Don't feed the trolls, Ryan! It's the fastest way to kill them.
Anonymity doesn't spoil every person. There are those who might participate anonymously and still afford others restraint and civility. And those people could be said to be truly good humans.
It seems that after the threat of immediate social punishment has been removed, we learn just how mean, be it sexism, racism, homophobia, violence, etc, that person really is behind the public facade we have all built up. I'm thinking specifically of a few chilling psychological experiments: the Stanford prisoner/guard experiment and the Milgram experiment (which deal more with obedience, but are still pertinent, I think).
There is something to be said for the concept of humanism as you've begun to define, but we are still persons even when we're thrust into Lord of the Flies.
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