Anyway, Roger the GS writes an interesting and thoughtful piece about arguing on the internet in general. I'm somebody who engages in that idiotic pastime rather a lot (although I like to think I've toned it down a little bit); being an academic, I also find myself arguing with people face-to-face on nearly a daily basis, and will even argue about things I absolutely care nothing about (I once had a very long, heated argument with a colleague about the morality of vegetarian sausages at about 1am at a pub; by the time we'd finished we'd well and truly painted ourselves as nutjobs in front of the entire department, but I was right about the stupid sausages.)
I used to have a high-minded view about discussion and debate. I used to think it was a matter of changing minds, and in my particularly self-congratulatory moments I would look on myself as somebody reasonable and sensible who would change his own views through debate. I now think that neither of those things happen very much, if at all. I do occasionally refine and evaluate my views through argument. But you are never going to convince me that, for example, Catharine MacKinnon is right about pornography, to pull an example off the top of my head as something I have argued about at the pub recently. And I don't think I have ever witnessed anybody change their mind through an argument; the best that can usually be hoped for is an agreement to disagree.
A good friend and regular sparring partner down the years, J, was unfortunate enough to share an office with me for a long stretch. Coming from near opposite ends of the political spectrum, as we did, we usually found ourselves arguing, on a more-or-less daily basis. He often used to say that arguing was a sport, rather than an actual exchange of views. I agree with this more and more. Arguing, for some people, is fun. It is like exercise for the mind. You get a little endorphine rush when you think you are right, just as you get an adrenaline rush when you score a goal. But you rarely have any intention of even entertaining the possibility you could be wrong, even if you will not admit that to yourself.
I'm also of the view that arguing and putting forth your views eloquently and passionately is a form of preening. It's showing off: "Look at me and how big my brain is". It is a manifestation of the human (particularly straight male) urge to say to prospective mates: "I am worth a good shag, so what are you waiting for?". I don't believe that this is at all a conscious impulse, but I think it is there at its roots, deep down inside that ancient reptilian part of us. As I said in the comments to Roger's post (and I'll repeat it because I like it): its ironic that this manifestation appears on nerd forums on the internet, where it is the least likely platform for attracting mates imaginable. What isn't ironic is that, as we all know, sexual chemistry and arguing are inextricably linked.
I imagine that there are people out there reading this who are thinking to themselves no, when I argue I do it because I am passionate about my world-view and want to convince others of its fundamental truth. There are others who will be thinking no, when I argue I do it because I am genuinely interested in exchanging opposing opinions and thus broadening my mind. To that, I'd say yes, I often think that is what I am doing as well, at the time. But if I look deep down inside I have to admit that much of the impulse to argue is simply to stroke my monstrous ego and remind myself how right I am. I'm not proud of that. But I am right about it.
So... are vegetarian sausages morally superior?
ReplyDeleteNo. Vegetarian sausages are a way for vegetarians to have their cake and eat it, and they should have the courage of their convictions and not eat an inferior simulacrum of meat. I don't actually care, but that was my position and I'm sticking to it because that's the kind of person I am.
DeleteAs a vegetarian whose decision to be one is based on a number of fairly sound reasons - carbon emissions, profligacy of resource use and the interplay of profit motive and entities capable of suffering - I believe your position on vege-sausages is bizarre. Counterfeiting meat flavour is a purely aesthetic decision like masturbating to cartoon porn and, like you, my personal investment in this argument will not allow me to be convinced otherwise. Instead, if you start flaunting your peacock's tail of hard-won eloquence and argumentative incisiveness to an extent that my argument looks tawdry and dull by comparison I shall take refuge in cognitive dissonance and shift the goal posts or some shit.
DeleteGeoffrey Miller's The Mating Mind deals with this stuff very nicely. I think this particular variety of ostentatious dogmatic inflexibility is the source of most conflict in the world.
NO! Absolutely everything you say is wrong. ;)
ReplyDeleteAnd of course by that I mean "you are right" but my own academic background rules out that someone should be more right about it than me.
I have been trying to give up arguing on the net. I have gotten into a few "border clashes" but mostly I have avoided any major skirmishes.
My life has generally been much happier once I gave up arguing on the Internet. It's generally quite easy to see when a train wreck is starting to occur on RPG.net and thus to ignore it. As a result, I have had a quite happy experience on that forum for 17 years now.
DeleteCatharine McKinnon = boring old hag.
ReplyDeleteShe isn't actually a hag, though. In previous times she was pretty foxy.
Delete"Foxy"? You're flirting with misogyny, sir.
DeleteMisogyny? I love women. Especially the foxy ones.
DeleteSuch "dehumanizing" language!
DeleteI've yet to come up with a better analogy than the classic "Arguing on the internet is like the Special Olympics, win or lose you're still all retards.
ReplyDeleteIt's a statement I completely agree with and which I am unable to abide by anymore than Corky was able to break out into leading man roles.
I think the thing to consider about the primate urge to show mastery, is that by arguing about esoterica, we've often already chosen to edge away from the classical displays. That blurry mess of Intellectualism which starts with quoting Chomsky or Chrétien de Troyes and then degenerates somewhere down into fandom at the far end, where you've moved beyond Joseph Campbell into a diatribe about JarJar is the moral equivalent of JJ Walker. It is a deliberate choice to not punch people out, to not display our Porsche (or engorged hind quarters), and to not "strut ourselves on the dance floor" to prove our body's endurance and innate rhythm, which promises a night many orgasms to the watching females.
I think it's akin to behavior of an irish setter I once owned. I'ts a reflex.
It's not getting you laid any time soon, but till then it's still fun to have a go at anything that crosses your path.
I will admit to having my mind changed on a few topics, mostly because as I was looking for research to dispute points, I stumbled on better arguments which did convince me on a topic.
ReplyDeleteBeyond that it's mostly a good way to refine your arguments. So when your friend or cousin decides to bring up his Alex Jones facts about 9-11, you can chop him down before desert and the real drinking begins.
Yes - that's what I meant about refining and evaluating views through argumentation. So when somebody comes out with something you disagree with you can bring out the argument you prepared earlier, a la Blue Peter.
DeleteI do not like arguing.
ReplyDeletePeople do change my opinions quite frequently, but it is one of those things I notice in the first few lines of an argument.
ReplyDeleteSomeone who actually is looking to change my mind will spend the first few minutes figuring out why I hold certain views, then argue from my own moral reasoning and not their own.
It is usually people with a sales background who are best at changing someones mind rather than academics. Academics want you to see they are right, Sales people just want you to agree with their statement (regardless of why).
Because sales people have a horse in the race (getting you to buy something) whereas academics don't (it's all for show).
Deletei've come to realise that i change my mind much more often when i watch other people argue about a topic i care about.
ReplyDeletethis eliminates all the issues you mention, all of which i agree with.
I've found my mind changed quite a few times through this internet arguing thing. But I do think I'm getting some kind of rat-experiment endorphin hit from it. Mostly from getting those little bell notifications that somebody paid attention to me. The life of a researcher can be lonely, and a little endorphin hit in the afternoon is nicer than another coffee.
ReplyDeleteThe pavlovian conditioning of the G+ bell.
DeleteOn your evolutionary biology/sexual selection point, I am personally not convinced. Sure, arguing can be a form of showing off, but I personally know lots of non-male and non-straight people who are, um, quite argumentative. My own experience is obviously anecdotal, but I don't see what bringing sexual selection into this discussion really adds in terms of insight or explanatory power.
ReplyDeleteI didn't say it was exclusively straight men. Everybody preens. It's just that straight men are more prone to the "everybody look at me while I do something amazing" routine.
DeleteI would like to think argument is about self-improvement. You test the flaws in your argument, examine your opponent's for merit, have fun, and maybe incidentally perform a similar service for them. I don't have a problem with arguing on the internet or off, because I do it for fun, and I'm not trying to change anyone's mind except my own.
ReplyDeleteMaybe subconsciously I'm just showing off, but if I accept that and stop arguing, am I not also losing that self-improvement? I've changed my mind multiple times as a result of arguing, and even when I don't, the process of expounding and defending my opinions forces me to think about them and clarify them.
We argued recently about the horror genre, and it mostly boiled down to a difference in terminology and me bulling after a straw man. Now that I realise that, I'm a less likely to do it again. If I hadn't argued with you, you would never have corrected me, and I'd be a little less wise than I am now. And neither of us even changed our opinions.
Of course, when argument is entered into with an agreement of mutual respect for the participants, it can be very useful as part of human discourse. But when it degenerates into the verbal equivalent of ape-like poop-flinging, then it simply becomes an exercise in "who can stroke their own ego the most while trying to batter down the other person's ego."
DeleteOn a related note, remember the trust gap: statistically, everyone always assumes others are more dishonest, biased, and self-deceptive than they really are. I make a conscious effort to assume everyone is telling the truth and knows their own mind, unless I have solid reason to think otherwise or there's actual risk involved, and to be honest it's worked out a lot more smoothly than I expected.
ReplyDeleteI've read too much Daniel Kahneman; I tend to assume nobody knows their own mind, including myself. ;)
DeleteStop me if you've heard this one before:
ReplyDeleteSo there's this guy, see? And he's a talent scout auditioning for new acts. One day these guys come in, and they've got guitars, amplifiers, and an axe and a sledgehammer. So the talent scout says, "OK, show me what you've got."
One guy plays a guitar riff, really loud. The other one plays another even louder. Soon both are hammering away as hard as they can, with blood running from their fingers and sweat flowing from the bodies. Then one slams the other with his guitar, and the other hits him back. They pound each other until one falls to the ground. The guy left standing smashes both guitars with the hammer and the axe and stabs the pieces into the other guy's body, finishing by pounding a guitar neck into his chest like he's staking out a vampire.
The talent scout is stunned. "What the Hell was that? What do you even call an act like that?"
"SOMEONE IS WRONG ON THE INTERNET!"
I love apathy and an aesthetic view of metaphysics. I rarely feel the need to or get into any arguments with anybody.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your general idea, being an academic myself, I think it applies more in our arena though. I'm not sure most people argue for preening purposes, mostly because they don't have 10 years of studious baggage behind them.
I have no idea what drama you are referring to but as soon as anybody uses the term "concern trolling", it's time to check out.
You may be right, but the ability to eloquently state one's opinion is a stalwart of the middle-class dinner party irrespective of one's career; admittedly that is not the aim of the middle-class dinner party conversation, which is all about agreeing earnestly with the prevailing sentiments. But the preening is the same.
DeleteOh, that is true. I've not much experience with that part of society, I admit it is a blindspot. I went from working class to academia but there is probably a link between the two as most academics come from that dinner party culture anyway.
DeleteSo did I. I think that as an outsider I notice these things more readily. Being middle-class is all about being able to show off how well-educated, thoughtful and clued-in you are without for the moment rocking the boat.
DeleteAnd it's moment like these that make me realize I'm discussing different ideas of class. It's the pop psychology label of being passive aggressive to dominate the conversation and enforce your views, while carefully never giving any indication that you're arguing a point. Which I'm not so sure whether that is a middle class or a methodist thing. Sometimes only Garrison Keillor understands me.
DeleteTo circle back. It has started to remind me of the noticeable difference I experienced in academic class discussions. Male professors and male dominated class rooms did tend to oratory and an adversarial stance and rebuttal. The classic displays of prowness among men, rather than courtship displays. While the same department's female professors and female dominated classes (notably often courses which could be history or women's studies) required a patina of civility, a lip service towards it being a "group discussion." Mind you, they'd rip you apart for thinking differently just as fast, but they'd always politely nod as you finished your point.
Which throws me off on a tangent on the whole, "does argument change your mind", as this also reminds me that there is a third result to our question. The one where you change your mind, but don't come to agree with your opponent, as you've instead formulated an entirely different third position, because your opponent has introduced new ideas to the ones you formerly held.
I think this whole discussion may have convinced me of something, but I have no idea what.
Well, you can replace class with your favourite contemporary sociological theory, if you like. I think Noisms is English and I am Australian born, so class is short-hand for a wider habitus (I like Bourdieu) and one we both understand in it's intricacies.
DeleteI agree with Noisms, it is middle-class. We call it, Middle-Class Morality. Where you can politely be as racist as you want while coming back from a gay rights protest for equal marriage rights. Maybe that example could help you put it into an American terminology?
There is a gender difference but that is another topic and pretty separated from what we're talking about it. Mainly what you observed is females displaying docility, lest they be run out of the department. Though that is less of an issue these days because of said middle class morality.
Middle class dinner party speech has its purposes. I'm pretty staunchly middle class and I find it useful for quietly figuring out what people think about things so I can find an interface with them where we can talk around a question without immediately devolving into fighting.
DeleteI fucking hate banter, though.
I'm with you on the banter, Richard. Banter has taken over English male society in recent years but I find it excruciating. I actually think it boils down to the same process: preening.
DeleteAnyway, "class" in the British and probably Australian context is a very nuanced concept which everybody is finely tuned towards but unable to clearly express. Incidentally I was at a comedy club last night and the headline act got up on stage and said, "Is anyone here working class?" About half the people in the room went, "Yes!" Then he went "Is anyone here middle class?" One woman put her hand up. This is in a room at least two-thirds full of obviously middle-class young professionals and students. It amused me no end: the most middle-class thing in the world is to deny that you are middle-class.
I said I was from a working-class background earlier on, and I would still maintain I am - my grandfathers were both mechanics in factories. But I think I embody British meritocracy in that my parents were lowly office clerks and I managed to go to university and now have a very middle-class career. In the course of three generations my family has moved up the ladder, so while I still don't quite fit in at middle-class dinner parties and get treated like a quaint scouser, I expect my kids will be a different matter.
As an American, I find this utterly strange.
DeleteClass is still extremely prevalent in British society and although it would grossly overstate things to call it a caste system, it affects peoples' lives in quite profound ways, still. If you are from a working class background and you want to have a professional career you have to make a big effort to "pass" - including ironing out your regional accent, doing the right cultural things, holding the right opinions, etc. And even if you do this successfully you will always feel a little bit like a fraud.
DeleteA good friend and I used to talk about this quite a lot because we were friends with a group of posh girls who went to the local public school (which means a school which selects its pupils - the opposite of the American version - and is usually a haunt of middle-class kids). He and I, on the other hand, were not on the bread lines or anything, but we both went to a state school and were from a less affluent area and had more immediate working class roots. We both always felt that going to parties and hanging out with those girls was almost like being a human zoo exhibit. They were our friends...but we were different to them and I think they found us charming but perhaps slightly inferior as a result.
It's also worth mentioning that British people like to aim low, so saying "I'm middle class" comes across as giving yourself airs.
Deleteand you've lived in Japan...
DeleteI'll say that "passing" when you're middle class is also far from easy - if you have friends in other classes there's a wall that isn't coming down... especially if you never talk about it, which you won't.
Man, I prefer Brazilians. So much less bullshit all round.
But despite its faults, Britain is a much more meritocratic society than Brazil, don't you think? I mean I'm not an expert on Brazilian society but it seems like making your way up the ladder there is harder than it is in the UK and there is a much bigger gap between rich and poor.
Deletethat may be true (principally because of a much more egalitarian education system in Britain) but it's really a separate issue: we were talking about acceptance across borders of community/identity, right? And my experience among the Brazilians I know so far has been that identity is more laughed at than used as a reason not to talk to people or to keep them at a distance. Admittedly, most of the Brazilians I know come from the top class - which can afford foreign travel for instance - or I know them through relatives/childhood friends so there's a social in there, but I'd say overall Brazilian society is more genuinely friendly across more income, education, race and cultural distinctions than British society. Or American society, for that matter.
DeleteI'd say that's more of a symptom of upper-class values. My university is for upper, probably equivalent to Kensington and Chelsea types, and I see the same attitude from the kids who come from those families. Class, identity politics, it's all meaningless to them and they find everyone's attachment pretty funny. Of course, they have very little social stigma or reason to form a cohesive class identity. On the upside, it's easy to tutor them because I only really need to focus on the kids who want to learn which is like 2 or 3. The rest just want to pay their money and go to dubai for weeks at a time.
DeleteHmmmm... there certainly is an international upper class in Brazil, but my friends don't belong to it (yeah, I know I said they belong to the top class but on reflection that's really not true: they're part of a very small and embattled middle class - they need to make their own money and they have the means to do so).
DeleteMoreover I'd be wary of any easy conflation of British upper class and any part of Brazilian society.
Oh, my bad. The example is also from an Australian upper, not a British. I still find it hard to believe that stigma would't be attached to favelas and people from the mid-lower to lower end but I also think that maybe I am too rigidly tied to the concept of a class system. Anyway, it's very interesting, I'm definitely going to follow up on Brazilian social attitudes, they sound great.
DeleteYeah, it's easy for people in the middle or upper classes to say that "class doesn't exist anymore" or "class doesn't affect anything".
DeleteOn Brazil, do you think it's true that race isn't an issue?
If you look at the totality of the Brazilian population, no it's certainly not true. The demographics of economic classes clearly show you that in general blacks remain less affluent than whites and you can find instances of outright racism facing in all directions if you go looking for them. Brazil abounds in exclusive little clubs of every stripe.
DeleteAnd my abiding impression of economic class there is that really there are 3 governments and legal systems at work in Brazil. The national government only really covers the middle class and the poor who have aspirations to inclusion. Covering the urban poor you have the favela lords, who run their territories like a form of social-contract corporation (based around crime) and constitute something like a foreign power/local government within the cities, with their own independent tax and compensation systems. And the very rich operate in a separate sphere again - not really subject to the national laws but instead to a kind of mutually-supporting private society from which they can be dropped back into the realm of public accountability if they misbehave.
But in Brazilian society (and I suppose most of all in the media, which is how we imagine the community after all) I do not see anything like the same kind of battle lines around race or class that I see in the US. Political correctness and cultural cringe have not yet caught on. So it looks like a much more peaceful place racially - although if you were to do a careful study of, say, organized crime you might find a lot of racial tensions and demarcation lines under the surface,in addition to the economics that are fundamental to the crime system.
Which is why Americans like me always have to pause when people start talking of class, because when asked, we all answer middle class and most of us mean it. It's just such an elastic word, that it verges on being meaningless these days. It often seems like an attempt to keep using industrial taxonomy in a post-industrial world.
ReplyDeleteIt just struck me how watching this discussion is like watching my black friends discuss "acting white."
ReplyDeleteThe ambush has been a part of our behavior for millennia, no? Human beings have evolved a habit of striking an unaware opponent (be it a prey animal or another human being) in order to gain advantage and minimize reprisal. Thus, the popularity of sniping one's "enemies." In addition, gossip, name-calling, belittling others for advantage (real or imagined), and other such behavior also have a long history in our cultures worldwide. Some experts say that these behaviors can serve a useful purpose, such as dissemination of essential information and insights among a particular population. But we all know that these behaviors can spiral out of control and create, um, interpersonal problems.
ReplyDeleteThese behaviors have been exacerbated by the internet. Now you can instantaneously attack anyone anywhere from the safety of your home (or, thanks to smartphones and the like, from any random location) with relative anonymity (this last statement can be argued, of course, in an age of decreasing privacy). It’s the ultimate digital hunting blind.
Ultimately, all of these internet arguments are a manifestation of the good old human potential for mob mentality. Isn’t it so fun to gang up on someone?
I think the biggest problem has been the corruption of what is connoted by the word, "argument." I don't think that someone "arguing" for any reason other than personal intellectual improvement is actually "arguing," any more than the NSA is "fighting terrorism," or Monsanto is "protecting the environment," or the Soviet Union was a "worker's paradise." "Preening" is exactly the right word. And guess what? Two people preening at each other are never going to come to an agreement. It is literally the furthest away from their objectives.
ReplyDeleteI also think it's pretty naive to believe that one can change another person's mind in just a few hours or even a few days. People's opinions are built up, in the subconscious mind, for months or years before they even begin to consider any questions. Their opinions are deeply interconnected with their interpretations of hundreds or thousands of experiences they have, and hundreds of thousands of parallel opinions, and even with their thoughts about their work, their friends, and their social network. Contradictions arise. This is normal. Humans didn't evolve as theorizing creatures, they evolved as living creatures. And a living creature cannot spend the majority of their time looking inward.
So no, nobody is going to change an opinion over a few hours or days. They must piece together the consequences of changing their thinking. The change ripples outward. People don't even realize it's happening. But it does.
As everyone with a clitoris knows, rigor, accuracy and precision aren't just for Friday nights.
ReplyDeleteI don't think rigor and precision are what happens on friday nights!
DeleteI don't know Noisms, I don't agree with you. I think arguing on the internet can be useful, precisely because it's been useful to me. Though I haven't taken part in the arguments and discussions about sexism in gaming, I've followed the threads and blog posts. I used to think that yeah a person //shouldn't// play in thus-and-such a way, and that yeah thus-and-such a monster is sexist and shouldn't be used or talked about, but these discussions have changed my mind. I play differently now. And now I have more fun. And that's good. I'm thankful these arguments happen in a place where I can see then. Please keep arguing!
ReplyDeleteAnd are you implying it's a bad thing to stroke your own ego...? Because I'm not sure it is. It's nice to be watched while you do something amazing. And besides that, a person who's arguing on the internet doesn't necessarily have that sole intent. They might just want to know something.
I can prove you're all wrong.
ReplyDeleteFifty posts on the subject of arguing and not one single Monty Python reference.
And you call yourselves internet nerds.
I hate Monty Python.
DeleteI think that arguments can be a kind of ego driven sport, but one that is attached to the actual possibilities of discussion. It's absurd how much of arguments is just about people trying to follow on one person's sentence with their own, point out that other people have not done that yet, and hopefully take silence as victory. It's as if we're doing some kind of musical jam battle where you need to take someone's idea and rework it, maybe with a pun, maybe with a shocking fact, whatever.
ReplyDeleteFor example, I heard a great quote once "a roll of thunder in the distance, like a man saying "and another thing" after admitting that he'd already lost the argument". In a real discussion, coming up with an idea later is just a thing to consider, in an argument, dead space means someone won!
I can see how that could be a form of intellectual sparring, with no actual content required; just make it about being able to phrase an answer to another statement that sounds good, with other tactics surrounding it about blocking off the easier or lazier answers.
At the same time, as a few people have said, there's an element of journalism to arguments. You probably won't change someone's mind about the thing you’re actually discussing, even if they would of been happy to listen to that idea before, but you might tell them something they never heard of before, and if they're listening to your sentences very carefully in order to continue that jam battle, maybe they'll think about what you said.
And of course, sometimes, especially if someone is willing to go back to the conversation later and go beyond the immediate emotion, you can actually have a discussion at the same time, but it's very easily jammed by the same dynamics.