This is the question that was raised in the wake of a Science Online 2010 session on civility. I did not attend the session so I am only addressing the issues that were subsequently discussed on blog posts written in the aftermath of a now infamous conversation that appears to have been (by their own admission, I believe) between Henry Gee of Nature and Nature Blogs Network and Zuska the Magnificent of Scienceblogs Dot Com. Much of that discussion is now happening on the Nature Network on a blog post celebrating 5 X 104 comments on that network.
(As an aside, I really think it is shameful that certain bloggers and commenters have taken the opportunity of this celebration to engage in the mutual masturbation they call “incivility” rather than simply being a good blogospheric neighbor and saying “Congratulations.” Or, if this incivility in place of camaraderie is critically important, I want a list of the repressed people who have become unrepressed by this particular act of unmitigated goatfucking asshattery. But I digress.)
To put the question in a less metaphorical way: Is it reasonable that a blogger require commenters be “civil,” or is such a requirement a tool of repression of ideas one does not want to hear or be heard by others? Is this requirement for civility a classic tool of those in power to maintain the status quo? The title of this post emerges from the rumored repartee between Gee and Zuska in which Gee noted that he feels that he can choose, if he wants, to disallow visitors (commenters) to his salon (blog) to piss on his rug (the rug ties it all together, presumably).
I don’t see how it is reasonable for anyone (and by anyone I mean bloggers) to have a carpet on their salon that they are required by some convention to allow visitors to piss on. It is entirely up to the person with the blog, just as what happens in a home is up to the person with a home. Indeed, being required to allow your carpet to be the target for glistening golden streams of liquid in order to obtain or maintain a specific level of feminist or anti-racist cred is beyond the pale astonishingly fucked up.
The public square (the place where the metaphorical soap boxes are kept) is different. No one person using that place should be able to easily tell any one else in that place what to say and not say or how to say it.
One could argue that such proscriptions can be asserted at the social level. The majority of denizens of the public square can decide what kind of pissing is not allowed and when. This is of course the objection that some bloggers are trying (usually not very effectively) to make. If the social proscription exists even for good reason and is worked out with impeccable logic, it will eventually be used by power brokers to silence voices that question the status quo, voices that those in power would rather not hear.
Civility is only one mode of proscription. There are as many modes of proscription as there are methods and styles of communication. Civility is a word meant to cover a lot of ground, but it is imperfect, and as such will only serve to focus the question (of who gets to tell whom to shut up) temporarily until some other method is found.
A reasonable person who blogs in controversial areas has a right to disallow any sort of conversation on one’s blog, but will more likely listen to a wider range of opinions than one might like to hear. This is often a feature that separates right from left politically among US based blogs. Right wing blogs almost never allow dissent. Left wing blogs usually tolerate a fair amount of pissing. Furthermore, a reasonable person who blogs may be fine with the idea of hearing privately from a commenter who has the urge to piss but is not being allowed to piss to find a way to relief. This is control. This is the blogger being in charge of what who can say what and when. But it is perfectly appropriate because it applies only to the person’s blog, not to the public square. A person who really needs to piss and can not find a place to do it can get their own toilet … I mean blog.
I find it interesting that some of the better known bloggers who insist on the preservation of incivility are themselves the least welcoming to anyone who may have a different view on their own blogs. This does not apply to all such bloggers, but among the pro-pissing crowd may also be found the most strident banners of commenters and those with the most ready winged monkey sock puppet brigades (designed to belittle or humiliate select commenters) and those who engage most giddily in sophomoric social network pranks.
This is why the conversation so often resembles a shouting match between middle school bullies and hapless new kids on the block. And, I say with my strongest admonishing white male privileged voice, this is why fewer people listen to them than they would like. Their incivility is not the issue. Their very poor execution of a strategy to help less privileged voices be heard is the problem. In fact, the strategy is in some cases so poorly executed that it is probably setting us back a few years in this area of social evolution.
Probably in most cases, indubitably in a few cases, the pro-incivility bloggers have not thought this through. There is some evidence that they won’t be able to think this through, or if they do, it is too late and they can’t back off from their current approach. In my view, that part of the conversation should be circumscribed and ignored. But just for the fun of it, I’m going to try to say once what I think they would have said had they been smarter or thought longer. And by my words I may repress them (oh, if only it were true):
Social discourse is a negotiated process. The negotiation is dynamic, and involves shifting power and shifting conventions of what is prescribed and proscribed. There are times when a certain set of conventions … like demanding civility when the argument gets heated and one is losing it, or speaking in ever shifting hard to decipher slang so only the in-crowd gets the nuances, or conspiring to cram the Google machine or decontextualize phrases, or selective commenting policies or use of trained sock puppets … emerges for the specific purposes of controlling other people’s voices. Sadly, sometimes such things work. Where we fall into a similar political (or other activist) framework, we should be vigilant and helpful, to facilitate rather than repress conversation, and watch each other’s backs.
That’s what I think. I welcome comments below. Please keep it interesting.
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Are you suggesting that #bobchickenshit would never mistake power tools for toys?
Bobchickenshit is a great example of both conspiratorial obscurity and being sophomoric. There was actually a time when I thought … oh never mind, I’m trying to keep my own comments civil. For now.
My impression of what is being asserted is not that Gee needs to “let people piss on his rug”, but rather that the decision not to has implications. And my impression–based, admittedly, on hearsay evidence–is that what enraged Gee at the Civility Panel was the expression of an opinion about what some of those implications might be.
And BTW, what I don’t get is why anyone would install a fucking rug in their blog anyway. When shit gets out of hand, it’s much easier to clean a tile floor.
A tile floor with a drain is recommended.
And something to grind up the bones.
So, these are twitter hash tags? I feel like I need to learn a new code.
Nicely put Greg. This whole shenanigans is turning into urinary bukkake where the act of pissing has become the point of the argument, rather than a feature of the discussion.
The majority of blogs are self-regulating, as are web forums etc. I honestly don’t see what all the fuss about: if you don’t like it, don’t read it. It’s a wonderfully egalitarian environment. I read some Scienceblogs, and I might not agree with everyone, or fancy reading everything written by bloggers I follow (you, Isis & PZ mostly). But just like in *gasp* real life, I might not agree with everything my friends and acquaintances say, or indeed family & loved ones.
And if someone is being particularly egregious, or enjoys talking about things I find distasteful (for example), why then, I can simply “not be friends” with that person, or not join in their conversation.
But seriously, CPP, and I know communication is not your business or anything, but
“Gee needs to let people piss on his rug” or bad things happen
and
“the decision not to let people piss on his rug has implications. ”
are not substantively different. Do we really want to make this into an act of sophistry?
As I say in my post, the purveyors of the “incivility or you are the repressorz” are very wrong, and in too deep to back out. So now we will fight over “it is bad” to “it has bad implications”?
I don’t think so.
The point is that there is definitely a big difference between saying (1) you must/must not do X, (2) if you do/do not do X, I will do Y (for values of Y that do not include merely saying something in public you don’t like), or (3) if you do/do not do X, I will say something in public you might not like.
My impression is that Gee was enraged by an instance of (3), which I find pathetic. Other than harrassment, libel, etc, why would anyone give a flying fuck that some random douche tells them they are an idiot and suck balls?
One could do worse than copy BoingBoing’s moderation guidelines. BoingBoing is one of the most popular sites on the internet, and has been around for ages. They know what they’re doing.
Yup, sophistry.
Look, for the last time, it wasn’t my rug, it was John Wilkins’.
But it still tied the whole room together.
Dude, I am not a sophist.
I did not say you were a sophist. I said you were engaging in sophistry. I cna’t believe you don’t know the difference!!!!!
Boing Boing has had their own problems with moderation of dissent in comments. One of the reasons I don’t have a comment policy is because I’m never going to pretend my comment moderation is anything other than arbitrary.
#bobchickenshit is not a guarded secret. There are a cache of non-SBers using the hashtag. If you want to know what it means, shoot me an email rather than assuming it’s some grand conspiracy to exclude you. I’ll happily tell you the story.
It seems utterly obvious that not only CAN a blog owner control what happens in comments, but a blog owner SHOULD control what happens in comments.
His blog is so awful I’m surprised anyone would notice.
Isis, I don’t think the word you wanted to use there was “cache”:
1 a : a hiding place especially for concealing and preserving provisions or implements
The Boing Boing case is interesting. Some of the commentary on that claims that it would have been OK for Boing Boing to delete posts if their policy was secretive and arbitrary, but since they profess transparency they are totally evil. I suppose there is something to that, but I would think people would evaluate the act as an act of its own right.
There is the added irony: A relatively open comment system can lead to people taking advantage of that (as has been seen on this blog with various yahoos and denialists).
Isis, I don’t think the word you wanted to use there was “cache”
Hahahahahahahah!!!!!
My short answer is no, pissing on a blogger’s rug does not have to be allowed.
I don’t know who Henry Gee is nor do I care (I already follow 35 sources) but if a blog becomes a place for personal attacks or is ruined by trolls then I just leave. e.g. I just could not stomach Pharyngula if PZ did not have a list of banned psychopaths.
My concern with the Boing Boing case, and this wasn’t the only one, was the way a moderation policy turned into a “asking about the moderation policy will get your comments deleted and, possibly, you banned” policy, while the official policy didn’t change at all. I got to watch it during this incident as someone was using their own blog to document what was being deleted.
They can do that. Anybody can do that. But then why have a policy that people will rely on to guide their behavior? I prefer none.
That’s what you took away?
In Computer Science: A fast storage buffer
Let the cache wars commence!!!
No, I didn’t come away with that definition, but that’s probably because no processing is done in the cache. #bobchickenshit is processing.
Well, Henry has now told me in three different places that it was no this rug, but John Wilkins’s. Had I realized that, this would be all different. By all means, piss on Wilkins’ rug!!
He likes it, he’s a gorilla.
I’m wondering how much of the controversy here is due to people confusing “pissing on the carpet” (presumably saying/doing something that makes things awkward or difficult for *everyone* in the metaphorical blog “room” with Zuska’s famous “puking on your shoes” (presumably an act against a specific individual for a specific offense).
If I had a blog, I think I would try to create an atmosphere where generalized pissing on the carpet would be discouraged, but I think I’d support the occasional well-deserved shoe puking (even my own shoes).
Zuska has never puked on my shoes, by the way. So I’m cool.
Wait…this Henry Gee?
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/06/dr_who_dr_dawkins.php#comment-958164
*Challenging and arguing with his beliefs is evidently impossible in this fantasy world.
Salty, for some reason I’m totally missing your point.
Yep, SC, that’s him. Thanks for reminding me. I was wracking my brain trying to remember that outburst. Gee has a talent for acting like a complete jerk – calling Richard Dawkins “Dickie D” – then affecting woundedness when people call him on it.
Is it civil to come to an atheist blog and accuse the commenters of being Nazi wannabes because they openly challenge religious belief? If that’s civility, I want no part of it.
SC’s right, Greg. The name-calling from Gee was really the least of it. You might want to take time to read that thread; his behavior was appalling by any standard, whether one is predisposed to give him the benefit of the doubt or not.
OK, I wasn’t sure if your point was about the content (in which issues of civility vs. holocaust might have been being made?) or Henry on Pharyngula.
First, let me be very clear about something: I’m not here to defend Henry in any way, and I’m not making an argument about his civility, lack of civility, or anything, so I don’t need to be tutored to read the thread to see what Henry is like as though that was a point to be made in the argument. It isn’t. Henry is a big scary gruff poweful male and I would fail as his keeper or his defender, though I do consider him a friend and colleague. (With whom I’m told I disagree on many issues, though he and I have never discussed them.)
I guess my response here could be that even if Henry has a point that Wilkins (or Gee) could set up a blog and tell anyone who pisses on their rug to shove off, that does not mean that one follows one’s own rules on other blogs. There is no reason one should do that. It is not like there is some ideal internet wide behavior and anyone who shifts behavior while shifting focus from one location to another is a hypocrite, which I think is the implication here, and a very incorrect analysis.
When Physiprof comes to my blog and acts like a shit, he acts like he always does, and he is pushing the edge of what I will tolerate. When he goes to Isis’ blog and acts like a shit, Isis and her sock puppets get all wet and giggly. This is why Physioprof is fucked …. he does not realize that context is a factor. He should either confine his activities to the two blogs where he is appreciated, or adapt. (Well, to be fair, he has learned to adapt over the last year. I’m really talking about the old Physiprof … before I called him out and schooled him on how to behave and shit.)
In the cited case, Gee is blasting away at pharynguloids. That is normal for that blog. I don’t shoot paintballs in my house, but I can go down the road and shoot paintballs on any one of the twenty or so paintball places in my neighborhood. (Except I don’t, but that’s besides the point.)
So, really, unless I’m missing the point … Henry Gee pissing all over other commenters and the blogger at Pharyngula is normal and expected and is not exceptional or relevant to this argument.
What am I missing?
(Oh, and Isis, no, I don’t chose the nuclear option. You have no idea what that would be.)
Greg, I think what you may be missing is the content of Gee’s criticism in that particular Pharyngula thread. It was not only intellectually untenable, it was bizarre and offensive. Offensive in the sense of making un-subtle comparisons between “new atheists” and the pogroms preceding the holocaust. You said you “don’t need to be tutored” to read the thread (gosh, Greg, I just suggested it, I wasn’t even rude. . what gives?), so, OK.
But that was not an example of Gee just joining in Pharyngula rowdiness. It was not just a jocular tit for tat, no harm no foul. There *is* a difference. And there *is* a reason – and it’s a justified one – that some of us who’ve run into Gee online before are not kindly disposed to him. It would not be fair to write us off as a bunch of sassy loudmouth Pharyngulites who can dish it out and not take it.
Context or not, Gee is capable of being shockingly, dishonestly unpleasant.
I guess my point was about the involved parties (you excluded, of course ;)) being (non-)experts on civility.
I thought this was about civility.
Hmmm…
There is the matter of consistency, which is really what hypocrisy is about.
No, it isn’t normal for someone to accuse people in the course of a debate of desiring to torch synagogues and perpetrate a holocaust. It really, really isn’t. (Even among creationists, in fact.) I still haven’t gotten over it. It was a horrible thing to suggest.
(I honestly don’t know the full history of this discussion, but it struck a chord to hear that Gee was talking about civility.)
***
Where is this found?
I don’t visit many of the blogs mentioned, mostly because I have enough noise in my life as it is… (I f-ing hate NYC, but that’s an another story)
Anywho, This makes me think of the observation that the arguments in humanities are so bitter because the stakes are so small. Then there’s this: You need insurance.
OK, fair enough. Henry was being a complete ass and thus a hypocrite, perhaps. (Or I take that to be your point.)
I was thinking that in the rowdy atmosphere of Pharyngula, somebody being offensive etc. was to be expected. It may well be that Henry’s particular comments there or elsewhere are inappropriate. And, if Henry is being over the top where he should not be, he should be called on it, and so on and so forth.
One could argue that Henry is being asked to pipe down and be civil about this Jewish thing, and one could wonder if he should get some slack because he did have half the elder generation of his family gassed to death and so on.
One could argue that Henry is a hypocrite, that he says “don’t piss on John’s rug” (and by implication Henry’s?) but then he goes and pisses on other people’s rugs.
But Henry is just a metaphor. The real question being: “Is it reasonable that a blogger require commenters be “civil,” or is such a requirement a tool of repression of ideas one does not want to hear or be heard by others?”
And the secondary point is that the focus on this one thing … civility … is under-thought. Dumb, if you will. The problem is more complex, bigger, and important and requires more attention than providing this fetish (some blogger’s concept of civility) as a stomping and spitting point.
Onkel Bob: Nice link. There are lawyers who are creaming in their metaphorical jeans over the great potential the blogosphere offers them for frivolous lawyering.
For the record, I don’t even know what #bobchickenshit means, although I think I do.
Carry on.
Abel, I definitely don’t know what it means. I’m totally at sea in this twitter thing. I mean, I get the basic idea but the first or second level beyond its intended purpose defeats me.
I may need better software.
If one were not reading.
It’s reasonable for bloggers to set standards for their blogs, with the understanding that responsible people recognize that blogs are part of the public conversation. But there needs to be a discussion about what civility in the 21st-century public sphere means.
The word ‘cache’ makes zero sense in the original sentence, despite her attempts at defending it:
I think the word she meant to use was ‘cadre’.
SC, I think we agree on this.
ERV, I think you may be right. From Websters: “…A tightly knit group of zealots …”
I’m grateful for this entire dust-up because reading about it takes me back to junior high.
I still fail to see why Greg Laden thinks #bobchickenshit has anything to do with him.
For those curious, it’s probably worth explaining #bobchickenshit. It is a Twitter hashtag, started by DrugMonkey, I believe. I was just chatting with him on Twitter (yes, we do that) and was reminded of the first time I saw it. He’d put a post up about some problem of inclusiveness in NIH-funded science. He got one of those “Oh, well in our lab, blah, blah, blah” comments that suggested that anyone for whom this was still a problem, well, they were the problem. Up popped a Tweet just a little bit later that said, basically, “#bobchickenshit always maintains a perfectly run lab.”
I laughed. I understood the frustration at someone who thinks complex problems are that easily solved. I got that this was venting in the place of arguing with a commenter who wasn’t really adding anything to the discussion and probably a calculation that they wouldn’t even if the original thread was derailed long enough to argue it out. Sometimes talking it out isn’t worth it.
That was how it was used for a while: basically a response to being told how to do…whatever. That isn’t how it stayed. The current most recent #bobchickenshit Tweet as I write this is Isis saying, “#bobchickenshit always chooses the nuclear option.” I don’t think it’s because anyone told her she was taking things too easy. It’s because #bobchickenshit has turned from resisting the pressure on us to putting pressure on others.
I think that’s the important point here. #bobchickenshit isn’t a mark of resisting those who think you should be something other than what you are. Bora has already noted (and just about everyone has demonstrated) that avoiding proscribed language of any sort isn’t a mark of civility or using it a mark of incivility. Comment moderation policies aren’t a mark of being inclusive or exclusive.
They’re just tools. We can use them strategically to meet our goals for blogging and other interactions online (you do think about why you spend this much time online, right?), or we can just use them whenever, for whatever. Of course, if we do that, then they’ll be nice and dull when we need them for something we do want to accomplish.
let me understand this. NN is hosting a free-for-all on the issue of how civility in blogs enhances (or not) communication on blogs?
And they are doing this on a special blog that is commemorating their 50,000th comment?
50,000?
What ever they are doing, they are doing it rong.
Isis, I’m sure it didn’t. I just took it over and now it is mine.
Isn’t that the whole point of twittering? To collect hash tags? I’ve got 16 so far.
What? Am I doing this wrong?
I think so, too.
Illiterate bloggers give me a pane.
…sheet?
…parole?
Isis, this old Tweet of yours might have something to do with it:
@49: So you are saying that Isis broke Bobchickenshit?
This discussion is evidence of the youth of the internet. These were all arguments worked out when instead of blogs there were caves and instead of Sb and NN there were H saps and Neanderthals and instead of carpets to piss on there were piles of unused flints or whatever.
There is nothing wrong with the idea that a blog moderator or owner has limits to what they will allow, but I agree that there is a paradox: The more thoughtful one may be of commentary and comment, the more difficult to hold to a certain standard. The internet is full of people who have little interest other than to challenge or object to whatever they run across.
No, horace. Pointing at the start and end of a period of time don’t tell you what happened in the middle. I saw a lot of it, I’m sure, but certainly not enough to say with any certainty what happened. I am saying it’s not the sharp commentary it started as.
Funny. At first Stephanie I thought you were answering about the paleolithic. I was going to ask “How did you see it?”
So my professor said “I have to tell you, just like if you start a relationship with somebody you might say “I have herpes” or whatever …. but I’m a blogger!” (all laughted).
So now I find it and think herpes might be less pain than this conversation. Not that i have herpies.
GOATS ON FIRE – that’s all anyone’s interested in these days.
Civility can be use to suppress dissent. So can incivility. I tend to think of them as kind of like tools or technologies that can be used for good or bad purposes.
In regard to the rest of the argument, it just seems strange to me how people who basically agree on the majority of things end up having so many bitter arguments. I guess that’s just what happens when you get a lot of people who have strong views together.
Pak– If you take Acyclovir and wear a condom, your rates of transmission to your partner go down significantly (~80%). Not as much as antiretrovirals+condoms for HIV-1 (~95%), but much better than nothing at all.
So, yeah, HSV-2 would be better.
… the old Physiprof … before I called him out and schooled him on how to behave and shit.)
A friend of mine is having some trouble toilet-training her baby (who is probably less rowdy than PhysioProf) – could you come visit and give her a few tips?
@ Pierce
Has she tried Toilet Training 101?
Dude, you know you love it when I come to your blog. And I am always nice to you, when you don’t fuck shit up egregiously.
I was in the room for the famous Gee-Zuska slapdown match. I have read no fewer than a dozen descriptions of what happened there. Almost all of the descriptions can be categorized (predicted, really) by simply knowing who hands out with whom on the blawgs, who is in which camp, who likes or dislikes whom. A grand jury being shown this evidence would drop the case, a psychiatrist looking at these descriptions would be reaching for her script pad.
No one should believe a word about this discussion having been well moderated. It may well be that it could not have been well moderated by anyone.
It was suggested that the Jewish thing never came up, and somewhere Zuska claims that she had no idea who he was or that he was Jewish. She might have listened to him when he said “I am Jewish” to find that out. He was wearing a name tag. And he is fairly well known. I find it unsavory, but I feel that I have to question Zuska’s honest in this regard.
There are also differences that are unacknowledged between the cultures represented – a common language/culture and a big pond and all that.
CPP, Laden may or may not like your style, but it is always funny to watch pure delusion passing through the neighborhood.
How much do you pay to get into this conference? I’m just asking because I want to start saving up.
Is it reasonable that a blogger require commenters be “civil,” or is such a requirement a tool of repression of ideas one does not want to hear or be heard by others?
A blogger has to require some “civility” in the comment section for a blog to be a place where people will stick around at all.
Why is it “Bob” chickenshit? and not “Arnie” chickenshit? or “Gladys” chickenshit?
OK, I’ll admit again that I have no knowledge of this particular debate; I also have limited knowledge of both Zuska and Gee. But given my limited experience with him (linked to above, and IIRC I thought* he was Asian until he brought it up), I have to ask how “the Jewish thing” came up in this context. Who gives a shit if he’s Jewish? Of what possible relevance is that to this discussion?
*in a reverse-Seinfeld twist
Thank you for writing this. I was quite annoyed to see another blogger using the 50K mark for comments as a way to denigrate rather than congratulate the Nature Network.
SC, if you’re going to appoint yourself judge of what is appropriate for Henry to say, read up on the context.
As a regular reader of (but not commenter on) Pharyngula, I did not see Henry Gee’s comments as particularly stronger or more over-the-top than 10% or even 20% of the other commenters there.
When did I do that? What are you talking about?
Why his comments were over the top there (or anywhere) has been explained.
Thanks for the link, Stephanie.
He quotes John Wilkins:
“There are plenty of places you can accuse people of being pedophilic communist sexist pigs; donรข??t do it here.”
Substitute “Nazis.”
Zuska has excluded my carefully wrought comment. Fine. I just don’t go there. Cotournix has objected to my being in his like “living room.” Fine, I just don’t go there. Whether they are hypocrites does not interest me. They have in mind a certain type of dialog they want. Fine, I don’t have to be part of it.
Ironically I felt I was doing them a favor, I like ScBlgs, by adding some zip to an otherwise drab, dull post they made and they would be glad for any argument, but no.
I can’t view them as inexperienced and having bad judgment as I am prone to do, because I don’t know what they are trying to do, and whatever it is it’s up to them. They are sculpting their audience, chiseling down, let them have at it and shape it exactly like they want, period.
In my opinion, however, not all blogs are created equal, some are poorly written, some excellent, few in between, and that fact is missing from the discussion, and just about has to be unmentionable— oops, some do not want to hear that.
Both Isis and Greg Laden are among blogs that I read, including the comments, doesn’t take long. I expect all will get off of this civility concern Civil War sometime. Meanwhile it’s somewhat interesting like a fight on the playground, not much real damage being done to anyone, too weak thank goodness.
As James Madison put it in the Federalist Papers:
SC, I haven’t seen you do anything else in this thread, despite Greg pointing out that Henry isn’t the point and you, apparently, agreeing.
i weren’t there, so i really wish it was on youtube. i’ve heard so many versions of the incident in posts and comments.
Should just anyone be allowed to piss on Henry Gee’s rug? (#scio10)
I rather think, given the exchanges I and others I’ve seen have had with him, that it’s instead Henry who presumes he can piss on everyone else’s rugs, and accuse us all of “impertinence” when we challenge him on it.
frankly, I hope he does have some friends, ’cause I would never be interested in buying him a beer.
Poor representative for an editor, in any case!
…unless he’s trying to try out for the part of J Jonah Jameson in the next Spiderman movie.
I think the confusion about why SC brought up the thread on pharyngula is that it happened almost 2 years ago, and so many have entirely forgotten how that exchange went.
The idea being that Henry himself has been quite uncivil not only to other commenters, but other writes, over the time many of us have been following his internet presence to a greater or lesser extent.
So the idea of Henry representing a charge for “civil discourse” seems almost ludicrous to those of us who have seen him at his, hopefully, “less than best”.
so yeah, hypocrisy, etc.
I think that’s pretty much the main reason.
writes>writers
Some bloggers accept criticism (including a fair degree of unfair comments if only to show what idiots they have to deal with at times) while other bloggers choose to have a pretty little blog which only ever reflects their own opinion and that of like-minded people. The latter are blogs that I typically avoid nor would I ever post a comment on such blogs because I know I can’t really bring up any substantial issues. People can do whatever they want with their own blog; others can discuss the posts on yet another blog and be as “uncivil” as the other blog owner will let them be. I must complain though, some people wish to have “uncivil” redefined as “doesn’t agree with me” just as “open-minded” has been redefined as “only ever agrees 100% with me”.
Thank you, Greg, for not only a well-balanced post but for hosting the kind of comments thread that made me want to read through to the bottom.
It is not disrespectful to disagree with people. It does not have to be uncivil, either. A few people conflate civility with complete and utter agreement, on both sides of the divide, to their loss. Meaning, some think being civil means never to disagree unseemingly in public, and seethe in private. Others think it’s perfectly acceptable to use language or hot-button discourse that they know the blog owner will take exception to, in order to make their points. Then they get pissed off and vocal elsewhere when they are redacted, and take it as a free speech issue.
Most of us lurk, and even those who don’t are pretty reasonable overall. This thread is the perfect example, with a good mix of all the representative positions.
I personally find Henry to have been a far more interesting personality to follow in his writing so far than most of the people who were on his case recently. I don’t have to agree with all he writes, and I don’t. But much of it is fabulous, and people who haven’t read much could reserve judgment.
The Dude didn’t like people pissing on his carpet, either. I am surprised not to have noticed anyone bringing it up yet. I mean, that should settle the question right there.
[Wrote a reply to this shortly adter it was posted, but then lost my internet connection for a while.]
I agreed that civility was the point. I was suggesting that Gee and *ahem* others involved in this discussion are hardly ones to lecture on civil discourse (as Ichthyic has explained in the meantime).
Blake[77] As James Madison put it in the Federalist Papers:
Which was a blog.
razib [79]i weren’t there, so i really wish it was on youtube. i’ve heard so many versions of the incident in posts and comments.
That is actually starting to get more interesting than the issue itself. It’s like a big game of clue or something. If only Isis had just worn the surgical mask…
Ichthyic[84]: So the idea of Henry representing a charge for “civil discourse” seems almost ludicrous to those of us who have seen him at his, hopefully, “less than best”.
I’m not sure Henry is advocating for “civil discourse,” and I certainly an not myself advocating for “civil discourse.”
I’m not against civil discourse, and this is where I seem to separate from my Sbling sister Isis (who see civil discourse itself as the problem). It has its place and the more people that can engage in it the better.
My position is more complicated than that, and I agree with the idea that a blog owner, as annoying as it may be sometimes, can set the pissing/no-pissing rules. They can even be arbitrary and capricious about it. A blog is a storefront, not a public kiosk.
But there are public kiosks. The blosophere itself is one.
What I did not address in this post (though I thought about doing it) is the idea that communities of bloggers might have a responsibility, depending on what the community is about, to encourage and embrace diversity. One way to do that is to have a rich and diverse blog roll and to point to a diversity of bogs where appropriate, and to encourage and help out new bloggers who represent that diversity.
But that is an entirely other post. Or ten.
Heather, thanks for the very civil comment. Sorry it got stuck in moderation (I don’t really understand our moderation filter at this moment).
I had brought up The Dude in the reference to the rug “tying it all together”!!!
But there is a great photo at the end of your link that I will now add to the post…
As someone who is sometimes a bothersome commentator, I support the editorial power of the blogger, site editor, whomever.
Sometimes that power is exercised badly, I think, but it is a good thing that it exists–it serves to promote diversity, for one thing. Without the power to edit (even when it is rarely exercised) these quasi-public spaces would become much more alike just through osmosis–like what happened to the open usenet.
Generally speaking, I think most folks use a pretty light hand on the tiller, which I think gives us a lot of freedom and relatively few cases of just plain shutting people up.
As to whether civility is a tool of the oppressor . . .well this is a pretty tired issue, I think. The same argument was being made about rationality back in the 1990s, and, well, I don’t think the advocates of this position were ever able to get over the self-contradictions inherent in these positions.
If no one is required to be civil or to be rational, how can we require anyone to be fair or righteous or humane. When the oppressed cry out why is “Tough cookies, weakling! Lick my boot! I don’t need a reason.” not an appropriate response?
Contrary to Audre Lorde, the masters’ tools will *always* be used to dismantle the master’s house. You give the masters rather too much credit if you think the process isn’t reversible, revisable and inherently unstable.
Does “civility” reflect the master’s preferences? Sure what do you expect? So does music, literature, science . . . and we don’t feel compelled to abandon them. The constraints imposed by civility, rationality, etc. are slight in comparison to the opportunities they offer. And those constraints can be adjusted, and have been.
Rationality and civility, however badly those concepts may have been used, still reflect good universal principles, like the findings of science, as male-dominated and otherwise blinkered as it may be sometimes, reflect a fairly good picture of the universe.
I view someone complaining about incivility or moderating comments as having a weak argument. They’ve run out of substantive things to say, so they talk about tone instead. I think we should be focused on social engineering to redefine “uncivil” to mean fallacious, a distraction from the topic of discussion, or an attempt to shut down a discussion.
I don’t think that’s right. It seems obvious to me that “the decision not to let people piss on his rug has implications”. It leaves open the question of whether those implications are on balance good or bad, and to decide that, the bad implications must be discussed. The other statement concludes that those implications are on balance bad.
qbsmd: I don’t think there is any doubt that Isis and CPP and their so called “ilk” are not thinking good things when they use the word “consequences” in reference to enforced civility/lack thereof.
Ian Brooks wrote
I don’t think that’s true. I’ve been an administrator on three secular web boards (the late lamented IIDB, TalkRational, and now Secular Cafe) and moderate comments on my posts on Panda’s Thumb, and working out how to moderate posts in a way that allows substantial freedom of expression without the ‘tone’ (for lack of a better word) of them alienating so many potential participants that the board sinks into a chorus of sycophants is a very tough job.
IIDB in its golden days had it more or less right, TalkRational has wandered off into impenetrable thickets of navel-gazing over regulation, and Secular Cafe has it about right. But it’s no simple task to create and maintain a social context where dissent, even when expressed strongly, can be welcomed while anarchy, cyber-bullying, and just plain crap is kept under enough control to keep a range of opinions and people in the mix.
Looking over the Gee thread:
It’s a rather weird notion of hypocrisy to claim that someone who says “there ought to be rules on a blog” is taken to be a hypocrite if he doesn’t always follow said rules.
That just doesn’t follow. Gee may not always live up to the standards he says should exist, and he may not be a good judge of his own case, but that doesn’t go to the point or make him an unsuitable champion of his side of the argument.
He isn’t saying “We are each of us morally bound to always be civil.” He is saying “There ought to be rules.”
I haven’t seen this particular “pissing match”(there are only so many hours in the day when I can wander to various blogs to see what’s going on). I have my own blog, and I try, myself, to be civil, not offensive. I also try very hard to answer people who comment, civilly. I, personally, think this is the best way. But even I, on my supposedly uncontroversial blog The Writer’s Daily Grind have raised some subjects which have “pissed off” some readers. If you have a blog, this probably more or less goes with the territory. If you have a “political” blog, all the more so. I accept that. So from time to time, I get kind of “uncivil” people. What I won’t allow is expressions of things like racism, sexism, etc., or just plain badmouthing. And though some have tried to send such stuff, you won’t find any spam on my blog, either. I filter such stuff out before it even gets there. Is this censorship? I don’t see it that way. I’m just trying to exercise a minimum of control so that my blog is a nice place to visit, not a “smelly” one(which it would be if I allowed that particular kind of “pissing on my carpet”.
Anne G
I can’t imagine how this could even be an issue. Of course that’s reasonable to do. Even if people don’t think we should be able to set standards for our blogs, they can’t stop us from doing so.
This is annoyingly simplistic. First, bringing rationality into it is just muddying the waters – it’s completely irrelevant. Second, if people are to have a discussion about “civility,” they need to define what they mean by the term. Civility is about norms, which all communities have but which vary. Some of these may perpetuate inequalities and privilege already-privileged groups or positions; others may foster inclusion and work to break down established hierarchies. I oppose the former and promote the latter.
This is confused. Examples were given on the thread Stephanie Z linked to of situations in which rules of civility (particularly concerning deference) work to keep oppressed people down and silence them. I’ve offered the example elsewhere of elite-formed standards of “civility” being used to suppress the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley in the ’60s. They’re used, often to great effect, against most social movements. Currently, rules of civility that make it bad manners to openly criticize religious beliefs work to privilege religious people and give their ideas undue power in politics. These are standards of civility that need to be challenged and change.
Ridiculous.
Vague and simplistic.
Not at all. To the extent that he’s defined his notion of reasonable rules, they are those that he doesn’t himself follow. What meaning does “there ought to be rules” have if “rules” is devoid of content? Pure authoritarianism? Reasonable people need to discuss what those rules are, and we should adhere to the set of rules we’re promoting.
Sure, it does.
Look, in the exchanges I’ve seen him involved with, he’s:
– attempted to be physically intimidating
– insulted Richard Dawkins repeatedly, and when people argued with him, told them not to be “impertinent” (the individual in question is a professor older than he is, AFAIK)
– misrepresented someone (Ichthyic), if I recall correctly (I don’t have that link right now), as having made antisemitic remarks, on another blog when Ichthyic wasn’t there to set the record straight
– bizarrely turned disagreements into accusations of “Jew-hatred,” and in one case basically called his interlocutors Nazis
Frankly, I don’t care what his opinions are on behavioral norms or civility. If he’s promoting rules based on his behavior, they’re rules I oppose; if he’s promoting rules that are contrary to his actions, then he’s a hypocrite.
To shift the focus slightly, but drawing for this inspiration from Salty’s post …
Structurally, the peer reviewed system of publication as it has evolved for, I think, most currently published materials is a case of “civility” (but it isn’t really civility, but really, let’s not fetishize civility) shaping what happens for the benefit of the status quo. To some extent that benefit may come in having only certain ideas progress and other stifled, but mostly I think the benefit being maintained by the widespread imposition of behavioral norms is purely financial, and the “slave owners” are the publishing companies.
The uncivil rebel is, of course, OpenAccess publishing.
Well, I’d suggest you hop in your time machine, go back to the twentieth century, and tell those feminist theorists that rationality and civility are distinct in the way you mention, because a great many of them didn’t recognize the distinction and advanced arguments against standards of all kinds using precisely the same rhetoric advanced right now against civility. Are rationality and civility the same thing? No, agreed. Is it crazy to pair the two in this argument? Not for anyone with even a smidgen of familiarity with how it has been carried on for at least the last 40 years.
I doubt Gee intended to defend all rules of civility ever having existed any time or any place. He was saying that a common set of rules are a good thing for discourse.
So you are rejecting his rational argument on the basis of his incivility? What happened to the clear distinction between these two things. Seems to have gone out the window.
And there’s nothing necessarily uncivil about Open Source Publishing. We can’t just take any dichotomy and assign one the label “civil” and the other “uncivil.”
Your presentation of this history is simplistic. Even if it were more sophisticated and completely accurate, however, it would be a total red herring. Who cares what some people argued about rationality in the ’90s? It looks like you want to use an unrelated issue to smear feminists; whatever some people may have argued 15 or 20 years ago has zero bearing on the validity of positions in this discussion, which should be decided on their merits. If people are talking about rationality here, their positions can of course justifiably be analyzed and critically evaluated.
What the hell? I never said he did.
And this is a non-response to what I’ve already argued: that “a common set of rules” is simply a set of cultural norms, which exists in any ongoing social situation, whether spelled out explicitly or controlled by particular individuals or not; that speaking of the desirability of “a common set of rules for discourse” is meaningless and pointless unless some content is specified for those rules, their basis, and the manner of their enforcement; and that to the extent the Gee has expressed the sorts of rules he has in mind, they are not the ones he appears to abide by.
What are you talking about? I’m calling him a hypocrite, and saying that given how he’s appeared in action, his views on civility are of about as much interest to me as those of Dr. Isis.
… and so, Henry Gee and Isis the Scientist are cast upon the same midden.
Then your argument isn’t with me, or with Gee. All he or I are arguing for is a set of rules that apply to everyone and that can be appealed to when one feels mistreated. That’s it.
Who cares whether he’s a hypocrite or not? Einstein was a hypocrite too. Big deal. No one is asking to take the word of Gee’s word as the word of God. You actually agree with him, but because you don’t like him you think you don’t.
So, SC, I’m still curious. How do you expect Henry to discuss the problems of attacks on religion being attacks on personhood in the context of being a Jew living among bad and worsening anti-Semitism without mentioning, even by implication, the Nazis?
Again, I can’t see how this could even be an issue.
The important question is: what rules, specifically?
But the fact is that I haven’t made any argument or any criticism of a substantive argument at all, and I think this is where you’re getting confused. I’m not arguing the substance. I’m saying it’s amusing that Gee would be debating issues related to civil discourse given his behavior.
What? I’m saying I’m as unimpressed with his behavior related to civil discourse on blogs subject as I am that of Isis or Chris Mooney. These are all people who appear to me to have warped ideas about civility in discourse. His hypocrisy is relevant to the extent that it affects my respect for him in this area. (I care about the issue generally, so if someone could present me with links to his specific substantive argument with Zuska I would read them.)
I’m an atheist.
You haven’t specified what he’s arguing precisely, and I stated last night that I know virtually nothing about this substantive discussion (I know that I’ve read related articles by Isis in the past and found them laughable, but I’ve read some good ones by Zuska, so…). It’s not a matter of agreement or disagreement.
This is exactly what I’m talking about. Criticism of religion and religious ideas by atheists is not an “attack,” and Gee presented nothing in the way of evidence of attacks on him or his co-religionists by atheists (as atheists). Criticism of other ideas isn’t seen in this way, and the presentation of it as such is a rule of “civility” that serves to silence atheists and privilege oppressive ideas. Show me where his “personhood” was “attacked” in that discussion. (Which, it should be noted, was about him criticizing Dawkins, who focuses on Christianity.)
Oh, please. Did you read the thread I linked to? I had no idea he was Jewish, and had said many times that no one cares about whether he wanted to ponder religious ideas, and he came back with that bizarre rant about the Holocaust. The conversation had nothing to do with that; he, very uncivilly (and unsuccessfully), threw it into the mix to try to shut down criticism of his ideas after bullying had failed. As I said, [paraphrasing] “You’re criticizing/mocking religion, so you must want to kill me” was a horrible thing to suggest, and as someone who has spent years studying political violence I was particularly offended.
From Stephanie Z’s link:
If these are the rules he supports, and people who don’t abide by them should lose commenting privileges, then he should be banned from Pharyngula.
I don’t know who “all these people” is supposed to include, but it sure as hell doesn’t include me. Another terrible accusation to avoid other discussions. (I’ve had friends who had to deal with sexism in Israeli academe and the Israeli military; I guess he wouldn’t have a dodge with them.)
How did that “turn out”? It’s just an absurd accusation based on nothing, as far as I can see. But it’s clear that he’s doing precisely what he’s arguing should be a bannable offense.
“First, bringing rationality into it is just muddying the waters – it’s completely irrelevant.”
That’s as good a synopsis of the whole affair as I’ve seen to date ๐
SC did you read the comments in the thread I linked to? The degree of anti-Semitism present in the U.K. and much of the rest of Europe is not the same as general U.S. anti-Semitism or that anywhere in the Western hemisphere. It is, as Henry noted in that comment, tied deeply to the anti-Israel movement there. Given the number of atheists in the U.K., and given the tendency of atheists to be in academia, Henry quite likely has plenty of experience with anti-religion arguments being used as anti-Semitic arguments. After all, not all atheists are the philosophical sort.
And if you read back a ways, you’ll note that you did, in fact, know he was Jewish well before the comment you linked to. You’ll even see that Henry was hardly the first person to bring up the Holocaust.
Yes.
Unless he was talking about its implications for commenting and commenting policies on UK blogs, I don’t see the relevance. But he wasn’t. He was flinging around wild accusations about the US based on – what? – one person being patronizing? (Not to mention that he’s profoundly patronizing himself.)
In any case, if he wants to have a discussion about it in a relevant context, he needs to be much more specific about what and which groups he’s talking about, and provide evidence for his claims. His dystopian predictions about a more atheistic future were completely off the wall.
This is pure speculation, and confuses a number of different issues, as he tried to do on the Pharyngula thread (making some connection between “New Atheists” – academics – the (radical) Left – opposition to Israel – opposition to the war in Iraq – support for human rights in Palestine – etc.) Of course, his accusations about the atheist movement, people on that thread, people at this more recent debate, or the US left/academe, in addition to being baseless and outrageous “moral blackmail” as someone so rightly called them, were unrelated to what was being discussed. He uses this as a sleazy rhetorical dodge when he’s on thin ice in an argument, and it’s reprehensible.
Nevertheless, there was a good bit of discussion after Gee left that thread about this, not that he could be bothered to participate in a rational exchange on the matter.
What the hell is that supposed to mean?
Yes, I didn’t mean to imply that that was when I learned he was Jewish, not that it mattered in the slightest. I didn’t take much note of it earlier because it had precisely nothing to do with his weak criticisms of TGD. Nor does it make any point for you here.
In fact, I think I myself brought it up tangentially in response to his apparent ignorance of the history of Christianity. So? Making a historical point isn’t the same as accusing your opponents of wanting to deface graves and send you to the gas chambers because they openly criticize religious beliefs and oppose its influence. Really, this is getting stupid.
Seriously, if you’re suggesting that his accusations about people who disagree with him and use of the Holocaust as a ploy like this are acceptable to you, I’m not sure we have anything more to discuss. If you’re just grasping for minor points while not actually thinking he was right to behave like this, then you should ask yourself why you’re doing that.
He came to that thread and did pretty much everything he appears to be arguing should not be allowed, and it looks like he did something similar in this recent debate. I can’t imagine why any reasonable person would defend this behavior or this hypocrisy.
I’m not going to jump into this argument but I want to make a couple of comments on UK antisemitism as I understand it. This will be an oversimplification, and it will be based on having worked very closely with Israelis in a British context and an American Jew (with whom I worked on race issues) who had been working in a British context until he could not take it any longer.
New Atheism is not likely to be at the root of the added antisemitism we may see from the UK. It may be a factor and there may be individual personality issues at play, but it must be overshadowed by much bigger issues.
The English/British (we can start a flame war later on what the correct term is) have a prior colonial history with “Semites” some of whom happen to be Jewish. There is a relationship there that has not really been resolved that involves old fashioned English racism and resentment thereof.
In that context, both English and US interests (including all sorts of institutional entities) went along with the whole Central European anti Jewish thing that was manifest eventually as the holocaust with many helping hands. From a European Jewish perspective, if the Germans were not at war with the Brits, the Brits would have been directly involved in the holocaust. The Americans too but more indirectly. That may be an exaggeration, but not much of one.
So there is a bit of tension left over from that second factor.
Then, the British totally screwed the Jews in Palestine, from the Jewish Perspective. One can argue all one wants as to what could have or should have happened, or should now happen, to the way land is divided up in the Levant, but history could have actually led to a state of Israel much like what ended up occurring without several additional bad things happening to the Jews there because of specific and blatantly anti-Jewish British decisions. Just like many Jews have relatives who died in the holocaust, some Jews have relatives who died because of the British at that time. This is not a small matter.
And of course, a perfectly appropriate British response to being guilty of oppression is to get all huffy and arrogant about it.
Then, subsequently, yes, there have been the recent politics that have been mentioned in relation to Israel, but that is not so much something new as just more of the same.
The British “left” is not anti-Semitic because it is atheist. The British “left” is anti-Semitic because it is British, and there is a shiny new coin or two in the anti-Semitic purse in the form of anti-Israel (as the bad guy government) sentiment.
But beyond that, this is worth noting: Middle class educated WASP American society is plenty anti-semetic. But from what I understand, British middle class educated society is much more blatantly anti-semetic. The British PC standard line on Jews is fundamentally different from the American. I suspect this has a lot to do with the closer continental ties in Britain, immigration history differences, and a difference in the way intellectual resources were divvied up after WWII and in relation to the cold war. During the cold war, for every South Asian mathematician or physicist moved to England from the colonies to do brilliant work, there are five Jewish German “Rocket Scientists” in the US. And I pulled those numbers out of my ass, but as I sit here thinking about it it seems about right.
My point, SC, is that if you’re willing to make this discussion about Henry, which it’s been pointed out to you more than once it is not, as is very clear from the original post, I’m perfectly willing to take it very tangential too.
This is not an argument about Henry. This is not an argument about atheism. Do you have anything to say about the topic at hand?
Greg,
I can’t see what any of that has to do with Gee’s accusations, to be honest. (With the exception of your claim that “The British ‘left’ is anti-Semitic,” which would need to be made in a much more nuanced way and substantiated. As I said, there was some discussion of the matter on that thread after Gee left, involving someone who’s been active in the British Left for decades and whom I’ve never known to misinform.) His claims were, as you note, about the “New Atheists” (us, specifically) and the US “militant” Left. Bullshit in the former, and pretty much bullshit on the latter, though the claim is made so generally as to be pretty much meaningless. The leading intellectual of the “militant” US Left is Chomsky, FFS.
My comments have little to do with Henry or the ongoing discussion. I simply saw British anti-Semitism being referred to, compared with US anti-Semitism, and and not especially well characterized (and some likely falsehoods possibly creeping in) so I thought it was time for a sidebar on that topic.
I don’t feel a need to substantiate what I said more than I did, but I’ll reiterate that these are my impressions from my experience. I have worked closely with, and been close friends with, a number of Israeli Jews (i.e., my advisor at Harvard and many who worked in his lab), and US Jews (my various affinal family members and colleagues who specifically study anti-Semitism, and some of this came up in a co-taught class on race and racism) … so, I’ve just heard a lot about it. (Well that and I’m reasonably well read but not current on Middle Eastern recent history and the Jewish Diaspora etc. etc.)
Any experts who want to come in and tear my argument apart please do but you must be civil and show your credentials.
Boy, it is taking you people a awfully long time to look all that shit up in Wikipedia and identify where I’ve got it all Rong!!!
Well, I guess it is Sunday. I’ll check back in the AM.
What does all that have to do with Henry? It has to do with his cultural expectations for running into anti-Semitism (“some of you probably think”), which is the only part in the comment that I can see as being interpretable as calling anyone in that thread “a Nazi.” It has quite a bit to do, SC, with the paragraph you felt free to cut out of your pasted quote, which specifies the reason he sees ties between atheists and anti-Semitism:
In other words, it has to do with what makes his statement relevant in context, not the embodiment of Godwin’s Law you’re making it out to be. Which is rather rude, by the way.
People who accuse others of sexism or racism or classism or homophobia have cultural expectations based on their experience. He’s saying that such accusations have no place in civil discourse, but those of “Jew-hatred” do.
Read the comment again, Stephanie.
He supports this statement with a couple of links to a single quotation in which Dawkins talks about “the Jewish lobby” (mistaken for “the Israel lobby”) in the context of suggesting that if atheists organized we could have much more political power. Whatever it says, it’s a terrifically insufficient basis for the accusations being made. Gee provided no evidence for his other claims, about Dawkins specifically and certainly about atheists in general. Then there was this little bit of absurdity: “I predict that in five or ten years time, thanks to Dawkins and others, then scientists who profess any kind of religious belief will find it hard to get tenure, and then jobs, and then papers published, and finally their employers, responding to pressure, will be forced to fire them or retire them early. It will start with the Jews, of course, because these things usually do, as they have done many times in the past.”
I really have no words for this, other than to quote PZ: “That’s an extraordinarily paranoiac claim.” Seriously, he was in a conversation about Dawkins, who focuses primarily on Christianity; the conversation had dealt primarily with Christianity; several of the commenters on the blog (including, probably, some of those invoved in that discussion) are themselves ethnically Jewish; and people had made abundantly clear what we were talking about. (Of course, my linking to Constantine’s Sword which I had recently seen and mentioned on an earlier thread is clear evidence of my antisemitism. Right.) Here’s the original statement about a “call to arms”:
Following a simplistic interpretation by Gee, this was clarified further at #329:
Several other people made clear – still talking about Christianity, by the way – that not physical violence but challenging beliefs was the subject. For him to suggest that “combined with what one has called here ‘a call to arms’ I can only interpret this a physical threat” was absolutely ludicrous.
His statements were loony tunes in context, and deeply offensive, and anyone reading that thread can see why. I’ve argued that he’s playing an atrocious rhetorical game, but seeing the pattern I do have to wonder if he isn’t really that paranoid….
Oh, absolutely! And being called a douchebag on the Internet is the most severe and horrible and unfair consequence anyone could ever possibly experience and is so terrible and painful and grotesque, that it is exactly the same as whipping out your schlong and taking a big fucking whizz all over the fucking carpet in their real fucking house.
In fact, the next time someone calls me a douchebag on the Internet, I’m gonna sue their fucking ass for making me mad!! And I’m a fucking jew, so don’t you be telling me about shit, cause I know some real shit!!!
Douchebag.
You’ll be hearing from my attorneys in due course.
OK, having now read Henry Gee’s post and the comments thread that followed, I’m even angrier. He ignored the cogent and more nuanced arguments of you (Greg),* Ed Yong, and (for the most part) Eric Michael Johnson concerning rules and civility. He repeatedly dismissed and disdainfully mocked any discussion of patriarchy.** He acted as though as a Jewish person he couldn’t possibly act in a way that furthers inequality or oppression (Jewish males can’t possibly be patriarchal, as everyone knows). And he claimed flat out that “the Left hates Jews.” Wow.
I also did a search on Zuska’s blog (links would’ve been helpful), and came across a post from November – “Can we talk about science? I mean, really?” – that was so stupid it got my hackles up. Sigh.
*We doagree!
**The rules he quotes from Evolving Thoughts, by the way, appear to be that it’s acceptably civil to be sexist, but not to call anyone out on being sexist. No, thanks.
OK, this makes it all worthwhile. ๐
I don’t know a Yiddish equivalent of “Douchebag” or this would have gotten much, much more intense.
Yeah, SC, I’m really not interested in thoughts on civility from anyone who’s going to call someone one generation removed from Holocaust victims “paranoid” about anti-Semitism.
This is not about the existence or real dangers of antisemitism. His claims about the people he was making them about, if they were honest, were absolutely paranoid, Stephanie. Being a descendent of Holocaust victims would provide part of the explanation for such paranoia. If it is paranoia, then it isn’t immoral, but needs to be pointed out as irrational and not based in evidence. Civil discourse isn’t possible with someone who repeatedly makes suck paranoid claims about his or her opponents. If it is, as some evidence suggests, a form of moral blackmail, then it’s disgusting, as Nick Gotts explains @ #428 on that thread and others as well.
No, SC, as has been repeatedly pointed out to you, this is about civility and rulemaking. The fact that you want the thread to be about Henry doesn’t change that.
This is clearly going nowhere. You’re not making an argument at this point. You might want to take another look at the title of this post.
My point is that you hijacked a thread on online civility to whine about how insulted you were a year and a half ago–on Pharyngula–and kept it up even after you were told (1) that Henry wasn’t the point (comment 36) and (2) that the proposition under discussion wasn’t Henry’s (comment 28, before you even posted). And in order to do it, you’ve ignored the post and the non-Henry discussion entirely. Unless your idea was to set a bad example for online civility to be dissected later, you fucked this one up.
If anyone finds out how to say “douchebag” in Yiddish, please e-mail me.
Look, Henry Gee is one of the major participants in this discussion. His arguments and his actions related to civility are well within its limits. I suspect that if the person being talked about were not someone you had an interest in defending, you would not be opposed. You expressed no opposition to Isis being discussed in the past, or to Greg talking about various people in the OP. What, if I may ask, is your relationship with Henry Gee?
Sure, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. *eyeroll*
The proposition under discussion was explicitly endorsed by him. He can point out that it wasn’t technically “his rug,” but it’s remarkably evasive and disingenuous for him to then pretend that this is simply about bloggers having any rules with no content or that since the argument didn’t originate with him he’s not accountable for having made it.
No, I haven’t. I’ve said several times that what needs to be discussed is the content of rules for civility and what social forms and interactions they promote. So has Greg. Greg and others tried on Gee’s blog to have such a discussion and were ignored, while Gee made several obnoxious comments, going out of his way to dismiss concerns about sexism as when he wrote and crossed out “spokesperson” in order to substitute “spokesman”; allowed and participated in a discussion of what a great word “twat” is (no, I don’t care if it’s a running joke there); and made unevidenced accusations about the Left (and the Right, for that matter), that would appear to violate the rules of his own blog against inflammatory speech.
I’ve also engaged with people on the general subject, while you have ignored those posts and failed to make any contributions to that discussion. If you have any to make, you should make them. Perhaps that will shift the focus of the discussion away from something you’re uncomfortable with for whtever reason. Believe it or not, I can both write critically about Henry Gee or Zuska or whomever and discuss the more general issues.
Wrong.
On douchebag:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/01/this_is_the_thread_that_youre.php#comment-2242543
Heh. My interest in this has nothing to do with Henry. My relationship to him is much like Greg’s, but with less contact. My interest has to do with atheists telling the religious what they think (something I’ve written about with respect to people being idiots to Isis as well), what they mean, and what they can legitimately feel about their religons.
It’s also about people feeling the need to pull fights out of the cage match that is a Pharyngula comment thread and carry them elsewhere where people are trying to discuss other topics. For fuck’s sake, if you want to argue more with Henry, go argue with Henry. I feel no need to accommodate it, much less be polite about it.
And no, I don’t see you engaging in the discussion. I see you saying it’s stupid to have the discussion as is, and I see you say:
Ferkakte shpritszak!
Greg, Stephanie,
I’m sorry, but Greg Godwinned this thread in the title, and again, in comment 36—after SC’s crucial comment 31.
Stephanie further Godwinned the thread by trying to defend Gee against the charge of paranoia.
There is no way in hell this thread is going to stop being about Henry Gee, and all the issues that Henry’s behavior brings up. It is far too late for that. If you want a thread that’s not about him, I suggest that you start a new thread that doesn’t mention him.
Sorry, but Henry Gee is quite clearly a bit paranoid about the Jewishness thing. He really, really is. It’s perfectly understandable why he might be paranoid about it, given the history, being in Britain etc., but that doesn’t make him not paranoid when he comes over to ScienceBlogs and pisses on PZ’s rug, clearly implying that some people there—including me, I’d guess—are really genocidal antisemitic zealots, or at least condoners and enablers of such things, who should stop being such reprehensible New Atheists because their criticisms of his particular religion (among all religions) will lead to persecution of his people.
There are norms of civility at Pharyngula. Greg is dead wrong to imply that “anything goes” there, such that Henry can’t have done anything wrong by stooping to our utterly uncivilized level:
Greg could not have more thoroughly missed the most fundamental point about the subject than that.
The whole issue of online civility is what counts as civility, and which standards of civility are and defensible tenable where, vs. having no standards of civility at all.
Greg basically used Pharyngula as an example of the latter—it’s just a troop of poo-flinging screechy monkeys anyway, so who the hell are they to complain about Henry calling them Jew-hating baby-killing Nazis, or at best hypocrites for not having the courage of their convictions, such that they wouldn’t bother to vandalize Jewish graves and actuallly burn synagogues?
Holy crap. You think Pharnyngula’s standards are simply low, and that they’re that low?
Let’s take what SC quoted in comment 31 paragraph by paragraph, since a lot of people seem to have missed the significance that struck many pharynguloids like myself as over-the-top to say the least:
Here Henry is either arguing with a straw man—the idea that New Atheists are uncivilized because they vilify people for their religious views, rather than acceptably disagreeing with their religious views—or is begging the question of when it is acceptable to criticize someone’s beliefs bluntly, as opposed to being a demagogue who singles people out for persecution.
If that’s not clear, read on:
Wow. Henry is clearly saying that some of us at Pharyngula agree with the Nazis that Jewish babies deserved what they got when the Nazis killed them and turned their bodily tissues into household items.
Seriously. He said that. No, he didn’t say that everybody at Pharyngula was that bad, but I think it’s clear that he was implying that Pharyngula’s moral standards are so low in that regard that such people would not be clearly unwelcome outliers in that community.
Wow again. He’s saying that we New Atheists who explicitly disrespect all religion, including his, have every reason to desecrate Jewish graves and torch synagogues, and no good reason not to. And if we disagree vehemently, he must be right—he’s touched a nerve.
Fucking right he touched a nerve. He’s hammering on pretty much every anti-New Atheist canard, making us out to be the kinds of amoral and immoral villains who perpetrated the Holocaust, or at best cowardly enablers with no moral standards.
Then there’s this:
Isn’t that at least a bit paranoid? Isn’t it at least a bit simplistic, in a broad-brush way that is at least a wee bit paranoid with regard to some of the people he’s tarring with his broad brush?
Shouldn’t he at least note that even if the situation is as bad as he paints it some places, perhaps the UK, the mostly American audience at Pharyngula might not be aware of the evil he claims they’re contributing to, and the immediacy of the threat of persecution?
Shouldn’t he assume that we have some decency, and explain the threat clearly, and appeal to our better natures, rather than vilifying us every way he knows how, especially in the very worst possible way?
Holy crap. Most of us regulars at Pharyngula are liberals and staunch civil libertarians, for whom the Nazis are about as morally repugnant as it is possible for something to be. Many of us are Jews and/or people who work with Jews daily and fail to notice our own alleged antisemitism, or insensitivity to the issue.
As somebody who’s served on promotion and tenure committees in the U.S., discussiong and voting with Jews and gentiles regarding the cases of Jews and gentiles, I’m simply shocked. I really never noticed how antisemitic we are, given the disproportionate number of Jews we have in academia, and how nobody seems to mind. (Or if they do, they keep their damned mouths shut about it, apparently because they wrongly think that we’d be shocked and offended by antisemitism.)
Come on, the guy’s fucking paranoid, however understandable that might be, and it makes him a simplistic hypocrite who thinks that free speech about religion—at least his religion—is just not worth the cost in enabling substantive persecution, even on a very short timescale.
He is clearly implying that there ought to be norms, if not laws, that prohibit the free discussion of whether Judaism is a dopey religion like we New Atheists think that all religions are.
And note that Henry pulls out all the stops, in that thread and elsewhere, with the usual litany of fallacies and slanders.
He’s exactly the kind of demagogue that he’s accusing Dawkins and the New Atheists of being.
By his own logic, the New Atheists should be shut up some means means—somehow deprived of their free speech, at least, because what they say will predictably be used to justify more persecution of the Jews and others, and apparently serves no valid purpose.
At best, they should be vilified and marginalized by right-thinking people, but if Henry is not to be the kind of “hypocrite” he accuses us of being for not burning his synagogue down, it seems that the threat he says we pose would justify much harsher measures.
Greg, I’d say you blew it in a big way, from the start, and repeatedly since, by not recognizing that even Pharyngulans deserve a little better treatment than such clear comparisons to Nazi psychopaths and their sociopathic enablers.
This is very sad. One thing I’d like to point out is that Henry himself is (at least now) an atheist.
As a Jewish atheist, his viewpoint could be very interesting in straightening many of us alleged persecution-enabling demagogues out about Judaism.
As I understand it, most of us Pharyngulans are not racist and having nothing against Jews on racist or ethnic grounds. It’s trite and ludicrous, but some of our best friends are Jews, really—my best friend, for example.
Some of us have even gone regularly to synagogue, at times, and socialized primarily with Jews. (Me for example.)
Some of us think we’re able to appreciate Jewish people and culture while still being New Atheists.
Perhaps we are just wrong, and need to have our consciousness raised.
What we don’t need is to be painted as Nazis and sociopaths, and told that people who paint us that way are not paranoid.
Greg,
What a waste of a perfectly good Big Lebowski allusion. *yawn* “Mind if I do a J”
I challenge people to defend their claims if they’re putting them out there in the public sphere, and religious claims are not excluded. I’ve also seen the repression in which organized religion (Isis’s in particular) has been perpetrator or complicit, and I’m going to fight against that. You appear to be confusing holding people to evidentiary standards, evidence-based politics, and human rights with telling them what they mean or feel. (And as was pointed out to Gee on that thread, he was the one essentializing Judaism; not that the discussion had anything to do with any such thing as you suggest – if anyone was telling people what they think and feel, it was Gee.) Since my more recent comments about him had nothing to do with atheism, though, your extended concern then seems inexplicable.
We were discussing arguments about rules and civility, and Gee’s/Wilkins’ was one under discussion. His behavior on that occasion was one of the single most uncivil displays I’ve had the displeasure to see, and I’m absolutely going to bring it up when he’s publicly arguing about rules of civility. And again, you haven’t discussed the general issue of civility at all here, while I have.
This isn’t your blog, so you don’t get to decide what’s accomodated. Sorry. As for arguing with him, it appears fruitless, since people who tried to carry on a substantive argument were ignored. Further, I don’t care if you’re “polite” about it or not. Your harping on it isn’t impolite – just strange and annoying.
See #95. I’ve asked about the specifics of rules for civility that people are talking about more than once.
Right, about/with Gee. Because at that point I hadn’t read up fully on his position yet (still haven’t read Zuska’s arguments, since I can’t find them). So I wasn’t arguing against any position he was taking because I was still unsure of what that was. Now I’m (slightly) clearer on it, and incidentally also think less of him. I’ve also taken a position on the rules as defined by Wilkins and the rules that Gee seems to appreciate at Nature: I disagree with them. I think they are unjust and do work to silence already-marginalized people, and that they’re not engaging in self-examination at all. I also think that Gee appears to follow a categorical if-I-feel-like-it.
Again, if you don’t like the focus on him, then by all means stop arguing about it and discuss the general question of civility rules on blogs, describing what you think is appropriate and how it serves good purposes. I’m happy to explain why I think the Pharyngula rules (and those of some other blogs) are good. Has this discussion really gone on for so long without specifying any content?
Stephanie Z, does Laden pay you to police his comment threads according to your own secret criteria for relevance, or do you do it pro bono?
Stephanie,
I have a longer post in moderation, explaining why I think Greg (and you) thoroughly Godwinned this thread and can’t easily undo it—Pharyngulans have every right and every reason to respond.
Until it comes through, or in case it doesn’t but this does, you can see a copy of here:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/01/this_is_the_thread_that_youre.php#comment-2242922
Sven, I guess that all depends on what forms you think “pay” comes in.
Re: CPP #114 – I love you, you douchebag!
(No, really!)
Ferkakte shpritszak is good. Or just Shpritszak.
Simply, the whole thing about Henry was to illustrate a specific MISUSE of the term “civility” when debating what rules one should use to control posts within ones own blog.
If it becomes clear that removing posts as “incivil” merely because they disagree vehemently with with the blog owners PoV, while using strong language, then I think this is the misuse many of us are harping on here.
IOW, when someone complains of people “pissing on their carpet”, if it becomes clear that there is actually substance as well as volume to that “piss”, it then becomes an issue of concern that the blog owner is really just stifling debate he disagrees with, on the pretext of “civility”.
I might be totally oversimplifying the larger issue here, but I do think this is the main reason the old thread with Henry was brought up to begin with, and cries of hypocrisy leveled.
That said, if an owner of a blog repeatedly begins misusing civility as an excuse to quash dissent, then I do tend to agree with those who think the internet to be more self-regulating than not. The more obvious the misuse becomes, the more relegated to fringedom the blog will become.
Hence, blogs like “Uncommon Dissent” (pun intentional), are ridiculed for their extreme use of the banhammer with the typical comment of “incivility” being applied to the comments tossed into the garbage.
so, wrt any idea of “civil” discourse, I rather think so long as the owner is very clear about what should be considered incivil on their own blog (like no naughty language), that’s fair enough, so long as, like I said, it is not misused as an excuse to circle-file comments they just don’t like.
Once it becomes apparent that there has become a pattern of misuse, however, critique should indeed be leveled directly at the blog owner, and backs turned, etc.
No general rules need apply, IMO.
In the Pharyngula thread, Henry first brought up his ethnicity as a response to my comment where I accused him of disliking Dawkins for being rude about religion and, in doing so, was not adhering to the standards of cultured British club society; he responded by insisting that he couldn’t ever belong to such a society because he was Jewish and the descendant of recent immigrants.
As I had no idea who he was at the time (nor did I know – if it is indeed true – that he would be denied access to such society) I can say with 100% certainty that I wasn’t making any comment on his ethnicity.
But that didn’t stop the thread sinking into a swamp of Godwinism because, in his mind, any argument raised against him after he made that comment became linked to his Jewishness.
What happened to my comment (and Paul W.’s)? Does Stephanie do the moderating?
As far as I know, everything is out of moderation.
There are certain fairly common keywords that these days put a post in moderation. This is the case because of the very nasty notes certain people leave that I just don’t want on my “carpet.” That, and multiple links tend to trap posts. I do what I can to get them out of the moderation tank quickly.
Huh. I’ve read through it again, and can’t think of any words that would be triggers. In the interest of honesty, I won’t change it:
I challenge people to defend their claims if they’re putting them out there in the public sphere, and religious claims are not excluded. I’ve also seen the repression in which organized religion (Isis’s in particular) has been perpetrator or complicit, and I’m going to fight against that. You appear to be confusing holding people to evidentiary standards, evidence-based politics, and human rights with telling them what they mean or feel. (And as was pointed out to Gee on that thread, he was the one essentializing Judaism; not that the discussion had anything to do with any such thing as you suggest – if anyone was telling people what they think and feel, it was Gee.) Since my more recent comments about him had nothing to do with atheism, though, your extended concern then seems inexplicable.
We were discussing arguments about rules and civility, and Gee’s/Wilkins’ was one under discussion. His behavior on that occasion was one of the single most uncivil displays I’ve had the displeasure to see, and I’m absolutely going to bring it up when he’s publicly arguing about rules of civility. And again, you haven’t discussed the general issue of civility at all here, while I have.
This isn’t your blog, so you don’t get to decide what’s accomodated. Sorry. As for arguing with him, it appears fruitless, since people who tried to carry on a substantive argument were ignored. Further, I don’t care if you’re “polite” about it or not. Your harping on it isn’t impolite – just strange and annoying.
See #95. I’ve asked about the specifics of rules for civility that people are talking about more than once.
Right, about/with Gee. Because at that point I hadn’t read up fully on his position yet (still haven’t read Zuska’s arguments, since I can’t find them). So I wasn’t arguing against any position he was taking because I was still unsure of what that was. Now I’m (slightly) clearer on it, and incidentally also think less of him. I’ve also taken a position on the rules as defined by Wilkins and the rules that Gee seems to appreciate at Nature: I disagree with them. I think they are unjust and do work to silence already-marginalized people, and that they’re not engaging in self-examination at all. I also think that Gee appears to follow a categorical if-I-feel-like-it.
Again, if you don’t like the focus on him, then by all means stop arguing about it and discuss the general question of civility rules on blogs, describing what you think is appropriate and how it serves good purposes. I’m happy to explain why I think the Pharyngula rules (and those of some other blogs) are good. Has this discussion really gone on for so long without specifying any content?
is not incompatible with
Don’t do the same thing you’re trying to accuse Henry of doing. Atheists aren’t any more consistent than any other group. If you haven’t met thick-skulled atheists who at least imply that the religious are sub-human–on Pharyngula–you haven’t been paying attention. It isn’t Henry’s responsibility to sort out the ridiculously OTT (“Henry, I know you’re Jewish, but you can’t imagine what it’s like to grow up CoE”) commenters when nobody else on the thread is working to distance themselves from such comments.
And really, mentioning Henry is like mentioning Hitler? Grow up a little and try again.
SC: “Henry, blah, blah, Henry.” Get over it. He didn’t tell you that you were a Nazi. He told you you were weak tea.
And yes, of course, I haven’t discussed at all the question of incivility being useful as a tool but losing that usefulness when used less than strategically. I haven’t discussed some of the other problems of moderation policies. I haven’t, by implication, raised questions about marking certain subjects or words off-limits for some but not others or quoting correctly or honestly characterizing your opponent’s position–all of which are central to most discussions of the practicalities of civility online. Sorry for multitasking. I’ve been having this conversation for a while with the same group of people. I was rather hoping there would be new people and new substance here.
and can’t think of any words that would be triggers.
You would not ever be able to identify the triggers. They are not even slightly obvious.
Moderation again. While I’m curious as to the trigger, I’m irritated with this discussion, so this may be it for me.
Oh, give me a break. There was nothing to make him make that accusation of the group of people with whom he was conversing. And for the record, I’ve seen a total of one person make that claim on Pharyngula (about fundamentalist Christians, specifically); I think he’s mentally unbalanced, and suggested he be banned. In fact, the people I’ve called out on antisemitic (or what I saw as such) comments there have, IIRC, invariably been Christians.
That’s blatantly dishonest in a number of ways. I’ll refer anyone to the thread in question.
Indeed. We’re definitely done here.
Enjoy your toys. And the next time you want to bring up the Holocaust to a Jew to tell him how he should feel about a particular issue, don’t be surprised that the sword is turned against you. For that matter, the next time you want to cry about someone hitting you with a sword, don’t act surprised when you get called on it being yours. You raise the stakes, you live with the results. You scream about it where the grownups whose approval you want are talking, you get sent to your room.
For the record, I happen to think that Henry was wrong about a number of things, particularly about Dawkins, but I don’t care at this point.
Henry is somebody who came into our living room and pissed on our rug, basically called us Nazis, who would endorse turning children into candles and soap, or maybe just pathetic, snivelling cowards without the courage of our convictions necesary to be actual antisemitic vandals and synagogue burners. (Apparently, our convictions are so evil that if we had any guts at all, we’d be terrorists. Lovely.)
Naturally, if this is the guy bringing up the idea that there ought to be rules of civility, and people ought not to go around pissing on other people’s rugs, we’re going to comment on the irony. Bet on it. It’s interesting, and it’s even relevant to the overall topic.
If we can’t agree that there are some norms, even at Pharyngula, and that Henry was violating them, something is profoundly wrong with this whole discussion.
If Greg makes it sound like there was no harm, no foul because after all there are no relevant norms at Pharyngula, to dismiss our concerns, we’re certainly going to point out that he is seriously mistaken.
And if you say that Henry only called us “weak tea,” I say read my comment 130, carefully this time. If you still think it was nothing, well, you’re just wrong. Some of us do have standards, even if you don’t. (Except for double standards, perhaps.)
Stephanie, get your condescending head examined.
i am not familiar with henry, but i seem to be reading his old thread quote as “if an atheist really believed that religions, any and all religions, were silly/negative entities, they’d be out burning places of worship to the ground” -paraphrased.
i don’t see how anyone could read this as anything other than an attempt to silence an atheist’s criticism of religion, by basically saying “real atheists (Tm) act on their convictions, by violence against others, and this is obviously abhorrent and immoral. any other atheist is ‘nothing but talk’ -or maybe a glass of ‘weak tea’- take your pick, and this is also abhorrent, therefore all atheists should refrain from criticizing any religion……”
i’d say such a thing belongs in a discussion of “calls for ‘civility’ as a means to silence people”, as it is certainly an attempt to silence an entire category of opinions by saying that the holders of such opinions are either barbaric terrorists or mealy-mouthed meaningless talking heads. if those assumptions were true, and there were no other reasons anyone might voice atheist criticisms of religion, why would we give these atheist voices the time of day, or any blog space?
i’d say labeling an entire worldview that has only a non-belief in any deities as a commonality as all either terrorists or meaningless people without conviction is not very nice (so could be painted as “uncivil”), and at the same time asks us to ignore the atheists as they are by nature “uncivil” themselves. so it seems quite fitting to discuss it in this thread, even if the person making that argument wasn’t the same person interested in raising the very idea of “civility” as a requirement/non-requirement in blog discussions….
Stephanie Z [to SC, presumably]:
HM. It seems otherwise to me.
This is the linked exchange:
I find Stephanie’s accusation sophistic and maliciously disingenuous; clearly, SC refers to the entire history of Christendom vs. Judaism (cf. Lutherans or Catholics vs. Jews, for example) and the effect it has had on Jews, rather than to any specific event.
I suspect that, in the quoted reference, had Gee written ‘Islamic’ instead of ‘Jewish’ and SC ‘Muslim’ instead of ‘Jew’, but the construct remaining otherwise verbatim, Stephanie would claim SC was specifically “bringing up the Crusades” by using exactly the same mode of interpretation.
Being pretty familiar with the state of PZ’s comment section, I’ve no doubt this is true.
I don’t think it’s particularly paranoid to expect that an observant Jew would be treated any better by the Pharyngula crowd than an observant Roman Catholic.
Although I think Henry damaged (and eventually obliterated) his point by making it too personal, that doesn’t mean he didn’t have a valid point to begin with.
Paul, I’ll get my “condescending head examined” about the time you apologize for saying the thread was Godwined at the title and concede that there’s a difference between the Holocaust and having the person on whose head you’re stepping bite you in the ankle. Until then, until you can look at that comment thread and understand that there were plenty of assholes in it and that speaking German is not some kind of unforgivable crime against the internet, I really don’t take you seriously. That, and you’re not talking about civility. You’re only talking about Henry.
No, John. I’m saying SC brought up the Holocaust this way because she said she did in comment 106. Keep up.
Stephanie Z,
I quoted what you linked to, as your citation for your comment.
I cannot go by what you intend to say (as you claim after the fact, I note) รข?? I can only go by what you do write and the citations you quote in your comment.
And thus you link to comment 373. Right.
John, comment 106 of this thread.
[149] Paul W. If Greg makes it sound like there was no harm, no foul because after all there are no relevant norms at Pharyngula, to dismiss our concerns, we’re certainly going to point out that he is seriously mistaken.
I don’t know what “no relevant norms” are but I do know what PZ’s point of view on Henry Gee commenting on Pharyngula and I don’t think there is anything I’ve said here or elsewhere that contradicts that.
On a more general note, it is true that this thread is not about Henry. Henry is a loss leader here. This thread is where I disagree with the idea that a handful of people on the blogosphere (and this could be any handful, not just the Kliqueons … it could be a handful of Pharynulistas or a handful of my best friends, or the College of Cardinals, or the Saint Louis Cardinals) should not take on the roll of telling other people what rules they should or should not have on their blog. Also, in the current discussion (not this Stephanie / S.C. discussion, but the “civility” discussion) I feel that a fetishized concept of “incivility” which is the obverse of equally fetishized “civility” has emerged and become some sort of standard for the proper way to communicate. But it isn’t.
Putting this together somewhat, I feel that many of the participants in the discussion have overlooked or under analyzed the nature of human interaction and communication and have come up with a very simplistic view of it that does not serve anyone. In some cases, this simplistic view (50,000 civil comments on Nature Network is a bad thing) is almost depressingly simple.
I think it is unfair to Henry to spend this much effort analyzing every word he ever spoke (or a selection of those words anyway) in a novel (or at least somewhat novel) context. Is Henry someone who asked for people to be nice but is not always nice himself, and is thus a hypocrite? No. I don’t think he asked anybody to be nice. He made the assertion that a blog owner could set and control and moderate standards or whatever on her or his own blog. There is nothing inherently hypocritical about saying “I want everyone to be nice on my own blog or I throw them off” and to be nasty on other blogs. There is not a universal rule, and there is not a rule demanding universal consistency in behavior. If there were, there would be no Hockey, there would be no UN, there would be no Graduate Seminar and there would be no sex.
(Or, we would be constantly debating, hitting each other with sticks, and fucking, with no interludes of other behavior.)
Although I get and in many cases agree with Salty Current’s comments above, I do worry that the scrappy “don’t fuck with me” European Jew of Henry’s generation (which I fully understand having been captured by a band of such Jews and kept by them for several years when I was younger) is a real and understandable trope that is being used to bludgeon an already buldgeoned-enough category of people.
What if Henry as a diminutive heavily wrinkled tough old broad who escaped from the holocaust and now goes around to blogs and public events and tells people to go fuck themselves because they don’t get what happened in the 1930s and 1940s and they don’t believe that antisemitism is real and effective and scary today? She would be revered, even by those she told to go fuck themselves. It is possible, on the other hand, that Henry does not realize how big and scary he is in real life (or with his words, and he has words like the Jets have Knives), and could do well with a shift in tactics if he wants his points to be carried off in a tsunami of finger waggling.
An interesting feature of the above discussion is the interesting problem of avoiding being racist/whateverist and being generally tolerant but being intolerant of religion. That turns out to be pretty tricky.
Stephanie, what are you blithering about? I said in #106 that I brought it up “tangentially in response to his apparent ignorance of the history of Christianity.” I linked to discussion of Constantine’s Sword, I think, which I had recently seen and which covers 2000 years, up to the present (the first scenes focus on evangelicalism and antisemitism at the Air Force Academy). I was also reading Isaacson’s biography of Einstein at the time, and very much had this issue on the brain. My point was a political one: Henry Gee appears to be blithely ignorant of the real history of Christian antisemitism and the threats it continues to pose today. That this point was lost on him made it even more ridiculous when he then turned around and presented atheists as some sort of physical threat to ethnic Jews. I accused him of nothing but ignorance (perhaps willful). (He’s also conflating belief and politics with ethnicity, but that wasn’t revealed till later.)
Because he was responding to you, and Gee’s all you’re talking about, you twit.
Greg, I have to go to work, so I’ll respond to your comments later today. I disagree with pretty much everything you said there, so be prepared.
๐
You disagree that most of he conversation is oversimplified and highly gendered? Hmmm… I’ looking forward to seeing what you’ve got.
SC, I’m saying the same thing I’ve said since you joined and disrupted a conversation already in progress. If you want to suggest that a person has to be civil by your definition in order to be heard, I’ll do the same to you with my definition of civility. If you want to insist this thread be about one person, it will be you. If you want to insist that someone be judged by the worst possible interpretation of their words, you’ll get the same. If you want to live by “Nothing’s sacred” and dismiss a person’s feelings as irrelevant, I’ll step all over yours.
In other words, if you claim offense in order to start rule-making in my presence, particularly over something that was finished a year and a half ago, and ignore it when you’re told it’s irrelevant, the rules will be used against you. Because if you reread the post, you might note that the point is that we need something more thoughtful than rule-making.
Dude, what’s with you and this “rules” shit? Calling someone a douchebag for doing/not doing a particular thing on their blog is not an imposition of rules; it’s an expression of an opinion about what is doing/not doing.
Like when you totally fucked up your coverage of the Linda Buck retraction, me telling you that you had totally fucked the thing up wasn’t an attempted imposition of some kind of “rule” on your blog. It was simply the expression of my opinion (correct, as it turns out) that you had gotten the thing woefully wrong.
Someone accusing HEE GEE of being a fucking hypocritical douchebag because of what he asserts as his approach to “civility” is not an attempted imposition of a “rule” on him. No one is fucking with his blog code, or trying to circumvent whatever mechanism HEE GEE might implement to enforce his own conception of civility on his blog. These are expressions of opinion.
Just because some people go completely 100% apeshit when their behavior or expressions are criticized doesn’t turn that criticism into some kind of mob with flaming torches outside their door.
CPP, what makes it rule-making is the notion that whatever was done is far more important than actually working together to accomplish shared goals. If doing something puts someone beyond the pale, it’s “forbidden” whether someone expresses it as a rule or not.
Well, actually, CPP, you have made a lengthy and rather sophistic argument related to an all too brief comment of mine that is not a very good representative of what this post is about. In this case your straw man is something about rules. You could consider reading the original post.
Shall I be more clear? Your one dimensional invariant yammering is uninteresting, unhelpful and annoying. Isis has fetishized Teh Civil and created a version of rhetoric in her own mind that she has come to call “uncivil” and claims this is the way to be, and if you are not you might as well have a stadium at the Oppression Olympics named after you. She has gone so far as to identify places where this รข??civilityรข?ย thing is done normally as bad places. She wants them to change the way they do things so it looks like her crib rather than the way it looks now, imposing her way of being and values on others with the reprimand that if you do not do it the Isis way you are repressing the little brown ones. Your hit and run appearances here and there are the same thing. You show up in peopleรข??s faces, are very rude to them, and when they respond to your rudeness instead of the content of your message, you rudely tell them that they should not do so. (That is what happened with the Linda Buck issue you refer to: I wrote you off as some kind of crazy fuckhead and ignored you even though you had a point The fact that I did not jump, step and fetch it when you ordered me rudely to do so was not because I confused your asshatery with your valid point. It was because you were being and. Consequences, CPP. Consequences are not just for those you chose to provide them for. You can haz them too. In the Buck case, I chose to not take you seriously because you were being an asshat.)
Both of you and various others are totally ignoring the actual complexities of the process of different parties negotiating communication among themselves, or you are selectively ignoring the realities of how humans communicate with each other. And, you are labeling all those who disagree with you as people who are intentionally (or perhaps not intentionally) creating environments where underrepresented or repressed people cannot make their point because TEH Civil has silenced them.
I donรข??t think of you and your buddies as a mob with flaming torches. I have an entirely different image in mind.
Of course, it could be that I’m making these arguments for the traffic. That accusation has not been tossed my way for at least two weeks. Shall we cycle back to that one soon?
VERKAKTE TRAFFICMONGER SHPRITSZAK!!!
Greg,
I actually agree with a lot of the things I take you to be saying… please bear with me…
I think we need to get clearer on how the “pissing on the rug” metaphor is supposed to work. (I need to, at least.)
I suspect it’s a disastrously ambiguous metaphor and we need a better one.
One interpretation of “pissing on the rug” is simply violating some social norm, and being deserving of censure.
Another is violating a social norm in a big way, and deserving censorship.
Those are very different things.
On Pharyngula, there are social norms; in fact, they’re stronger and I’d say more civilized than on some more overtly “civilized” blogs like the Intersection.
PZ is relatively laissez faire, and lets many kinds of “incivility” pass. You can call somebody a goatfucker and it’s no big deal. It’s a tough room. PZ doesn’t see it as his job to micromanage, and he provides something akin to a public forum, although he does occasionally ban people in extreme cases (only), and he sets the tone to some extent, in a variety of ways.
Most of the norm enforcement falls to the regular commenters, like me and SC.
For example, if somebody says something racist or sexist, somebody will generally jump on them; often several people will. Those people are generally made to look stupid, and that’s generally enough to get them to go away after a while, without PZ having to do anything.
A more interesting norm at Pharyngula—which is strikingly absent at certain blogs such as The Intersection—is the general recognition that there’s a crucial difference between sincere dissent and pure, shameless trolling.
People who disagree with the local consensus—such as Henry Gee, or a Christian apologist, or a radical libertarian—are welcome to come and state their view, and defend it.
They are not entitled to respect for their views, in the way many people interpret that term. They may get dogpiled with a bunch of snarky comments, even flatly called stupid sometimes, etc.
However, if the hapless dissenter can endure that, and tries to actually make arguments and address the arguments others are making, they’re not considered trolls. They are playing the game, and they can continue to play.
(I have been in that position, going against the local grain, several times. I often don’t bother speak up about stuff I agree with, so I’m disproportionately disagreeable, and I get dogpiled. But if I’m making a determined effort to communicate, some people will notice and say so, even if they think I’m stupidly wrong.)
Sometimes such people get called trolls by some dismissive Pharynguloids, but if they keep making an actual effort to communicate, somebody will step up and tell the dismissive, insulting people dial it down, because they’re enjoying the argument, and the victim isn’t just trolling.
Sometimes this is very explicit, and sometimes it’s implicit—the people actually arguing just continue arguing, and ignore the sniping.
I’ve been on the norm-enforcing end of that many times, and once I was very much on the wrong end. I dismissed a regularly dissenting poster (a young libertarian/conservative) who I thought was just polluting Pharyngula with his ill-informed and ill-thought-out views, because I perceived him as hopeless. I told him to shut the fuck up and go away because we were sick of him, after months of his spewing drivel.
Immediately several regulars jumped on me and said that I was wrong—that they personally disagreed with the guy’s views as much as as I did, but that he was not a hopeless troll. He was honest, and however much trouble he was having with the huge clash of worldviews, he didn’t deserve that from me.
They were right, so I apologized humbly, butted the fuck out, and slunk away, red-faced. I hadn’t been paying enough attention, and had been just an asshole to somebody who wasn’t just an asshole. And that is not okay. Lesson learned.
For about a year, that guy had many long arguments with many people at Pharyngula. Over and over, and largely repetitive. Ick. But he learned some things, and came to realize that liberals aren’t just stupid, and moderated some of his conservative views. He’s still a regular, and that’s cool. Good for him, and good for Pharyngula.
During that time, especially near the beginning, that guy did things many of us considered pissing on us. (And maybe the rug, but I don’t understand that metaphor.) And I think he did, without realizing the extent to which he did, as many young men do who are smart and don’t yet realize that there are smarter people out there, or don’t know them when they see them.
I was the same way as a young man, I confess. I was even a libertarian and thought that any who wasn’t was pretty stupid. And then one day I fell in with some folks who were willing to argue with me, and were smart and articulate, and knew what the fuck they were talking about. And they were patient with me, despite the fact that I was a cocky asshole, because they realized I was not just a cocky asshole.
I am eternally grateful for that patient, much-needed ass-kicking from some people who liked to argue, and were good at it. (I ended up apologizing to some people I’d condescended to for years, who either weren’t articulate enough to kick my ass even when I was wrong and they were right, or had just dismissed me as too much of a cocky asshole to be worth arguing with.)
That’s a major reason that I like Pharyngula—that sort of thing can happen there, and sometimes does—and I do not like certain other blogs, that are supposedly more “civil,” notably The Intersection.
At those blogs, dissenters are not welcome, no matter how sincere. You get dogpiled by people who will never engage on crucial, major points, and freely sling invective, ad hominems, and arguments from authority, but dogpile you if you justifiably respond in kind. (E.g., impugning an alleged authority.) There is little respect for actual reasoned argument, and too much respect for patently invalid arguments so long as they get the “right” answer. And there’s a double standard—you’re likely to get censored or flatly banned if you keep dissenting, for things the loyalists never get banned for.
(My experience there is mostly in threads about the New Atheism and accommodationist framing; your mileage may vary on other topics. Also, I’m a peculiar exception to the censoring/banning thing—I get dogpiled by utterly evasive shits who all stonewall eternally on the two actual bones of contention, as Mooney and Kirshenbaum systematically do, but I rarely get censored and do not get banned, despite repeatedly arguing that M&K are not only wrong, but chronically evasive and evidently dishonest. Good for them.)
On Pharyngula, there’s a norm of substantive civility, not superficial faux civility.
Pharyngulans think that calling somebody names isn’t the end of the world, so long as you also address their arguments, or somebody does. They think that an argument can be passionate and heated without going entirely off the rails into hateful, irrational nonsense.
For most of us, being called a goatfucking asswipe isn’t a big deal, so long as we can ask you to explain why you call us that, and expect a sincere effort to answer intelligibly, which we can then try to criticize rationally amid the name-calling.
But being told we don’t mind turning innocent babies into soap (because they’re Jewish?), or perhaps we’re just too cowardly to be the terrorists we unprincipled scum logically should be…
well, that’s a whole other thing.
But even that we can more or less accept—we get called that sort of thing by fundamentalists sometimes, and we just argue that it’s not true. (And make fun of them.) It gives us an opportunity to defend our worldview and criticize theirs, in a contentful way.
What is really, really not okay at Pharyngula is to use such incredibly evil accusations as an ad hominem argument, and evade the issue of whether we’re right or wrong to think that your religious beliefs are false, and whether we’re reprehensibly immoral or amoral to dare to say so publicly.
Maybe now you can see why I think Henry is an entirely relevant example of what I’m talking about when I make the basic distinction between substantive civility and superficial faux civility.
IMO Henry was simply horrendously, substantively uncivil in the famous thread SC quoted him from.
He was acting a goatfucking asswipe, who doesn’t realize that it’s not nearly as bad to call somebody a goatfucking asswipe—who cares?—as it is to call them a Nazi or cowardly would-be terrorist. The former is just name-calling, and can be discounted almost entirely, but the latter is a very fucking serious, substantive accusation.
Even at Pharyngula.
Pharyngula may be a rough-and-tumble place, and a tough room for outsiders, but it’s a liberal blog.
Many of the regulars are longtime advocates for social justice and human rights. (Like SC and me.) The last thing in the world we are is Nazis, at least in our own opinion. Maybe we don’t understand our own stupid reprehensibility, but if so, we need it explained to us. We don’t need somebody to come in our living room and not just piss on the carpet, but shit on us in the most vicious way he can think of.
Several of the people dearest to me in the world are Jews, including one who’s a Holocaust survivor whose parents and siblings were killed by the Nazis. Another is the son of a concentration camp survivor. I’m a lifelong Jew-lover who almost married into a Jewish family. (And when I didn’t, it certainly wasn’t because they were Jewish; oh hell no. That was a plus, I guess, compared to the typical American family; I like the demographic.)
Make me out to be a Nazi, or anything like a Nazi, and I will take it very, very personally—or dismiss you as a kook.
Which is what I did with Henry. I assume that he doesn’t know who he’s talking to, and doesn’t understand the culture of the people he’s shitting on, but I do think that makes him a bit paranoid, specifically with respect to the people at Pharyngula.
I am emphatically not saying that it’s paranoid for Henry to be worried about antisemitism in general. Far from it. It’s a serious issue, and he is right to be concerned.
I understand what Stephanie means, up to a point, that it’s weird to call a Jew “paranoid,” after the Holocaust, and given the situation around Israel, and given antisemitism in Henry’s environment.
Still, that just can’t imply that it’s okay for Henry to come over to Pharyngula and imply that we are Nazis or anything remotely like them, without explaining how that’s even plausible, and being willing to seriously engage with our actual views.
It does not make it okay for you to minimize his misbehavior by saying this, either:
In order to move past the Henry thing, it would be helpful if you now indicated that you understand why we at Pharyngula think Henry did at least a little more than the normal, expected, unexceptional pissing.
Do you?
Maybe now you can also see why I object to Stephanie’s characterization of all this:
We don’t think that Pharyngula is just a “cage match” with no rules of civility, that can be so easily dismissed. (And us along with it.)
We think it’s got a culture that’s an interesting example of several basic civility/incivility issues.
It’s got some bad aspects, certainly. I wish Pharyngula was more “civil” in certain ways that many others do—I certainly get tired of some people there who really do act like assholes too often.
On the other hand, it works in certain senses that most blogs don’t, and that includes having some (perhaps non-obvious) moral norms about fairness toward outsiders, honest argument, etc.
And it only works—it only isn’t worse, at least—because there are many people at Pharyngula who oppose gratuitous incivility, if only by trying to be civil themselves and engage seriously with dissenters’ arguments amid the free-for-all.
If you don’t make a serious argument, as Henry didn’t, of course you won’t notice that. And if you don’t accept that it’s an uphill slog, you may give up before anybody acknowledges that you’re playing the game fine.
I entirely agree, but I think you’re still missing the real point.
Henry isn’t a hypocrite for doing what you portray him doing—stooping to Pharyngula’s level. He’s a hypocrite for stooping well below Pharyngula’s level, at least by Pharyngula standards, and then whining about getting his ass handed to him for acting like such an asswipe in our living room.
He does not understand the culture, doesn’t appreciate it, misrepresents it, and makes false accusations.
We object to that, and to anybody misrepresenting what happened, using Pharyngula as a whipping boy and an illustration of what things degenerate into when “anything goes.”
I’m not asking Henry or anyone else to like Pharyngula. I think you can make a good case that it’s a dysfunctional culture in some ways—but you can also argue that The Intersection (or Zuska’s or Isis’s place, or Henry’s) is a dysfunctional culture in different way. (As you seem to be doing. Great.)
Pharyngula is not simply worse by every relevant standard, such that we have no grounds for complaint about incivility by our standards, which have at least some merit in some respects.
Don’t they? Or are we just scum who should take that lying down?
If you use us as simply a negative example, and dismiss us as a cage match of poo-flinging screechy monkeys not much better than Nazis—or at least, not so much better that our objection is valid—well, we’ll come to your blog and disagree.
I don’t think there’s anything uncivil about that, or the least bit off-topic. It’s precisely on topic—what does civil mean, anyway?
I worry about that, too. I’ve known Holocaust survivors who would never make the kind of argument Henry makes, so it’s all pretty weird.
An interesting feature of the above discussion is the interesting problem of avoiding being racist/whateverist and being generally tolerant but being intolerant of religion. That turns out to be pretty tricky.
Exactly. One of the things it seems that Henry does, and accommodationists do systematically, is to beg this question. They lump religion together with ethnicity, and equate both kinds of “intolerance.” They’re different.
I can’t change who my parents are, but I can change my mind about religious beliefs, as I have. Henry has too, which makes it puzzling to me that he doesn’t seem to understand the New Atheist position, and insists on running things together.
But you didn’t link to #106 of this thread, you linked to #373 in a different blog via the bolded words in your quote: “And the next time you want to bring up the Holocaust to a Jew to tell him how he should feel about a particular issue”.
Perhaps I was too subtle @154. I thought it was clear I was suggesting your response to me @153 (quoted in its entirety above) seems to be an ad-hoc evasion, made to avoid a substantive response to my @151.
John, your comment 151 (in this thread) is all about what you think is/was going on in my head. What is there to say to it except that you’re wrong? If you don’t understand what I said for some reason other than not wanting to, ask a question. If you ask nicely, I may even answer it.
Oh, and comments 151 and 165 would both be great examples of that dipshit move of telling people what they think and mean.
Shorter John Morales:
“No! You linked to 2 Pharyngulonians 11:8, when you should have linked to Ladentations 1:10 instead! Blasphemy!11!!”
Josh[35]: This post was not about Henry, and I have made only minimal comments about him in the comments, which I don’t think anyone has explicit disagreed with. Therefore there is no sentence that contradicts what I said in relation to what SC said about Henry that is logically valid in any way. I have not engaged in the discussion about Henry.
CPP: Thanks very much for the very concise response! I like concise responses. You probably could have cut it down to one word, but that’s OK.
Paul (and I suppose CPP): The pissing on the rug metaphor is perfect. A metaphor that is a perfect match is a description. A metaphor is supposed to be general and it is not supposed to match reality exactly.
Many good points about the social issues of a forum. I don’t think anything there contradicts what I’m saying in any substantial way. My position is that determining that a blog owner is acting inappropriately because they don’t act like you (you being anybody) wants them to act is itself asshatery. If you hat Chris Mooney and want to complain about how he runs his blog, fine, but to say that he does not have the right to run his blog like he does and that running it like he does oppresses people then that is out of line.
PZ’s blog has a low level of inforced civility. Isis should therefore like PZ’s blog. But I can tell you that there are people who do not participate in PZ’s blog’s conversations because they do not feel comfortable. Voices are being silenced by you and Salty Current and whomever. I’m sure there are also voices that are being encouraged on Pharynugla that might be silenced elsewhere.
There is not a simple dipole of “civil” vs. “uncivil” whereby one end of that spectrum allows otherwise repressed voices to be heard and the other does not. It is simply more complicated than that.
My blog, of course, has the perfect mix of warm welcome fuzzies and edginess.
Unless you are a fucking home schooler.
I can only assume he meant that the title (and post) led the thread to be about the Master of Godwin.
So? The argument was about your characterization of whatรข??s acceptable over there, which I and someone else had already told you you were wrong about.
Oh? It has in fact largely been.
Well, knock me down. I thought a comment thread was where people other than you expressed their views on your posts and you responded to them.
How has this thread been about that? Your post raised numerous topics from which any number of conversations could follow.
Youรข??re quite wrong. Iรข??ve said repeatedly and in no uncertain terms that people need to define explicitly what they mean by civility so that the implications of any standards can be debated.
I donรข??t know who or what youรข??re talking about.
Iรข??m tired of this. He, a major participant in this debate, has behaved badly towards people and shut down communication. He has also said things I strongly disagree with on the topic under discussion. Substantive criticism of his ideas and actions is perfectly valid. If you for whatever reason donรข??t want him criticized in your comment threads, thatรข??s your right, but you should probably let people know up front that heรข??s off limits. Itรข??s your blog, but Iรข??m genuinely disappointed. That may be it for me here.
I donรข??t know what you mean about a novel context, or anything about every word he ever spoke. Iรข??m talking about his words and actions on relevant occasions.
I really donรข??t know how much more simply I can explain the argument being made.
And Iรข??ve said probably six times above that this is a simplified version of his argument. He quoted Wilkins about specific rules and said he agreed with him. I donรข??t agree with those rules, and he follows neither them nor the rules of his own blog, on his own blog or elsewhere.
Specific. Rules. (And as I said above, I think there is.)
There is a powerful argument that we adhere to rules we set for others, on the reasoning that it would be immoral to make rules for other people that we donรข??t follow ourselves. And your assertion is confused.
Oh, fuck that. If thatรข??s a trope, it isnรข??t specific to any ethnic or other group with a history of oppression.
You know, these รข??what ifรข?ย scenarios only work if you hold one part constant and change the other. Here, youรข??ve changed not only the characteristics of the person, but the personรข??s behavior. That isnรข??t what Gee is doing. Heรข??s flinging accusations of antisemitism at people and groups he doesnรข??t like or agree with politically or is losing an argument with (including people oppressed themselves) based on no evidence. And frankly, no, I donรข??t think your hypothetical woman would be widely revered. She may or may not be listened to, she may be pitied, but she would likely not be revered. I know a Holocaust survivor (attractive, btw) who goes around to schools and tells her story and teaches kids about that history and the present. Sheรข??s great, and I doubt they would revere her if she were telling them to go fuck themselves. Sheรข??s talking about what she personally went through. There are also aggressively-written books (Hitlerรข??s Willing Executioners, etc.) that I might take issue with some portions of but think are important for people to read, and have assigned. I donรข??t revere Goldhagen, but he presents an evidence-supported argument. Also not what Gee is doing.
And if รข??[telling] people…they don’t get what happened in the 1930s and 1940s and they don’t believe that antisemitism is real and effective and scary todayรข?ย were the issue, Iรข??d be berating myself. Years of studying the Holocaust, fascism, and resistance to fascism was what led me to my field of scholarship. I raise the subject so much that almost everyone (not for this reason alone) thinks Iรข??m Jewish. I still do it now, and the only reason I donรข??t talk about it almost constantly now is that there are other pressing cases of oppression and violence. FFS, I was trying to get Gee to recognize some real threats. Further, even when Iรข??m reporting on those itรข??s never something I leave behind.
http://saltycurrent.blogspot.com/2009/10/honduras-update-10-9-09-continuing.html
No, it isnรข??t at all possible. Not only does he realize it, he uses it. Heรข??s a bully. One thing I keep coming back to when reading these threads is that I shouldnรข??t know how big and scary he is in real life. Heรข??s a scientist and a journal editor, and none of this story involves bar brawls. I know it for three reasons: heรข??s made reference to it himself, heรข??s accused others (including women) of รข??hidingรข?ย behind the internet or pseudonyms, and heรข??s been physically aggressive in a conference setting. Part of civility, and one of the things that makes the internet slightly more democratic, is that your arguments are judged and you canรข??t cow people into agreement no matter what your size. Youรข??re only as big as your words. He wants to reverse that. Itรข??s creepy, itรข??s wrong, and itรข??s the opposite of civil. And for the record, there are commenters at Pharyngula who could no doubt take him out, whatever his size. They donรข??t go on about their toughness, because they have reason and evidence on their side.
I donรข??t find it tricky at all.
Youรข??re really mixed up. OK, make it about me. I canรข??t imagine how that could serve your purpose. Iรข??m making no rules (how could I?). Step all over my feelings? Stephanie, I donรข??t care what you think of me. Youรข??re not going to hurt me. Get over your arrogant self.
I disagree with Gee about religion, atheism/science, politics, and civility. From what I can see, we have few shared goals. Heรข??s expressed no interest in working together. And from what Iรข??ve seen, I donรข??t like him. Iรข??ve requested that you participate in such a conversation more than once, and youรข??ve declined.
No one has been put beyond any pale other than by you and Greg. He is being criticized. You said yourself that you thought he was wrong in some ways. A better tack would have been to acknowledge that and have the argument, rather than petulantly demanding that no one speak about his arguments or behavior.
[I just submitted a long comment that’s in moderation. Meanwhile…]
Do tell.
Stephanie Z,
1. Yes, it’s my opinion, but I explicitly stated the basis on which it was formed, and I still feel it was justified. Your ongoing avoidance of it and your evasion is only strengthening said opinion.
2. You could say why it’s wrong, other than by assertion.
Again: did or did not SC “bring up the Holocaust” in the cited comment? You implied that she did, I consider she didn’t (and stated why), and you haven’t addressed my very specific contention.
—
Barn Owl,
Very droll, but when someone hyperlinks to something, with the claimรยน as the titleรยฒ of the anchor tag, one expects the link refers to (and sustains the claim of) that title.
—
รยน The claim being “bring up the Holocaust”.
รยฒ By ‘title’ I refer to the technical term for the visible text of a hyperlink.
Stephanie Z,
As opposed to, say, your #148, where you tell SC she “want[ed] to bring up the Holocaust to a Jew to tell him how he should feel about a particular issue”.
Right.
(Third post to be held?)
Yet Wilkins described specific rules – a description. And Gee quoted them approvingly. And I quoted Gee quoting Wilkins here.
How ridiculous. So there’s no room for criticism at all, in your view.
He runs his blog like a total assclam, because he is an assclam. He has every right to be an assclam, and I have every right to point out that he’s an assclam.
What is so fucking complicated about this?
So? The argument was about your characterization of whatรข??s acceptable over there, which I and someone else had already told you you were wrong about.
I’m quite sure I understand what happens on Pharyngula. I don’t recall being told I was wrong about this (perhaps it was buried in some part of this thread that I’m not following). I’ve been told a lot about what it is like over there, but my comments are in relation the point of the post (remember the post, above?) and not about the ethnography of pharyngula by Salty Current or Paul, as interesting and useful as they are. But I’m sure I’m not wrong.
Oh? It has in fact largely been.
You are right. What I meant to say is that this post is not about Henry. the thread seems to have taken on a couple of new directions.
Well, knock me down. I thought a comment thread was where people other than you expressed their views on your posts and you responded to them.
Not at all. A 9 week old infant, teaching three classes, a pile of projects in process, various talks, dinners, tapings, and so on have me a bit busy. It simply is not the case that a comment thread is where people express their views and I respond to them. I would like to respond to all the views, but I simply can’t. The present discussion between you and Stephanie about Henry is not something I’m that interested in getting too involved in.
What is important here is that many of your comments incorrecty assume that I’m saying something about your comments (or your’s and stephanie). I’d have to have read them first to do that.
How has this thread been about that? Your post raised numerous topics from which any number of conversations could follow.
That’s the funniest thing I’ve seen all day! Are you actually telling me that a comment in which I clarify my post is somehow annoying or inappropriate? I love it!
Youรข??re quite wrong. Iรข??ve said repeatedly and in no uncertain terms that people need to define explicitly what they mean by civility so that the implications of any standards can be debated.
This is a response to something that is not there. Re read what I wrote. I explicitly indicate that I am not referring to anything you are talking about. It would help to read all the words and not just every other word! Jeesh…. I agree with you on this statement. I am referring in my statement to the dumb-ass shit Isis the Goddess spews.
I donรข??t know who or what youรข??re talking about.
Yes, I know. You don’t! This is very funny.
I’ve read about 5% of this discussion between you and Stephanie. Just enough to see the British anti-semitism stuff come up, and a little more. I have been very busy and thinking I’d get to that discussion later on, but just have not yet.
Before you complain about that and tell me that it is my responsibility to read what you place in comment sections on my blog let me tell you this: It was either read all that stuff or feed the infant. Had I read all that stuff the infant would have starved and died. I could not allow that atrocity to happen.
If you for whatever reason donรข??t want him criticized in your comment threads, thatรข??s your right, but you should probably let people know up front that heรข??s off limits. Itรข??s your blog, but Iรข??m genuinely disappointed. That may be it for me here.
Oh, give me a mother fucking break! This is over the top and outrageous, and I won’t stand for it! You are telling me that I can’t make a remark related to Henry. I’m not allowed to your you storm off forever. Have I told you to stop with your comments? Have I told you to shut up? Have I told you that you need to stop saying whatever you were saying? No. So why are you being so insensitive? I am not doing anything to you. You are being an over the top ass all of the sudden. I have not been arguing with you. What the fuck do you think is going on here?
Wow.
Yes, I do think it may be a little unfair to Henry, and when I say it I really mean what is going on here and what is going on in about five other threads out there somewhere. Am I stopping you from doing it? Is it a requirement of yours that you say whatever you want on this blog but if i say anything that you might find objectionable that you threaten to storm off? That is not even … not even uncivil! It’s just stupid! In fact, to be honest, and I say this as a friend, you are starting to look rather like a dope here. You can do better.
Specific. Rules. (And as I said above, I think there is.)
I don’t think those are sentences with actual meanings, but I’ll guess. No, I don’t think those are specific rules. Maybe they are. People can have specific rules on their own blogs if they want. It is not your place to tell them otherwise. But people should not be telling other people what rules they should follow on the other people’s blog. Am I clear? Probably not, but who cares, I don’t think you are really listening.
There is a powerful argument that we adhere to rules we set for others, on the reasoning that it would be immoral to make rules for other people that we donรข??t follow ourselves. And your assertion is confused.
If I wanted Greek I’d go downtown to my Cristos.
Oh, fuck that. If thatรข??s a trope, it isnรข??t specific to any ethnic or other group with a history of oppression.
And this makes it less relevant for some particular reason?
I’m not going to argue with you over how Henry handles his Jewishness or how you handle Henry in this regard. I think he could do better, I think you could do better, someday I’ll have breakfast with Henry and we’ll talk about it, but I have a feeling you’re not especially interested in what I have to say. You make a lot of good points, you don’t need my advice in this regard. And, the possibility at this point of a conversation has pretty much gone out the window.
Regarding Henry’s bigness and scaryness … I maintain that he is not necessarily the plotting nefarious cud you accuse him of being. We will simply have to have different opinions of this.
Most people could do a better job than they do of managing their emotions and of calibrating their reactions to things they are encountering. And when I say most people I would include Henry on that list. And you, quite possibly. Trial and conviction may not be the most appropriate approach here, because if that becomes the nature of the discourse then we all are fucked. If you think you are somehow not fucked, then you are doubly fucked.
I donรข??t find it tricky at all.
Much of your commentary together with this statement could lead some people to assume that you have some serious antisemitic issues to deal with. I’m not saying that, but I just want you to know that it could look this way. (I don’t happen to think it is the case.)
Now, following this you seem to have shifted to critiquing comments made by another commenter other than me. Which is funny because you say something about “You’re really mixed up” … it is a good idea if you are shifting from one persons comments to another to indicate that so people reading only your comment don’t mis attribute.
A note on posts that are “held”… I get from your tone that you are offended. There is nothing offensive happening here. We’ve got some moderation issues blog wide and site wide. This is not about you, just in case you were thinking it was (which, as I say, I get from your tone, though I may be wrong).
SC: Yes, there is room for criticism. But you know what? I’ve been clear in my position on this and you are trying really hard to not get it.
I want you to start responding to commenters on your blog differently than you currently do. It is normal practice on the blogosphere to do it quite differently than you currently do it. I come to the table with expectations different than what you are doing, and I really think you should do what I think you should do.
THAT would be asshatery. Making rules for OTHER people to follow on THEIR blog. This is not hard.
He runs his blog like a total assclam, because he is an assclam. He has every right to be an assclam, and I have every right to point out that he’s an assclam.
DING!!!!!
The two key neurons have finally touched in your brain! You get it!!!!!!!!!
We totally agree on this. Until your next comment in which you will do one of three things:
1) Disagree with me even though we are not disagreeing on this key point because you just have to do that for some reason;
2) Run though several thousand words of text to prove that we actually do disagree because prior I said something different (which I didn’t but you will dig around until you find something to quote mine); or
3) You will storm off mad because you don’t the attitude of disdain and disrespect that I exude in points 1 and 2. But really, its because you can’t stand that I can read your mind.
Paul, thanks for stepping back a bit.
I haven’t called anyone a bunch of poo-flinging screechy monkeys. I don’t think you are. Nor did I say anything about no rules. Cage matches have rules, fairly strict ones, about what can be brought into the cage. They’re brutal within that set of rules, but that doesn’t exactly sound unlike a certain blog we both know and love, does it?
I am saying that if you maintain that nothing is sacred, that no one’s feelings are worth considering as long as you’re arguing factually, then you’re going to trigger emotional backlash. You know this. You’ve seen it happen plenty of times, have you not? And generally you just deal with it among yourselves.
I’m also saying that going around complaining that one of these people, in whom you provoked an emotional response by treating his emotions as irrelevant (and I’ve pointed out a couple of the more tone-deaf insensitivities), landed a stinging swat in return is just advertising that he got to you badly enough that it still stings almost two years later. How is that productive? How is it doing anything other than saying that, yes, the emotions do matter?
And how is interrupting people to tell them they need to do something about it for you going to get you a more sympathetic hearing? I mean, yes, I am sympathetic. Someone said something mean to you. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to stay sympathetic if you want me to stop talking about something in which I’m very interested in order to take care of this for you.
John, you can make up anything you want to and believe in it as hard as you want. I don’t really care. Go write slash fiction about me and SC if you like. It has no bearing on reality.
And are you asserting that SC did something unwillingly in the argument with Henry? Can you really not find a better example than that?
Way to miss the point spectacularly.
As they do. They are comment threads.
Another acrobatic point-missing. The part about the bloggerรข??s response was an addition. My point was that a comment thread was what commenters made it, and that it was bizarre for you to declare not only what the post was about (and to say it wasnรข??t about Gee is absurd) but what the comment thread was about.
I donรข??t care if you participate at all, to be honest. And if youรข??re not going to read, Iรข??d prefer that you didnรข??t.
No, Iรข??m telling you that the comment in which you attempt to define what the thread is/has been about is wrong.
Again, I donรข??t care if you read or respond, but if youรข??re going to you should know what youรข??re responding to or acknowledge as I have that you have only partial information.
I donรข??t know. I do know that both you and PZ have appeared resistant to having Gee discussed (or discussing him) in your comment threads. When a blogger says รข??This thread isnรข??t about ___รข?ย and ____ is what Iรข??ve been discussing, I take that to mean comments about ____ are not acceptable. Otherwise, I have no idea what youรข??re fucking saying, especially since the thread has plainly been รข??aboutรข?ย Gee.
Are you claiming Iรข??m discussing him on five other threads? One.
Iรข??m saying engage in the discussion about him or ignore it. รข??This isnรข??t about Henryรข?ย (repeatedly) sends a signal that you donรข??t want it talked about.
Yes, there is a clear meaning.
?
My รข??placeรข?ย? It sure as fuck is my รข??placeรข?ย to state my opinion of their rules. And theirs to tell me. And of all of ours to discuss the issue. Thatรข??s a democratic public sphere.
No, youรข??re not following.
It makes you wrong.
In what regard? รข??Handles his Jewishnessรข?ย? WTF?
Fuck your patronizing, contentless admonitions.
This may be true.
I accused him of being a bully, and provided evidence of his bullying behavior. Itรข??s not a matter of opinion. Iรข??ve made a case, and you havenรข??t.
Not the point. And he turned his outburst into a notpology and a blaming of the victims.
No kidding. And you. But I acknowledge it and offer real apologies when theyรข??re due. Not here.
Iรข??m criticizing. Thatรข??s it. You and Stephanie seem completely unable to deal with it.
THEN SHUT THE FUCK UP. THAT IS FUCKING OUTRAGEOUS, GREG. YOU EXPLAIN WHAT YOUรข??RE SAYING AND BACK IT UP WITH SOMETHING OR YOU RETRACT IT. IF YOU DONรข??T, YOUรข??RE A FUCKING SCUMBAG.
it was bizarre for you to declare not only what the post was about (and to say it wasnรข??t about Gee is absurd) but what the comment thread was about.
As I said, I mispoke when I said “thread” and meant “post.” Is there no forgiveness in this world?
And no, the post is not about Henry. Really.
I do know that both you and PZ have appeared resistant to having Gee discussed (or discussing him) in your comment threads. When a blogger says รข??This thread isnรข??t about ___รข?ย and ____ is what Iรข??ve been discussing, I take that to mean comments about ____ are not acceptable.
No, actually, this is you having a preconcieved notion executed as an unfounded statement which is then pointed out as incorrect but then being incapable of an adjustment. You are seeing things that are not there.
Talk about Henry all you want!
Are you claiming Iรข??m discussing him on five other threads? One.
No, it wasn’t a claim about you. You are starting to get a little creepy here, SC.
I scanned the rest of your comments but don’t find anything where a reply from me would do anything other than elicit more of the same.
I am a little embarrassed for you, frankly.
Fuck you, Greg.
Salty, you have interesting rules of engagement.
I hope this conversation does not interfere with our nascent friendship.
Well Frank, I was with you 100% until your ‘serious antisemitic issues’ swipe. When you use phrases like, “lead some people to assume that you have some serious antisemitic issues to deal with. I’m not saying that…”, you lead a greater number of people to assume that you are indeed saying just that, that SC has antisemitic issues, in a roundabout way. And you of course know that. Which might be fine if, when confronted with it as you were, you actually backed it up. For not doing so, I am a little embarrassed for you.
But I’ve never read a more eloquent and dead accurate summation of the turd that is CPP. Well done.
Spartan, I said what I said because I meant it. Are you seriously telling me that you think I was subtly and indirectly accusing Salty Current of being anti-semetic? I wasn’t. I don’t think she is. All you have to do is read my words to get that.
Stephanie Z,
Weak-sauce.
1. The facts are indisputable and documented รข?? you made a claimรยน that SC had brought up the Holocaust to a Jew specifically to tell him how to feel about it; you put a link in the very words of that claim which fails to support it, then you’ve evaded responding to my opinion/accusation.
I’ve made nothing up, and I stand by my claim in #151; the very claim you’ve assiduously avoided.
2. Clearly not. Why would anyone care if their honesty and motive is questioned, when the evidence is damning?
—
รยน A rather abhorrent claim, BTW.
THEN SHUT THE FUCK UP. THAT IS FUCKING OUTRAGEOUS, GREG. YOU EXPLAIN WHAT YOUรข??RE SAYING AND BACK IT UP WITH SOMETHING OR YOU RETRACT IT. IF YOU DONรข??T, YOUรข??RE A FUCKING SCUMBAG.
Salty current, based on this and the obnoxious email you just sent me, it is obvious that you intend to keep a fight going no matter what. What is your response to my comment agreeing with you? Nothing. No response. In this comment above, you have twisted what I have said (as did Spartan) in a way that allows you to be a rather extraordinary victim. Sorry, I don’t collect self-created victims. Not even a little interested.
This is no longer embarrassing. This is you being a psycho. This is you being asked by me to leave this blog and not come back for a while, until you’ve come down from this rage. Wipe the range from your eyes and read this paragraph a couple of times so that you understand it. This is the “go away” paragraph. Sorry, but that is how it has to be. This is not a blog thing, it is a life thing. I avoid the crazies these days. Had enough of them.
John: Nice use of footnotes.
(Style-wise. I have no comment on content. Not on this thread!)
[meta]
Thanks, Greg.
FWIW, I use the HTML entities ¹, ² and ³, and I endeavour not to require more than three such (there is no fourth).
I find it much more user-friendly than using asterisks such as * and **.
John, you haven’t even made any accusations in comment 151 that were about anything other than vague speculation about my state of mind and what I would have done in a different situation that paint me as a bad person. They’re clearly not indisputable. I disputed them. I told you you’re wrong. I’m perfectly happy to let people choose who they want to believe, largely because I don’t care for the opinion of anyone who wants to judge me on the basis of shit you made up.
Now, really, you’re getting boring. Don’t you stalk off in self-declared triumph about now?
Stephanie Z:
Really. I’m not “painting” you as a bad person, I’m holding you to account.
Did you or did you not link to a comment by SC in Pharyngula which purported to be a citation of SC “bring[ing] up the Holocaust”?
Did I or did I not accuse you of sophism and disingenuity for so doing?
In what sense is this vague?
I just wonder if there’s any kernel of integrity inside of you that may push you to acknowledge the actual issue: to wit, that you made a spurious, apparently malicious and evidently unsupported accusation towards SC as a rhetorical point, and you are doing your best to avoid confronting that.
In this comment above, you have twisted what I have said (as did Spartan) in a way that allows you to be a rather extraordinary victim. Sorry, I don’t collect self-created victims. Not even a little interested.
actually, I read it the same way Spartan did.
perhaps, instead of accusing those who concluded similar of crying “victim”, you should attempt to write more for clarity instead there, Greg?
I can completely understand SC’s indignation, as I too read that as a backhanded way of indeed saying her writings indicate to you she is antisemitic.
I understand you claim that wasn’t your intent, but why even say it to begin with?
Don’t you stalk off in self-declared triumph about now?
Is it still self-declared if I also think he ran you into the ground?
last comment, and there is really little left to say…
personal opinion, but I think instead of banhammering SC, a more productive approach would be to simply close this thread.
might still be a good idea.
Greg, this doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the original post any more. I’d agree the post had nothing to do with Henry other than using that kerfuffle as a jumping-off point. But somehow the question of a year-old dispute about Henry’s behavior in PZ’s comments was raised in your comments. Then it became like the party crashers who erupt in fisticuffs in your living room (that’s blood, not urine on the carpet) over some issue that had nothing to do with your party.
‘Tis a pity, since there was actually something to be discussed with respect to the multifarious nature of “civility” and the sort of anti-civility that some folks find strangely attractive.
But I can’t let you off the hook — you no doubt knew things could get heated when you used the HG/Zuska conflagration as a starting point. But I’m not lecturing you; rather, I’m entreating you to come back to the issue at some point in the future in a way where discussion is possible.
Ichthyic: Tell me this. Are you still thinking that I’m accusing SC of saying that she is antisemetic? I didn’t say it. When she read that into it, I corrected her. YOu are n9ow saying that I “claim it was not my intent”. SO, calling me a liar?
I made a statement. It was misunderstood. I clarified. There is nothing more that I need to do.
idlemind: This thread got off the origional post when SC and Stephanie started thier slug fest. I then made comments related to the origional post that SC then interpreted incorrectly about being about her. SC started to impose blogging rules on me telling me what the conversation (on my blog) was to be about. Ichthyic is telling me how I am to speak, and also, what the rules are for closing threads.
So, this thread is still ver much in line with the originoal post: There are assholes out there that ant to control how others act and what they can and can not say and when. Only the thread has turned from theory to object lesson.
“But I can’t let you off the hook” I’m not on a hook and I’m not asking for anything. I will come back to the issue at some point, and this thread may well evolve in that direction now that the composition of the commenters has changed.
John and Icthyic, if you want to take:
and
as something other than
all luck to you. Seriously. I’ll be over here, yawning.
Wow.
I don’t think I’ve ever read such a long and painful thread. The amount of anger and vitriol between people who really, in the end, AGREE! It really did start to look like everyone was looking for a fight that didn’t exist. Looking for a reason to exercise their online battle skills! Funny… but also sort of sad. Anyway…
Not to bring the wrath down on me now, but Greg, I think you owe SC an apology.
mk: for what? Seriously. Tell me.
I agree with your assessment of the thread overall. But I do want to know for which manufactured indignation I ow SC an apology.
Stephanie@199,
You may be yawning, but I have to say that I agree with John and Icthyic that what S.C. was doing was not “telling a Jew how to feel about” the Holocaust—at least, not in any unacceptable sense.
Henry was making “New Atheists” and Pharyngulans out to be Nazi-like, or gutless would-be synagogue burning antisemitic terrorists, while being utterly blase about what goes on in Christian churches. S.C. was rightly pointing out that he seems to factually mistaken about some things underlying his threat assessments.
IMHO, that has to be okay. It’s not so much about Henry’s feelings, or ours, but about whether his assertions about people are true, or justified.
What we should not do is take Henry’s feelings as independent of facts, and validate them, because non-Jews have no right to tell Jews about anything related to the Holocaust. If Henry projects Holocaust issues onto us, we have to deal with it, and we will.
Surely, Henry has very good reasons to feel very strongly about the Holocaust. That does not mean that what he thinks about antisemitism, particularly as it applies to us, is true, or beyond critique. It can’t mean that, as you seem to want it to mean, such that S.C. has no right to point out an apparent error in his reasoning.
My response was not about my hurt feelings. As I said, I take accusations of being Nazi-like far more seriously than accusations of being a goatfucking asswipe, but that doesn’t mean that I take Henry’s views as reasonable, or actually get my feelings terribly hurt—no more than I’m hurt by Christian trolls telling me I’ll burn in Hell forever. That’s often meant to be hurtful, but it comes across as mostly pathetic.
Likewise, I have to sadly dismiss Henry as a kook on that particular point—despite having tremendous respect for him in other respects—and feel obligated to explain why, in case anybody else is similarly confused. If he was just some drive-by troll, the incident would be long forgotten.
But he’s not just another drive-by troll. He’s an editor of Nature, a science blogger, a panelist on a panel about civility, etc.; his views and accusations matter more, and are more worth publicly refuting.
OK… my take:
No reasonable person would think SC is anti-semitic. It is therefore completely unnecessary to even suggest it. It appeared to be a gratuitous debating tactic to set the opponent back on their heals. It is wrong to say things like “some people might think you’re an anti-Semite–not me of course, but you know, some people.” Especially so when a friend is involved.
Greg,
I thought that the comment about S.C. and antisemitism was a bad one. I don’t think you meant to suggest that she was anti-semitic, or likely to be.
I did sound like you thought that while you personally didn’t lean that way, you really don’t know, and it wouldn’t be an unreasonable guess for other people to make. (If I didn’t know you better, I might have read your comment as a sneaky insinuation.)
Given the nature of the charge, that’s somewhat faint praise.
For the record, I’m pretty sure S.C. isn’t the least bit antisemitic, after reading various stuff she’s written over a period of years. I also don’t think what she’s written here supports that.
I’d say ‘accuse’ is too strong, but I think ‘suggest’ is fair. You phrased it cleverly, but rather transparently. It’s similar in a way to, ‘when did you stop beating your wife?’. If I say, ‘from what I’ve read on your blog, some people may think that you are a condescending ass who is trying to account for some kind of childhood abuse issues by lashing out at anyone who dares disagree with you and your overinflated yet fragile ego. I’m not saying that.’, you think it would be unreasonable for some people to be able to see through the lame disclaimer ‘I’m not saying that’ to perhaps think that I’m suggesting exactly what I’m saying I’m not? By saying ‘some people’ without adding ‘I think said people are entirely crazy’ or some other opinion on why these people are so wrong, you leave interpretations open. As you like to say, ‘this isn’t hard’. It’s an accusation/insult by proxy, and it doesn’t really seem to tie in with any particular point you were making; it just looks tacked on to your response.
When you were discussing what ‘shrew’ ‘means’ a while back, you had no issue appealing to interpretations beyond what any dictionary supported and appealed to what some people infer from that word; here you seem to want to do roughly the opposite.
And to be clear, I do not think any of the things in my ‘some people’ example about you… well maybe condescending sometimes but that’s cool. But I guess you would agree that my mentioning that I don’t think that is entirely unnecessary and made absolutely clear just because I said ‘I’m not saying that’.
Paul, thank you for making that explicit. Now, try recasting this situation using a different oppressed group and using the most recent searing example of oppression (one in living memory) as a lever in an argument. Make it something not about religion. Let me know whether it makes you uncomfortable. This is the tricky part of tolerance without tolerance for religion that Greg was talking about upstream.
Also, your comment makes it sound like SC’s statement came after the one she objects to from Henry. That’s not the order in which things happened. This is why I’m talking about provoking an emotional response then objecting to it.
I think the anti semitism remark is a wonderful analogy for a broader problem about which I shall write an entire blog post. I will title it something like “It is not necessarily the case that Salty Current is a Jew Hater” and the post will not be about her. I expect Henry Gee to jump into the thread on that post and have a long argument with some Pharengulista about a totally unrelated topic, possibly the Atlantic Conveyor and its effects on climate.
I will note here that I made two comments that were related (I did not link them, my hope was to eventually link them) about perceptions about attitudes about religion both of which Salty Current seemingly willfully misunderstood, attacked, dismissed, etc. One was the “When you say things like that it makes you look antisemetic even though you are obviously not” comment. The other was about the link between being an atheist and being a tolerant person when certain issues came up.
Stephanie,
I’d like you to be more explicit about the issue of whether it’s telling somebody “how to feel” if you tell them that they’re factually mistaken about something they feel strongly about.
If that’s all that “telling them how to feel” means, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. We can’t let people’s feelings get in the way of honestly discussing the facts.
People often think that people’s feelings can’t be invalid, so we should validate their feelings. But often, feelings are inseparable from beliefs, and we should not validate false beliefs, because that only entrenches inappropriate, falsehood-based beliefs.
Okay, suppose that the searing example is Proposition 8 in California, denying gays a basic civil right. It’s a loaded subject for a lot of gay people. (For whom I’m an advocate, as it happens, but assume the people involved don’t know that.) And that’s against a backdrop of an even worse evil in the not-too-distant past. (Widespread oppression of gays in worse forms, governmental complacency about a “gay plague” leading to many unnecessary deaths, including some of my friends.) And to top it all, gays were persecuted by the Nazis and many were killed in the Holocaust.
Is that a fair analogy? I’m not sure where you want to go with it, but he’s a stab:
Suppose I say that I think that biologically speaking, there may be something wrong with homosexuality. It’s a design flaw, which reduces reproductive fitness, on average, that is a side-effect of certain genes being selected for for other reasons that typically increase reproductive fitness.
I think that may be true; it’s a live scientific hypothesis. Homosexuality may be the kind of “mistake” that evolution commonly makes because it’s short-sighted and doesn’t in general find an optimal design in any interesting sense.
That’s a very, very loaded thing to say, which many gay people or gay sympathizers (like myself) could get all up in arms about. It seems to be saying that there’s something wrong with homosexuality, which in the only morally or psychologically interesting sense, it actually isn’t. It’s saying something very different, which does not imply that, but it sounds that way and could set people off if they’re hypersensitive to such possible (and erroneous) interpretations.
Some people who do understand that—that evolutionary suboptimality doesn’t imply “bad” in any humanly interesting sense—may also object to me saying such things publicly, because other people may misinterpret and abuse such ideas to make gays look bad, and rationalize oppression.
I’ll even say that that is a valid and important concern. It may be a strategically bad thing to say anything that even sounds remotely like criticizing gays on scientific grounds, because there are a lot of idiots out there, some of whom may take it and run with it.
Now suppose I say that on some science blog, and some gay person stumbles in and starts calling me a Nazi for saying such things.
What should I do?
Hmmm…I totally missed out on this conversation – which apparently has gotten rather bizarre…I apologize for going off the topic that the comments seem to have gotten to, but I am actually trying to craft a post about deleting comments, banning commenters and comment policies.
I rather like my general methodology for rules about comments. Pretty much the only actual rule I have, is that people sign their posts when posting anon. Beyond that I have no specified rules and won’t. Beyond that, my decision to delete comments and/or ban commenters is somewhat arbitrary. Not that I will do so without reason, I have had very good reasons the few times I have done it. But I really don’t like the idea of having actual rules, because to some degree that imposes a limitation of me.
The last person I banned (one of two) was banned because he was both insistent on discussing his pet issue (“you atheists”) in the thread of posts where it is not relevant and because he is a dehumanizing, hateful fucking bigot. I could have quite reasonably banned him for the latter a long time ago, but rather appreciate having the example. I also could decide to ban people for posting about their pet issue in irrelevant threads – but deleting such comments is easy enough and I don’t even always feel the need to do that.
Which is why I think hard and fast rules – or at least too many of them, are a bad idea. I think it is totally reasonable to get irritated with people who have them and only arbitrarily enforce them or arbitrarily delete/ban outside the context of those rules.
(sorry for the interruption)
Paul, what Henry said was, “What goes on inside Norfolk churches is not mine to judge. Neither is the way that other people practice their religion”. Was he factually wrong? Note that he was specifying their religion, not their politics. If not, I’ll get back to your question later, as I think it’s important but probably distracting. Short answer: false choice.
I suggested you substitute others into the same conversation, not make up a new one. Do you want to try again, or do you want me to come up with an example for you?
As for how I react when someone calls me a Nazi: approximately the way I reacted to John’s assertions upthread. I laugh my head off. If it’s not true, and I don’t think anyone reasonable is going to believe it, how does it hurt me instead of the person saying it? I certainly don’t bring it up to bloggers nearly two years later in order to complain about their post titles.
I certainly don’t bring it up to bloggers nearly two years later in order to complain about their post
Did somebody complain about my post? What?
Setting an outlook calender event for 2012 to complain about this post.
Greg! Stop quote mining me!
Greg! Stop…
Damn Stephanie, why are you being so aggressive towards Greg?
Of course he was.
If scores of million of people in my country think I will be tortured forever, and that that’s divine justice—I have every reason to be concerned about it, and to publicly disagree.
Even if those people didn’t already have tremendous political power, it’s an incredibly dangerous and very popular idea that will inevitably have real consequences in the real world for other people.
And they do have huge political power. They’re denying people civil rights at home, and having a disastrous effect on our foreign policy. (For example, inhibiting the distribution of condoms in HIV-afflicted subsaharan Africa, with the predictable consequence that millions of additional people will die of AIDS.)
How can that not be my business?
If I think that those real-world consequences are partly due to the ideas being promoted inside churches—and I definitely do—how is that not my business?
If those ideas come out of the churches and become demonstrably decisive political issues—and they do—how is that not my business?
Who does Henry think made George W. Bush the most powerful man in the world for eight years? (Or Dick Cheney or Karl Rove, if you prefer.)
Why and how does he think they managed to do it?
Hint: it wasn’t just fundamentalists. It wasn’t even just fundamentalists plus big money interests.
There’s a reason Proposition 8 passed, and it’s because mainstream, “moderate” Americans do indeed believe exactly the kind of “first grade” theology that Henry says they don’t.
And that is everybody’s business.
Given the context, all of this was pretty clear. (Read negentropyeater’s post that introduced “Norfolk”, for example.)
I have to agree with S.C. that it’s rather ironic for a Jew to be so oblivious to the likely real-world consequences of Christian ideas being promoted inside Christian churches, and to affect not caring what other people believe until they actually come to do him harm.
Henry may have a good strategic point to make—that at the moment, it’s better to avoid the open, direct conflict of basic ideas as much as possible—but what he actually says is patently absurd. (Maybe mostly sketchy and simplistic on its face, but in the context of that thread, just silly.)
As if they were clearly separate, when in the context of that thread, it was quite obvious that they are not. That was exactly the point he was avoiding responding to.
He’s advocating a “live and let live” policy, when it is quite evident that many millions of voters in this country favor policies that amount to live and let die—e.g., from prohibiting embryonic stem cell research, to denying people civil rights at home and letting millions of foreigners die for lack of condoms.
Why? It is not unrelated to mainstream orthodox Christian theology promoted in most churches—not just fundamentalist churches, but supposedly “moderate” ones. Churches with what Henry portrays quite falsely as harmless “grown up” theology that Dawkins shouldn’t stoop to refuting, because supposedly sensible mainstream people don’t believe that sort of thing. He’s wrong. Most do, and it matters to a whole hell of a lot of real-world political issues.
It’s also not unrelated to very basic religious ideas—e.g., that there’s a soul, that morality comes from God, and that God has a plan for what you do with your genitalia, which you should pass laws to make other people obey, even if it will cause predictable suffering and death.
Yeah, I’d say that what goes on in other people’s churches is my business, and Henry’s.
Bullshit, Paul. We all pick and choose our battles. It isn’t your place or anyone else’s to tell Henry that yours have to be his. You may try to persuade him. If you assert it, however, expect to get kicked in the teeth.
OK, Stephanie, I’ll add one more thing to the quote to make it better:
“…”
Satisfied?
Actually, this morning when I got up, I reached both hands into the air and did the double quote thingie. I’ll do it again before I go to sleep tonight. So this whole day is in double quotes.
Stephanie:
Um… no.
Of course.
Of course not.
OK, nice to have your permission.
Take a chill pill, Stephanie, and read what I actually wrote before you jump on me in your troll-stomping boots.
I said that it’s his business—in the same way it’s mine and everybody’s—not that he has an obligation to make it his battle. There’s an enormous difference, that I think we both clearly recognize. I know you’re smart enough to see the difference, but you seem to guess that I’m not. Gee, thanks.
Look at the context of what Henry said. He came over to Pharyngula and ranted about Dawkins and New Atheists and us. His point was not actually about what is his business, but about stupid childish assholes we are for making other people’s private religious beliefs our business.
He was pushing the accommodationist line that religion and politics are mostly separable, and that the religious ideas that have a real-world effect on politics are mostly incidental to religion.
He seems to imply that religion is mostly and centrally about things that have no important political implications, and the important politically-consequential stuff is fairly incidental, so we shouldn’t criticize religion per se, but should only criticize the stuff that crosses the line.
He is demonstrably wrong. There is no such line, and the most important political consequences of religion are underpinned by very nearly ubiquitous ideas about god and/or souls, and/or the source and nature of morality. (All of which most “New Atheists” think are evidently false in light of modern science.)
That’s what I explained above. (I would guess that you agree, given some of our shared views about accommodationism.)
Step off, chill out, and try again, rather than assuming I’m dumb, ranting about me getting “kicked in the teeth,” and crap like that. Please.
He came over to Pharyngula and ranted about Dawkins and New Atheists and us. His point was not actually about what is his business, but about stupid childish assholes we are for making other people’s private religious beliefs our business.
I don’t get why Henry takes it in the neck for complaining about the sometimes loud and scary voice of so called “new atheists” in a loud and scary voice.
I also didn’t get why Henry takes it in the neck for screaming about how people need to be civil by people who are screaming that people need to be uncivil.
Define “business,” Paul. It’s generally used to mean how someone spends their time. Where it doesn’t mean that, it means responsibilities. Neither of which is substantially different from this colloquial use of “battles” and neither of which you get to assign to someone else.
And note that there is a distinction between practicing religion and practicing politics that I made up front. You’re continuing to conflate the two.
Oh, and Paul, if I thought you were dumb, I wouldn’t bother arguing with you.
Greg, fine on the “air quotes,” but I expect you to go on record tomorrow. Speaking of which, we need to get some questions to Mike.
Why isn’t IQ a good measure? How useful is race as a human classifier? What are the implications of race-based research? Who are the scientists doing this work? Wasn’t the concept of “race” disproved or thrown out 90 years ago? But what about the difference in brain size and IQ that is so often cited?
Yeah, yeah. I’ll take it to email.
Stephanie:
Not when the issue is whether it’s any of your business what somebody else thinks on a subject.
(And we’re not talking about intruding on individuals—we’re talking about publishing criticisms of ideas in books, putting them on blogs, etc. Except that Henry seems to the the former will happen so frequently if we do the latter that the latter is unacceptable.)
Anyway, that’s irrelevant what Henry actually said was that what goes on in other people’s churches is “not mine to judge.”
I’m guessing he only means that selectively.
For example, if a Lutheran minister bases a sermon on Luther’s The Jews and Their Lies, as some used to, and it became a news story, he’d make an exception and might feel justified if he chose to remark unfavorably on it, even on his blog.
If that’s not his to judge, I wonder what would be.
And that’s Henry’s decision to make, Paul.
Do you prefer the word “concern” as a synonym for “business”? It’s the only other relevant one I found out there, but I avoided it because there’s a rather unfavorable term for people who tell other people what their concerns should be. Either way, once again, people can only be concerned with so many things, and it’s up to them which ones.
Re: 222 and 223. I’ll be watching my inbox with bated breath.
Jeez Greg, try a little harder to say what you mean, clearly, and what and who it’s in response to.
I, for one, am not complaining about Henry’s literally loud an scary voice (if that’s what it is).
And I haven’t been complaining about his metaphorical “voice” being “loud and scary.” I’ve been saying
1) He was at least a bit uncivil at Pharyngula, by pretty much any standard, even Pharyngula’s allegedly simply low standards—which you seem to again falsely imply are either nonexistent or utterly irrelevant. If you want to know why we keep talking about Henry, it’s because you and Stephanie keep saying stuff like that, unclearly.
(If that’s what you mean, spell it out and claim it, rather than making it sound like you more or less agree with me and then turning around and saying it again.)
2) He was bit hypocritical about it in a way that you mischaracterized—as I explained before, the hypocrisy was not in failing to live up to the standards he requires on his own blog, but in failing to live up to even the “lower” standards prevailing at Pharyngula, or indeed pretty much any standard of discourse above utterly shameless, dishonest poo-flinging. He evaded the issues people raised and implied that they were the most vile kind of people—not just assholes in an argument, but truly, profoundly sick immoral and amoral fucks of very nearly the worst sort he could imagine. Sheer weaselry and the vilest ad hominem arguments are an unacceptable combination, even at Pharyngula, and Henry shouldn’t stoop that low, there.
And apparently I need to clarify: We are not surprised that sometimes that sort of thing happens. That doesn’t mean that when it happens, nobody did anything wrong or uncivil, or that nobody said anything that was factually in error and worth correcting. One does not imply the other.
(Again, if you disagree, spell it out and claim it. It’s another reason we don’t let go.)
3) He’s wrong about where the line is between reasonably criticizing other people’s religious views and being an immoral/amoral asshole who’s singling people out for persecution.
4) It is wrong to conflate that issue with the civility issue, without a really good argument as to where to draw the line about what is “mine to judge,” such that you’re an asshole if you don’t respect that line. We haven’t seen anything remotely like that yet.
5) It’s not wrong to point out that somebody’s being paranoid toward you, if they actually are, even if they’re Jewish and rightly concerned about possible effects on Jews, and especially if they’re wrongly accusing you of Nazi-like traits. (That tangent is mostly in response to Stephanie.)
This sounds like you’re responding to somebody like maybe Isis or Comrade PP, not me or SC or John. (We are not screaming that people need to be uncivil. We’re arguing about what the relevant standards of civility are.)
Is that correct?
Jeez Greg, try a little harder to say what you mean, clearly, and what and who it’s in response to.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear. I’ll add “see above and all the other places on the internet this is being discussed at the moment” !!! Also, it was a rhetorical question. And no, I wasn’t responding to you.
Henry takes it in the neck for screaming about how people need to be civil by people who are screaming that people need to be uncivil.
Greg, you really have no clue what you’re talking about any more, do you?
do please find ANY post in this thread, or on pharyngula, or anywhere on any even remotely related blog, where someone is actually screaming that people NEED to be “uncivil”.
the way you paint things is… colorful.
and that’s putting a positive spin on it.
Not only is this thread a waste of time, but with the “clarity” of your writing skills, I rather think you might at least need a break from blogging for a while.
No, Icthyic, you don’t have a clue what Greg’s talking about because you walked into the middle of an ongoing conversation and, as far as I can tell, decided it was all about you. If you want to know who’s said what, start at the page for the ScienceOnline 2010 session on this topic and follow the links.
http://www.scienceonline2010.com/index.php/wiki/Online_Civility_and_Its_Muppethugging_Discontents/
You’ve got rather a lot of reading to do just to catch up to the part where a bunch of us went to a conference.
Who the fuck is “Frank”, and what the fuck does what he said have to do with Comrade PhysioProf?
SC quotes Greg, then replies:
It’s a pity that SC is exiled (temporarily, I hope), because the intersection between racism and intolerance of religion is where I ran afoul of her on Pharyngula a while back. It was on a thread about the attack by an outraged muslim on the Danish cartoonist who drew Mohammed with a bomb in his turban.
In that exchange, it seemed to me that she interpreted a defense of the cartoonist’s right to publish an anti-religious cartoon, as a defense of the cartoonist’s notorious xenophobia — arguably, his racism. My clumsy support for the cartoonist got me dogpiled, albeit by fewer dogs than routinely pile on some other unwary commenters there.
In retrospect, my impression is that SC’s priority is to confront racism in any form, wherever it appears. My own priority is to defend freedom of expression, especially anti-religious expression, whatever other motivations the persons expressing it may have.
To be clear, I have no problem with SC confronting racism, because racism assuredly is morally repugnant and a key cause of injustice in the world. It’s just that I’m more worried about violent reaction by religious extremists to criticism of their religion, because as an atheist I’m often impelled to criticise religion myself. By accident of birth (my privileged status, I readily aknowledge), I’m much less likely to be a target of racism personally, than I am to be a target of religious extremism. Be that as it may, religious extremism assuredly is another key cause of injustice in the world. Which is the greater injustice depends on one’s point of view — that’s the tricky part.
Now, all I know about Henry Gee’s rhetorical style is what’s been said on Scienceblogs recently. My impression is that his first priority is to confront anti-semitism in any form, wherever it appears. Perhaps this makes him prone to Type I errors. Perhaps the same is true of SC with respect to racism.
Ichthyic: I hope someday to meet you in person. Then I’ll ask you to speak to me in the sam manner as you have done so here. I want to watch you do that. I want to look in your eyes when you form these insulting phrases.
Mal: It’s a pity that SC is exiled (temporarily, I hope), She is not exiled. She just went away.
It was on a thread about the attack by an outraged muslim on the Danish cartoonist who drew Mohammed with a bomb in his turban.
I was thinking of my own reaction to the related bit of Religulous that deals with that issue.
all I know about Henry Gee’s rhetorical style is what’s been said on Scienceblogs recently. My impression is that his first priority is to confront anti-semitism in any form, wherever it appears.
Henry and I have broken bread together a half dozen times and it never came up. (Of course I don’t expect the blogs and real life to be that similar)
#233:
#189:
OK, self-exile. And I take your side in this little contretemps, Greg. I think SC is too sure of her own political virtue. I would have said the same thing to her.
It was an idle threat. The statement says “you can come back when you calm down” but in reality she can come back any time even if she is not calmed down. She would be welcomed.
I’d said:
Stephanie replied:
I suspect you’re missing my point. Suppose that some Lutheran minister preached that way, and Henry got wind of it and chose to speak up against such things.
Would you agree with anybody who said that it is not Henry’s to judge, because it was a private religious thing happening inside a church?
I sure as hell hope not.
I think it’s pretty clear that it is Henry’s to judge—it’s yours, mine, ours, and anybody’s to judge. There is justification for being concerned, and to speak up against such things.
Whether Henry chooses to making it “his battle” or not is a different issue. I’m certainly not saying that he has to judge such things thing, or that he has to make it “his battle” by saying so publicly.
That’s a distinction you keep missing.
No, because both have the same problem. Both have a different meaning, idiomatically, when you say that something is none of your business or not your concern.
I’m not saying that it’s Henry’s business. (It’s not his job.)
I’m saying it’s not true that it’s none of Henry’s business. (It’s not the case that it’s an inappropriate or improper thing to be curious or concerned about, or comment on.)
Come on, let’s hear it. I want to know what term you’re referring to.
Of course, if I understand your meaning. And if you understand mine, I don’t think what I’m saying contradicts what you’re saying.
I’m not saying that the task falls to Henry. I’m saying that it’s not the case that the task shouldn’t fall to Henry, should he volunteer to take it on.
An antisemitic sermon in a Lutheran church is a fine thing for him to be curious about, to be concerned about, to judge, or to speak up against should he choose to do so.
Do you actually disagree?
Would there be something wrong/rude/uncivil/unseemly about Henry or you or me having and publicly stating a negative opinion of such a private religious activity in a church?
Bwahahaha – had to delurk following this comment.
Are you for real here? Earlier in the comments you were defending Gee’s comments as something perfectly acceptable for the pharyngula blog (which they aren’t). His comments were far more insulting to pharyngulites than anything Ichthyic has said to you.
Bexley: You seem to have a rule that if I say something is appropriate for an arbitrary blog that is not my blog that it must also be appropriate for my blog. There is no such rule. (I may or may not be wrong that Henry is OK at Pharyngula. According to the blog owner, PZ, he is. I think that carries a certain amount of weight.)
You are also misinterpreting what I’ve said. I’ve not said that Ichthyic can not or should not say what s/he said. I was just pointing out that it is sometimes worth thinking about what it would be like to be saying the trash people so often say on blog comment threads only in real life. Ichthyic is welcome to be a total ass here on this site (unless I become annoyed or bored with Ichthyic and I arbitrarily tell it to go away). In real life, no one would ever speak to me that way or to anyone that way unless they were really drunk or really stupid. Or Becca.
Ichthyic: I hope someday to meet you in person. Then I’ll ask you to speak to me in the sam manner as you have done so here. I want to watch you do that. I want to look in your eyes when you form these insulting phrases.
I would be quite happy to tell you to your face that you’re a disingenuous drama queen, Greg.
I think you have stress-related issues, frankly.
and you might think to put a leash on your attack-terrier Stephie too.
enough.
The British “left” is not anti-Semitic because it is atheist. The British “left” is anti-Semitic because it is British – Greg Laden
This is a generalisation of such astounding stupidity I find it hard to believe you can find your mouth when you want to eat. There is antisemitism among the left in Britain – as a British leftist I’ve come across it and denounced it, and I recommend the fine if somewhat outdated book That’s Funny, You Don’t Look Anti-Semitic by Steve Cohen – but this is by a British, leftist, anti-Zionist, atheist Jew, so its very existence will be incomprehensible to someone as cretinous as yourself. You’ll only find a general prejudice against “Semites” (I take it from your scare-quotes you are at least aware that the very use of that term to apply to modern populations indicates crass ignorance at best) among the far right, fundamentalist Christians, and the very old: leftist antisemites will invariably be pro-Arab and in particular pro-Palestinian.
In real life, no one would ever speak to me that way or to anyone that way unless they were really drunk or really stupid. – Greg Laden
Why? Are you likely to resort to violence if you think someone is speaking to you insultingly?
Knockgoats, thank you very much for your well reasoned and thoughtful argument, presented as a respectful disagreement that might encourage further discussion on the matter. That is very helpful.
Knockgoats (second comment). No. My assumption is that people act more respectfully in real life, face to face interactions. Do you disagree with that?
Your assumption is presumptuous and obnoxious and I’ll ask you to start commenting in a more respectful tone right now. Is that clear?
In real life, no one would ever speak to me that way or to anyone that way unless they were really drunk or really stupid.
For the record, while I do not speak like that in real life, I do tend to swear a lot and occasionally get mistaken for implying that someone I am arguing with is stupid. I am getting better about it, but like I am online, offline, people know if I am saying they are a asshat – as apposed to attacking their position.
I do take a great deal of care to try to make that distinction clear…I like to be clear with people how I feel.
I also don’t actually get all that aggressive or froth at the mouth while swearing about some disagreement – I am just as good at fucking swearing when I am happy and chatting happily…
Greg, from the OP:
Hm. This is expressed as a dichotomy, but might there be graduation or nuance? The evidence indicates the latter.
Specifically, on this very thread, SC has been told to “go away”, so she and her ideas have certainly been repressed.
Was it reasonable? Well, clearly you think so.
So: evidently not an either/or (assuming non-hypocrisy); could it then be that the two goals are independent variables, and the requirement includes arbitrary ratios of each?
I submit that is the case.
—
Stephanie, I read your, um, response.
This is my response to it, because you’re just not worth investing more effort into.
(I consider I’m being charitable in considering you purblind, rather than purely dishonest.)
Greg Laden,
I see you have no defence for your stupid generalisation. Fine. My assumption that you were threatening a resort to violence was entirely natural. As for my tone, be assured I have no intention of wasting further time on a fuckwit like you.
John, maybe. In fact, I would say that social discourse is a negotiated process. The negotiation is dynamic, and involves shifting power and shifting conventions of what is prescribed and proscribed. There are times when a certain set of conventions … like demanding civility when the argument gets heated and one is losing it, or speaking in ever shifting hard to decipher slang so only the in-crowd gets the nuances, or conspiring to cram the Google machine or decontextualize phrases, or selective commenting policies or use of trained sock puppets … emerges for the specific purposes of controlling other people’s voices. Sadly, sometimes such things work. Where we fall into a similar political (or other activist) framework, we should be vigilant and helpful, to facilitate rather than repress conversation, and watch each other’s backs.
Oh. No, I’m not defending the idea that British Liberals are sometimes antisemitic because they are part of a society where antisemitism is relatively common. Nor am I going to point out that the point you make … inre contemporary politics vis-a-vis Israel … was also part of my point. I assume you did not read down that far before you went all goat fuck on us.
You see, it’s not that I’m deciding to defend my position or not in relation to your comments, or to change my position in relation to your comments. It’s that I’m not taking you seriously at all. Not even a little.
You need to work on your communication skills, goatfucker.
Greg,
I suspect you have misunderstood PZ. He’s not saying that Henry wasn’t an asshat at Pharyngula, or that Henry didn’t violate any norms there.
He’s saying that he doesn’t have anything personal against Henry, even though Henry was an asshat saying “remarkably paranoiac” things on his blog.
He’s also saying that Henry is welcome to come back to Pharyngula, and either not behave like such an asshat, or to behave like an asshat and get the treatment he deserves for it, namely having it clearly pointed out that he’s being a paranoid asshat, and getting righteously ridiculed for it.
Pharyngula has social norms, as I’ve explained before. It also has social mechanism for punishing violations of those norms, without PZ having to intervene personally in most cases. I’ve explained that too.
I’m sorry, but I honestly think that both you and Stephanie are having a very off day, in terms of taking onboard what other people are actually saying.
I would really like to have this conversation face to face with you guys, because I’m curious whether you would say some of the things you’ve said here to my face.
In my one surprising and, with luck, only, fracas with Salty, I was thinking just that.
Ah …. no.
The blogger is PZ. He has not told Henry to change his act. He has not tod Henry to go away. Henry is welcome on Pharyngula. Bottom line.
Salty Current and you and others are part of the Pharyngula community, and it’s great what you’all do there, but you are a subset of stakeholders on that blog that are in fact stakeholders only because PZ allows it, and you have defined social norms from your own perspective, and you have defined one or more other members of that community as not meeting your expectations.
And, you have been doing this for a while. You have reinforced your own beliefs and each others’ beliefs. You have reached a point of intractability and close mindedness. You have reached a point where if someone says something that contradicts your strongly held beliefs about how everything in your bloggy world works, that you will actually go so far as to label those with said beliefs as simply not understanding Teh Word as you have delivered it.
Think about it. Is there any place in over two hundred comments that a Pharyngulista has said even so much as “Oh, I see your point. That could be, I’ll have to think about it” ? No. All I can see is strident disagreement of any statement that plainly disagrees with you, I see the reading of disagreement even when it isn’t happening into the text, I see a rich mixture of argumentative style and personal attack.
Like it or not, Henry Gee is part of the Pharyngula Community.
…and if you don’t go to Pharyngula, Pharyngula will come to you…
Greg, you forgot “reinforcing your own and each other’s importance”. There’s a definite threat presented here that some of these people might not be impressed with us. May I just enter a plea of “Eek” into the record now.
The irony, of course, is that if they were being remotely civil (defined here as not trying to tell you how to run your blog), someone might actually care what they think.
Speaking of which, Paul, bear with me please. I’m under deadline. I have a moment for snark, but none for organizing an actual argument. I will come back to that.
I think all this falls under the category of:
I just finally finished this whole thread. That’s 20 minutes of my life I will never get back.
It’s really amazing how much jizz can be spilled over something that most of the interlocutors don’t even understand.
Ah… nah.
That’s really remarkably simplistic and naive, especially coming from an anthropologist.
The blogger is like the government, in a dictatorship. (A benevolent one, one hopes.) His/her rule is law.
But “legal” is not the same thing as “civil.” Within a given legal (blogger-enforced) framework, there can be and generally are norms of civility.
If the only norms of civility on your blog are the ones explicitly imposed and enforced by the blogger, you have a truly shitty and fabulously dysfunctional blog.
Pharyngula isn’t that bad.
And irrespective of what PZ says, that’s true. Pharyngula is not PZ Myers. They are different things.
PZ’s just the all-powerful tentacled overlord. (Peace be upon him.)
Greg,
I guess, though mostly implicitly (not explicitly) negotiated.
I can’t dispute your observation that it’s dynamic รข?? it’s a process and there’s a feedback system in operation.
Yes, some power and conventions shift, but surely some are fixed: the blog owner/moderator(s) have power that ordinary commenters don’t, for example; likewise, some conventions (blog rules) are dogmatic.
Another truism. Blogs and other forums have a gestalt and a running consensus that is amenable to their constituent members, and therefore develop “antibodies” to disruptive influences.
I note Paul has an excellent disquisition on this very issue @165, which unfortunately I suspect was tl;dr for most.
Finally, I wonder what general metric one could use to gauge the utility (and success) of such norms รข?? is it the quality of ideas; the size of the community; the satisfaction of its members [etc]?
I suspect a general one would not apply, but that there’d be different, site-specific ones.
I submit that the Pharyngula community, with both written norms and conventions (the “dungeon” page) and the unwritten ones (adumbrated by Paul in the post to which I referred) is both a civilรยน and a successful enterprise by any reasonable metric, contrary to how I interpret some claims made above.
—
รยน Civic virtue.
Greg,
Google is your friend. Here is one hit:
Posted by: Walton | September 18, 2009 11:22 AM
I see your point, and maybe I was unfairly disparaging towards literary criticism as an endeavour. On further consideration, I’ll accept that it probably does have some useful social effect.
These people think they are visiting a BBS form the 1970s.
D00d, there’s no fucking way you read all those fucking interminable tractatuses. There’s no way *anyone* has read ’em.
258: Self appointed Pharyngulistas can’t read.
CPP:260. I just heard ambulance sirens heading from the general direction and there was a lot of screaming and then gunfire from a nearby tower. So it probably is true that he read them all.
While this whole discussion has been going on, I’ve been having another conversation. I thought you’all would like to have a look at it, so I wrote it up in a blog post:
http://quichemoraine.com/2010/02/our-conversations-are-like-a-cold-fruit-salad-on-a-dusty-hot-summer-day/
Actually, Paul, I’m sorry. I had plenty of time, because the whole argument of “Henry must have meant this” falls apart with one’s ability to say, “It’s none of my business unless they make it my business,” and not be spouting nonsense. Same goes for “It’s not my place to judge unless they put me in that position.”
Careful, Val. He might sniff at you, you know.
Val:
That’s self-appointed (if you care at all about grammar), and you need a citation that I am one such, since it was my comment to which you referred and since I have not so declared myself.
Could you clarify in what sense you consider that am I unable to read?
—
Val, your gracious civility @265 is noted.
I just finally finished this whole thread. That’s 20 minutes of my life I will never get back.
Good grief, the last sixty some comments have made my eyes bleed and my chest start hurting again. But I can’t seem to stop – it is like watching a very slow motion trainwreck – the kind where the train is falling off a motherfucking bridge, into the gorge nearly a thousand feet below…
And 258 just really made my chest hurt – laughing is the fucking worst right now – that and yawning. For that matter, the “no, he’s not welcome – blogs are dictatorships” @ 256 was pretty fucking hilarious. Even better was that horrible enforced civility that apparently makes Greg’s blog shitty…
Motherfucker, if Greg enforced civility, he would have banned me a long time ago.
And for the record, if someone has not been banned by the actual blogger of a blog – they are welcome to comment, whether the other commenters make them *feel* welcome or not…
Erratum: I meant to address that to Stephanie, not Val, in the second part of my previous comment.
(I should preview more often.)
As is your grammar trolling, John.
263 While this whole discussion has been going on, I’ve been having another conversation.
I hear those voices too sometimes.
DuWayne, how civil is it to purport to quote somebody (i.e. using quotation marks when ascribing the content to another) when you’re in fact paraphrasing, and inaccuratelyรยน so?
Here is the comparison:
vs
Your misrepresentation is noted, and I further note I cannot find a charitable interpretation of your motive that is other than implausible.
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รยน So very inaccurately that not one single word in your purported quotation matches the original source!
Stephanie Z, once again you display your civility, by claiming I’m “grammar trolling” @266, though:
(1) I address someone’s response to a comment I made;
(2) I ask for evidence of a claim in the commentรยน; and
(3) I ask for clarification as to the basis upon which Val opines that I cannot read.
That the grammar correction is quite incidental to the substance of my comment is (not unsurprisingly by now) ignored by you.
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รยน That I’m in the set of “self appointed Pharyngulistas”, whatever that is.
John, there is a very simple solution to your failure of imagination. Ask DuWayne.
Stephanie Z, to what failure of imagination do you refer?
You want me to answer questions you put to Val, John? Seriously, dude, you’re only hurting yourself here.
I will note, on the other hand, that you have appointed yourself as an expert in what happened in that thread at Pharyngula, so Val doesn’t seem that far off. Are you saying that despite that evidence, you’re not a Pharyngulista?
Motherfucker, what the makes you think I am civil or charitable? You are an asshole fucking troll and at least not acting terribly bright – I should be charitable why? On top of which laughing at your ridiculous excuse for a response to Greg really fucking hurt my chest, so I am lashing out some.
I am impressed that you noted my “quotes” were actually fucking paraphrasing though. You have a potential future in college writing…
John, I refer to this failure of imagination: “I further note I cannot find a charitable interpretation of your motive that is other than implausible.”
Stephanie Z,
Ah, I thought you might be.
Perhaps my standards of plausibility for what might be a charitable interpretation (i.e. one which considers Val wasn’t being malicious) are higher than yours; perhaps I truly am lacking in imagination.
If you consider you can come up with such an interpretation, where someone effectively misrepresents another by quoting them and then opining upon that purported quoteรยน, then please feel free to do so.
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รยน Straw dummies come to mind. I suppose they’re not always employed disingenously, sometimes it’s mere obtuseness รข?? even so, I cannot in honesty consider a judgment of obtuseness as more charitable (in a general sense) than one of maliciousness.
Self appointed Pharyngulistas can’t admit that they misread the comment.
John, again, I didn’t suggest you ask me. I suggested you ask DuWayne what his intent was.
Not particularly apropos of any particular comment, I feel as though I should put in a plug for Pharyngula at this point. What people are reading here is not anything like unknown there, but there are plenty of people there who can make better arguments, follow them better, be funny and friendly, etc. While Paul’s holding up the side pretty well here, I think anyone reading this instead of Pharyngula itself would get a pretty skewed picture.
DuWayne:
First, I’ve never engaged in coitus with my mother, so the epithet fails.
Second, I’ve nowhere implied you’re either civil or charitable; quite the contrary! ๐
Your acumen is less than impressive, and your choice of vulgarities mundane.
Where did I say you should be charitable?
Ah. You are easily amused, I see.
I see you’re also easily impressed.
Perhaps. Does that, too, impress you?
John, I think that Val was referring to the fact that I was speaking of the comments on this thread, and in response you cited something from a couple of years ago that you found on Google. I’m sure Val will correct me if I’m wrong. I’m sure John will correct me if I’m right.
I want a list of the repressed people who have become unrepressed by this particular act of unmitigated goatfucking asshattery.
This is going in the quote rotator on my screen saver.
Stephanie,
I’m aware of that. However, since your contention is that I have “failure of imagination”, it implies that you are aware of at least one such imagining that is contrary to my opinion.
I was (and am) asking you to provide it, because I think it’s just bluster.
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Val:
Functional troll has no substance, and ignores the previous response and request.
Again: Could you clarify in what sense you consider that am I unable to read?
(I note that being unable to read is quite different to misreading something, inasmuch as misreading implies the ability to read.
This is not a subtle distinction! ๐ )
DuWayne,
You have completely misunderstood me.
What I said was that the blogger is like the government of a blog, who happens to be a dictator. (Which is consistent with what Greg says about bloggers having a right to run their blogs any way they please.)
I certainly didn’t say that enforced civility made a blog shitty. What I was saying is that if that’s the only enforcement of social norms, the blog will be shitty.
(Bloggers generally don’t have the time and energy to do all the norm enforcement a blog needs.)
I said that despite PZ’s relatively laissez faire governing style, Pharyngula is not that bad.
I did not imply that Greg’s blog is shitty. I don’t think so. (I read it regularly, and mostly like it.)
I think that one of the reasons it’s not shitty is that despite Greg not constantly enforcing all the social norms, social norms do get enforced.
(Like me, right now, not just viciously slagging you off for misrepresenting and ridiculing what I said. Greg doesn’t need to enforce that rule all the time, or even state it.)
In any functioning community, norms are mostly enforced by common agreement and social feedback, without the need for the government (the blogger, in this case) to micromanage.
Is that such a ridiculous concept?
BTW, I’m curious whether you recognize my handle from mutually respectful interactions we’ve had on your brother’s blog. I’m surprised you’re not giving me more benefit of the doubt, and paying a little more attention to what I’m actually saying.
I think there’s a lot of ambiguity in the term “welcome,” as evidenced by Greg talking about commenters like me and S.C. “silencing” the voices of others.
If we can silence people as Greg says, that suggests to me that they’re unwelcome.
Think of it this way. If you have vicious attack dogs in your house, and you don’t keep them in check, should people feel welcome there? I don’t think so. Maybe not exactly unwelcome in the obvious sense, but certainly not welcome either. A welcoming host will make reasonable efforts to keep guests from silencing other welcome guests.
Paul 217: “It’s also not unrelated to very basic religious ideas—e.g., that there’s a soul, that morality comes from God, and that God has a plan for what you do with your genitalia, which you should pass laws to make other people obey, even if it will cause predictable suffering and death.”
And how is atheism much different? That there is a certain place morality cojmes from, that there is a humanistic plan? How is atheism really different from any other religion? There is no more logic to atheism than to any other way of believing.
282: that is correct, sir
I certainly didn’t say that enforced civility made a blog shitty. What I was saying is that if that’s the only enforcement of social norms, the blog will be shitty.
And THAT is the best example of a post hoc self justifying argument that I’ve seen all week.
“(I note that being unable to read is quite different to misreading something, inasmuch as misreading implies the ability to read.
This is not a subtle distinction! ๐ )”
Is English your second langauge, then? A phrase like “you need to learn to read” is what we call idiomatic. I have heard there are people who can’t parse idioms.
And now, John, you want me to answer for DuWayne. Nope. Would it be more palatable to you if I simply pointed out that “I can’t think of any nice reason for you to do that” (a paraphrase, just so you understand) is merely an argument from incredulity?
Greg, I’m too literal.
I responded to “Is there any place in over two hundred comments”, not to “in this comment thread”, by quoting the 314th comment in some place.
That said, I personally have on a number of occasions acknowledged I was in error or that I had been corrected; consider this one of them.
Here: I thought you were speaking of regulars of Pharyngula (a.k.a. ‘pharynguloids’ or ‘pharyngulites’ in-house) not admitting to errors or being swayed by argument in general, rather than of this specific thread.
It’s (typically) factual information or cogent argument that will sway us, not repetition, admonition or other rhetorical tactics.
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So, Val, if you mean I misinterpreted Greg, I admit to it. This doesn’t mean that I resile from the responses I made to your comments, I considered them (and consider them now) merited.
If we can silence people as Greg says, that suggests to me that they’re unwelcome.
That is probably the most interesting thing I’ve read on this thread.
Greg,
I’ve certainly said things like “I entirely agree” and “of course” a number of times.
Admittedly, that was usually in response to being told something I already know, as if I didn’t, and as if I’d disagreed with it, when I hadn’t.
On the other hand, I’ve been kinda disappointed that when that happens, I don’t get much acknowledgement that I had been misunderstood and misrepresented.
I don’t see you guys taking anything on board and saying you’ll think about it. I don’t even see you saying “I get it” when I clarify that I never said or implied what you thought I did.
I thought there was an exception to this when Stephanie said she’d address a point I’d made when she had more time.
But then she came back and said she didn’t need to bother, because I was obviously wrong for a reason that reveals she still doesn’t understand what I actually said.
It really doesn’t help that you guys generally won’t answer direct questions intended to clarify things, and would rather complain about not getting enough respect, while demonstrating little respect yourselves.
“(I note that being unable to read is quite different to misreading something, inasmuch as misreading implies the ability to read.
This is not a subtle distinction! ๐ )”
Is English your second langauge, then? A phrase like “you need to learn to read” is what we call idiomatic. I have heard there are people who can’t parse idioms.
Paul: Wow. You need to go read this: http://tinyurl.com/yfegqyx
In truth, I’ve not made very many comments on the points made in this thread. I am interested in the idea of emerging social values among the commenters on a thread. I actually have a student studying that. But I’m just not that hopefull about a productive conversation with … oh never mind, just read the link I gave you.
Word scramble:
PAULW
unscrambled is
CLUELESS
Val,
Why, yes, it is. ๐
My natal name is Juan Ramรยณn Morales, though I anglicise it because I live in Australia.
I am aware of the use of idiom; typically, it relies on a shared intercontextual understanding รข?? clearly, this is lacking here.
Why did you not respond to my inquiry @266 with a clear answer?
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Stephanie:
Sigh. No. I repeat: “I was (and am) asking you to provide it, because I think it’s just bluster.”
As palatable as you have ever been.
It’s not an argument from incredulity, for I have no a priori disbelief in the potential existence (nor a belief in the impossibility of one such) of an honest basis for a purported quotation which includes not a single word of its original source; rather, it’s a statement of fact regarding my cognitive process and ideation on the matter.
Again, you are the one contending I fail at imagination, yet when I ask you to sustain this claim (by adducing an example) you evade the challenge.
Who knew that there could be a word game troll.
I find it interesting that some of the better known bloggers who insist on the preservation of incivility are themselves the least welcoming to anyone who may have a different view on their own blogs.
This is linked to the conservative/liberal spectrum as well. I note that one of the aforementioned is one of the few religious bloggers on the scienceblogs network rouster. Maybe two of them, if I guess correctly. Maybe all three.
Val @296, since you feel free to opine on Paul W’s worth, I feel similarly free to opine that anyone who’s interacted with Paul W to any degree and considers him clueless is clueless.