A few weeks ago Richard Dawkins changed the way the bulletin-board on his website functioned. He was shocked by the reactions left in the comment boxes, which were often abusive, angry, and even hysterical.
“Surely there has to be something wrong with people who can resort to such over-the-top language, overreacting so spectacularly to something so trivial,” he wrote. “Was there ever such conservatism, such reactionary aversion to change, such vicious language in defence of a comfortable status quo? What is the underlying agenda of these people?” There must, he felt, be “something rotten in the internet culture that can vent it”.
Why is the internet a breeding ground for such venom? It’s not just the anonymity afforded to those who respond, or the speed with which the responses can be posted. It’s also the feedback mechanism that allows members of internet groups to reinforce for each other both their best convictions and their worst prejudices.
James Harkin describes the process:
The paradox of the “wisdom of online crowds” is that it only works in clubbable, relatively small groups of like-thinking minds. The reason why the richest and most productive audiences online are for the most arcane subjects – on the relationship between economics and law, for example, or how to care for cats – is because everyone involved feels part of an exclusive club dedicated to finding out more about the same thing.
However, it’s for exactly the same reason that many of these clubs can become breeding grounds for vicious tribalism. The brevity required for communication on Twitter does not lend itself to decorous etiquette, but neither is it the soul of wit to circulate snide, snarky tweets to an enthusiastic group of followers.
Too often the online audience separates into a series of rival gangs, each of them patting each other on the back and throwing stink-bombs at the other side. In this environment civility can disappear, with the result that those who do not take an extreme approach in offering their views decide that online forums are not for them.
When everyone is reinforcing everyone else’s opinion in an online echo-chamber, there’s little need to state a case or debate one’s opponent. It’s easier – like the schoolyard bully – just to abuse them. The other problem with online “communities” is that decisions about quality often become snagged in a highly conservative and self-reinforcing feedback loop in which everyone queues up to follow the leader.
So it’s hard to keep a website or blog running that will genuinely be a place of dialogue and discussion, rather than just a tribal meeting point.
It’s easier on a blog, perhaps, because the host is seen to have the right to moderate the discussion as he sees fit. We’ve had some very long and interesting discussions on our blog about faith with a hard-core Calvinist and about viciousness or not of using make-up, just to name two off the top of my head.
Yes, there is some really worthwhile discussion out there too. It’s probably on the bigger and more public sites that this ‘flash mob’ mentality flourishes.
You have a tendency to nail whatever the topic happens to be, which doesn’t necessarily breed discussion! – but is very interesting. But don’t doubt the value or potential impact, in ways that cannot be forseen, of a steady trickle of truth, expressed always with courtesy and kindness. If something is intrinsically good its impact will magnify with time (and the little private discussions, in response to the truth, that go on in the minds of those who are listening, shouldn’t be overlooked). For example, this particular post has reminded me to say a prayer about a blog that I think is damaging at times, and also it has served to reinforce my optimism that the problem of such blogs can be resolved with time, as more people start expressing what you express above.
Well seems to me that useful dialogue implies a shared purpose. Doesn’t that also imply being of similar mind as in the same “tribe”? Where there is no shared purpose, then all bets are off, and you end up with just static. As it is truly difficult, if not impossible, to share purpose with everyone in the world or to expect that everyone in the world is going to be sharing your purposes … so, me thinks, that tolerance of static is one of the prerequisites of life on the net. Why did a smart guy like Dawkins end up being shocked?
To begin with he says there is something “wrong” with the person. Then he says he was “over reacting”. Then he goes on to say the person has an “aversion to change” and he had the nerve to attack the status quo. This kind of attack is nothing more than a propaganda tactic to kill any opposing ideas. This should be a red flag and alarms should be going off that the writer or speaker doesn’t want you to listen to this other guy. It isn’t respectful opposition to an idea it is an attack on the other person’s character. When we live in a world where most of the media is tightly controlled we have to be aware of what is being said to us and recognize when somebody is using mind control. There is a huge difference between ideas being different from your own and somebody trying to block you from listening to something that can expand you ability to grow and learn. I have heard over and over in my life how we all don’t listen to the other guy and how listening skills give us power. This has never been more true than ever before.