(Hello, dear readers! I apologize for the unexpected hiatus, but crazy work and vacation make for poor blogging conditions. However, I'm back, and while I can't promise to be better than ever, hopefully I'll at least be better than the poem in the last entry, which it appears very few of you appreciated. Sucks for you, because that's not the only one you're getting. I promise they won't be often, though.)
This post kicks off what I envision as a running series of advice that I think is sorely needed by many on the Internet, but which I fully expect will not make any difference whatsoever. I may not be the first person to make some of these observations, but that doesn't make them any less apropos.
Today's entry: arguing on the Internet.
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I like to argue.
(I also apparently like starting out blog posts with statements that those of you who know me well will find completely obvious.)
To me, it's fun. It's good mental exercise, especially when I'm arguing a position I don't actually believe. Doing so can help me clarify what I do think, and sometimes has even changed my mind. In high school, I even volunteered (with a friend who enjoyed being as contrary as I do) to argue unpopular opinions for mock debates and pissed off my entire Government class, just for fun.
Not everyone appreciates this quality of mine, unfortunately (see the previous paragraph for an example). And I'll admit I can have a little too much fun sometimes arguing things just for the heck of it. (Emily will happily attest to this.) What I don't think anyone will disagree with, though, is that I'm fairly good at it. Practice, and all that. (And if they do disagree, I'll be happy to discuss it with them...)
Which brings me to the topic at hand. The state of argument on the Internet is deplorable. Abysmal. Appalling. Insert your favorite synonym for "terrible" here, preferably starting with "a".
Not everywhere, obviously. There are still many places where well-reasoned and well-structured discourse and dispute still exist. Much of the Internet, however, is a disputatious wasteland of fallacies, philippics and fulminations.
But it doesn't have to be this way! Not if those of us who still believe in reasoned debate stand up and declare with one voice, "We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight!"
In the spirit of not attributing to malice what one can attribute to ignorance, I'm going to assume that most people who argue so poorly on the Internet do so because they don't know how to do any better. (Trolls are beyond the purview of this dialectic dissertation.) But ignorance can be rectified!
So, without further ado, let's look at some ways to improve the state of online arguing:
1) Stop making it personal.
This actually has two parts, one on each side.
a) Someone disagreeing with you is not a personal affront. Well, I guess that depends on how they phrased their dissent, but the sheer fact of dissent most definitely is not. Disagreeing with you does not make either of you stupid. It is not an attack on your (wo)manhood. It is not an insult to your intelligence, your family, or anything else. It's just a disagreement. Happens all the time. This is an opportunity to make your case! Embrace it! Fear is the mind-killer, but taking things personally is the rationality-killer.
b) When disagreeing with someone, refrain from making any sort of insult, impugning anything about their character, family or upbringing, or in any way suggesting that they hold their view because they're an idiot. This is known as an "ad hominem" attack, and is one of the cardinal sins of arguing. So much so, that it starts off the list I'm about to link to. (Yes, I know the list is in alphabetical order. It's still true!)
2) Read this list of logical fallacies. Study it. Consider how you might be using these.
Now refrain from using any of them ever again. EVER.
Every single one of these is WAY too common. In fact, this point would normally be #1 on my list, because it's such a fundamental basis for arguing. But I really think that keeping it from getting too personal is ultimately more important, because that's when things start getting out of hand.
(As someone with a science background, the "correlation =/= causation" one bugs me the most, but most of them are pretty bad.)
Seriously, if we can just get people to follow these first two points, we're 80% of the way there in cleaning up the online argument scene. But that's not enough, oh no, that's not nearly enough.
3) Recognize who has the burden of proof.
"Burden of proof", as everyone should know from one of the 10,593,628 procedural shows currently on TV (number is approximate), is the principle that one has to provide evidence of a particular assertion. Way, WAY too often do I see someone make an assertion, and when challenged, tell the challenger to prove them wrong.
This. Is. Not. How. Things. Work.
The person making the assertion has the burden of proof, and doesn't get to simply demand that their opponents prove them wrong. I mean, you can, but nobody's going to take you seriously, because nobody's going to do your research for you, unless it's really easy. (Seriously, Google and Snopes is good for shooting down about 90% of the stupid stuff in about 0.3 seconds. But seriously, who has the time? (No, I will never get tired of linking to that comic.)
This is a nice segue into point 4, which is:
4) Provide some evidence to back up your position.
This should be obvious. It really should. But apparently it's not, so here we are, including it in this list.
If you have the burden of proof, then provide some! Why are you making your assertion? What do you have to back it up? If you don't have anything except that it's "obvious", "common sense", or something like that, then you might want to reconsider. (Math teachers are especially bad at this one. "Intuitively obvious" rarely is.)
5) Learn how to structure an argument.
Who else remembers doing 5-paragraph essays in school? First paragraph to establish your thesis, three paragraphs of supporting evidence (notice how nicely this ties into points 3 and 4!), final paragraph to summarize. Ah, good times.
This format serves as a wonderful basis for how to structure an argument. You obviously don't have to stick exactly to the format, but keep the general argument-evidence-summary format in mind. So many online arguers throw out (often confused or barely articulated) arguments, assertions, and evidence (if you're lucky) willy-nilly, with no semblance of any sort of logical order or coherent structure, that it's nearly impossible to provide any sort of cogent counter-argument. I suppose this approach has the advantage of deterring rebuttals, but it's still not exactly productive.
Five is a nice round number, so I'll leave off the lengthy explanations here, although there are certainly many other points that could be made (not confusing opinion for fact, for example). Feel free to contribute your own thoughts.
That wraps up our first installment of Futile Advice for the Internet. As the title says, I expect this advice to change the behavior of precisely no one. But isn't it nice to dream?
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