alto« Looking At Intentions »
Chris from Creek Running North made some interesting and relevant observations recently regarding the idea of online discourse. Is it even possible for us to have a truly humane discourse on line? Chris said:
Sometimes the negative links direct attention to things that need to be addressed, to offenses that would have flown under the collective radar in offline life, and sometimes the mass uproar that follows educates people who would not have been reached by position papers. As a glorified phone tree to alert people to actions that need to be taken to combat short-term horrible, the net is a wonderful thing.
It’s just that it seems to me that there’s a threshold of linkage beyond which political discussions, as opposed to political alerts, become less than useful over time. I’m not suggesting any hard and fast metrics, but I do know that some of the most useful, challenging, rewarding and worthwhile conversations I’ve read online have taken place among regular readers of the blog in question, and I know that I’ve seen outside linkage derail more useful and enlightening conversations than I can count.
I like how Chris points out the duality here. That for every negative conversation in the blog world, there are ones that reflect the opposite point. Balance then, is key. However as many of us know, balance, is very often hard to maintain. Given what occurred yesterday on Joe.My.God via a small number of comments leaving some real vitriolic sentiment for a gay father, and then keeping up the attack at the guys own blog, this is a discussion we as a community really need to have.
The outcome yesterday wasn't good. To be fair, I'm sure it was not Joe's intention to cause this individual any damage, and he has issued a heartfelt apology, but the fact remains, the man in question took down what was his very inspirational and high quality site. I think we need to ask ourselves, ultimately, who plays a role when those things occur?
It's an important question, as silencing voices, is the opposite of what we are supposed to be doing here. Isn't it? Thoughts?
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Reader Comments (13)
Al,
While I agree with you about this topic, you've seen the commenter's over there. Bitter, bitter queens, many of them.They will often be assholes out of principle! Do you really see that changing?
Hi redzog,
I'll take the less pessimistic view here and say that in a comment section with a large volume of comments, you are always going to get bottom feeders; assholes out to shock, derail, insult, and generally engage their otherwise unhappy selves. Hopefully you get some discussion that is valid as well.
I hear you about some of the tone that can be expressed yes, but I really do think we can all do better if we make an effort. No one is going to buy the world a coke, and I'm not expecting anyone to, but I really do think we can do better than we are currently demonstrating.
Well those comments on joes blog, if they were any indication, would have sure made me take down a blog! There seems to be this idea that if you publish on the web you must take all the vitriolic BS that the poorly adjusted malcontents throw at you. Is that really what some people are suggesting, because I call BS on that!
Sounds eerily like a conversation I had with a dear friend last night on the phone. Unfortunately, only those with the ability to manifest decency in an online conversation, will bother to consider making the effort to think about this topic. The trolls and bottom feeders will continue to hurl grenades and giggle to themselves. I think it is definitely worth the effort to try and establish some basic ground rules for decorum on our individual blogs, threatening to take down and block chronic offenders. When they have no forum for their outlandish behavior, it will grow old for them quickly. Time outs work for toddlers, and I am sure it can work in this venue as well.
I must say this makes me terribly sad and very dismayed that this tool we have for communication, that can be so genuinely wonderful at connecting humans in a real and meaningful way, can have such an ugly flip side. I daresay people that are prone to these vitriolic comments would never behave in such a manner in person. Or perhaps I'm kidding myself, either way it just truly makes me terribly upset that such an obviously sincere person had to be hurt like that for no good reason. If the man was espousing puppy beating or somesuch it would be another story entirely..
I didn't read any of the comments, neither on JMG nor on the blog where the comments were left.
That being said and acknowledging that I have horribly thin skin, I'm not sure I would have deleted my entire blog over it. I don't see any problem with deleting nasty comments and putting the entire blog on "No Comments" until the storm blows over. The nasties will quickly move on to the next scent of fresh meat. If they stick around, block 'em.
I don't owe anybody anything on MY blog, particularly to someone who is disruptive.
Al I completely agree, and I feel horrible for Cooper, because as you know, I've been on the bad end of that comment issue, and yeah, it sucks. But I'm sorry, I hate to say this but the crowd that comments at Joe's site are the worst, bitter examples of unhappy gay men who need to rip another down in direct proportion to how they are built up. bat chain puller, ryan charisma, chaucers bitch, david erennstein, chubby stupid hubby, I would ban them all.. Cooper, stay away from that BS.
Seems like there's a lot of this going around in the blogosphere these days. Discussion and discourse is good. Disagreement is fine. I personally have no problem with even heated debate, the problem is when folks get disrespectful, dismissive, and begin to attack the person, not the premise.
Usually that all comes from not really listening.
I do agree w/ Doralong that much of what happens on teh web would never happen in real life. That cyber-veil emboldens people to skip right over common decency to just plain meanness. What's sad about that is the same cyber-veil concept also allows people the opportunity to discuss/question things they might not address in real life, so it's not innately negative.
It's so easy to pop in and out of different sites -- in real life, you have to take the time to get to know someone before you're in a position to comment on a person's opinions/life. On the 'net, you just click and *BAM* there you are, right smack in the middle of someone's personal thoughts, feelings, cybercircle of friends. It's so easy to fire off a nasty comment, you don't have to get to know them, you don't have to look them in the eyes, you don't have to see the person's face after you've hurt them. You don't have to think about the effect you have on that person at all.
People are vulnerable on the other side of the template.
We're so desensititized to the media these days ... i think this is just another area where people have become desensitized and callous.
Anyway. I just try to not be mean. We can disagree without name calling and meanness. It's not right to go to someone's site and be insulting or mean.
For as much as some of your more wing nut commenter's annoy me Al, this space does a pretty good job of being respectful. I know some people disagree, and think you can be overly harsh in shutting down opinions unlike your own, but I would say that what they see is you defending and advocating for your regular readers and their right to have a respectful discussion. Discussions don't always have to give equal time to the dissenting view.
How truly sad that a voice was silenced. (Unless it's ocountymommy) Bad joke. Even ocountymommy has a right to speak, no matter how inane it may be.
The one problem with this medium of communication is that sometimes it's hard to read tone and definitely intent.
One thing I have recently worked on, is to consider the source. A comment that I may take as a slam, may just be poor communication skills. I now go to the blog and read a few pages, just to learn a little about the commenter's disposition and writing capabilities. It helps me to be a tad more tolerant; as well as considering what may or may not be going on in the commenters life.
I hope the wounds inflicted will heal and one day this person will feel comfortable writing publicly again.
3T
3-T, that happens to be the really amazing thing about this medium- If you're willing to go and see what the other person has to say it can truly open such an amazing window on other points of view and experiences that you may never have a chance to consider otherwise.
And having read your blog, I can say that again- connecting with others in this medium can still be an enriching thing, as I have certainly enjoyed reading yours. I grant you it can turn ugly, but if one tends to be in more or less supportive little "communities" in a virtual sense, you get an enriching and positive experience.
The ugly and mean spirits genuinely piss me off, but the wonderful people I have been lucky enough to connect with on a very personal level have and had a genuine connection with have made it more than worth it.
Cooper, for what it's worth, I sincerely hope you keep writing.
Having far more "inside information" because of my long friendship with Cooper, I can tell you that what he experienced was completely unprovoked and unfair. He was basically judged by people who, prior to that link being put on Joe's blog, didn't even know he existed. But because the overall tone of Joe's post was questioning and, IMHO, negative, these people immediately high-tailed it over to Cooper's blog and freely attacked and judged him. They didn't know him or anything about him but he had been held up as some kind of "Gay Parenting Poster Child" on Joe.My.God so that made it open-season on him.
Those who claim that Joe is innocent in all of this need to only reread his original post. Words like "straightifying" speak VOLUMES when it comes to Joe's feelings toward anyone or anything he personally believes don't match his own narrow definitions of "Gay". He will freely apply his street-corner psychoanalysis to those he feels are taking his beloved gay-way-of-living in a direction that differs from the one he knew back in, oh, say 1982! And when he does this, the diagnosis is always, "Assimilationist! Assimilationist!" He screams it from the rooftops...Stop the Assimilationists! The Assimilationists are Coming! This playing up of a great divide in gay culture is something Joe has been guilty of for a long time. Sadly, his sycophantic minions singled out Cooper as their target and they succeeded in silencing a gentle and innocent bystander.
Regarding Joe's apology...I found it sickeningly amusing that many of the same people responsible for Cooper's demise are now on that comment board singing his praises! Apparently, one does anything they can to look good in Joe's eyes over there. And yes, I know who they are since Cooper himself gave me names. I have to say thaat after all of this, I am happy to be marginalized by the majority of gay people. They don't understand me and I don't understand them. The difference is that I couldn't care less how they live their lives but they continue to be fascinated and obssessed with how I (and Cooper and people like us) live mine. It's called "Individuality". Check it out!
Hi Kevin,
Thanks for commenting. I am aware that you and others in the gay community who have, for whatever the reason, taken on the responsibility of parenting as an out gay couple, often been the target of unfair assumptions and presumption. I saw that happening with Cooper at Joe’s site, and I was more than disappointed at the response on those threads. Until the proverbial shit hit the fan, and then of course the support bases changed. Typical for that site actually. Tater (a friend and a writing partner), who also has a blog, and I frequently find ourselves on the non popular view on that site, and we both have experienced first hand how brutal that can be in that specific blogs comments section. I feel awful that Cooper went through that and it prompted the actions he ultimately took.
Let me state flat out that I think we in the gay community do a terrible job of offering support and understanding for decisions someone makes that may not have been our own individual first choices. As a community we all need to work on that. And while I think Joe was way off in his criticism of gay parents, I really do take issue with the “assimilation” debate.
Where Joe has expressed a problem on that, and where I completly agree with him, is in the idea of an earned acceptance being something that will see our progress toward human equality and civil rights based on being “very good gay people” who are polite, wear Brooks Brothers, don’t march in gay pride events, and are monogamous in a LTR. I call BS on that being the only or even the best option. Rights are rights, and the mentality that attempts to buy a spot at that very unethically constructed table will always be experienced by many among usis nothing but further oppression. The masters tools tearing down the masters house analogy.
“They aren’t like us, therefore they are less than”. That mindset demonstrates the following:
A denial of access, based on a flawed and subjective assignment of what confers a right to access.
Aside from that very large point, I agree 100% with the way you have discussed this issue, and I hope you, your partner, and the rest of your family will have a better go of it. I can assure you that you will always have very vocal support here. I truly admire what you guys are doing. And yes, I wish more gay men did things such as committing themselves to the concept of family that you have. Thanks again for commenting. You will always be welcome here.