Free Fritz Leiber

I wrote a piece, #PurpleSF, about feminism and SF for Clarkesworld. It was in part stirred up by the convulsions of the Gamergate controversy, which has continued to provide plenty of food for thought (and probably will continue to do so).

One of the many interesting (and sometimes positive) things that’s come out of that controversy has been a lot of examinations of Internet culture and many of its subsets. Before last year, I had only the vaguest idea what “chan culture” would be, so I found this piece really fascinating, particularly because questions about anonymity are (imo) going to continue to rear their heads whenever they bump into notions of transparency in coming years.

The full piece, How imageboard culture shaped Gamergate, appeared on BoingBoing. Its author has produced a lot of interesting pieces about Gamergate, usually composed as Storify pieces, such as these: Gamergate, Sexism, and Tribalism; Why I Oppose #Gamergate

The article is talking specifically about image boards, and here’s a chunk from it that describes the culture:

These anonymous imageboards have their own idiosyncratic culture, despite the lack of permanent identity. Posters call themselves anons, or occasionally channers. While anonymity is a core part of this identity, merely being anonymous does not make you an anon. Rather, it’s about identifying as a larger whole. Capital-A Anonymous, such as the Project Chanology protestors and the hacking/activist groups like @youranonnews, are anons, but most anons don’t think of themselves as part of Anonymous.

Without identity, every anon is whoever they want to be at the moment. It’s freeing! Anons exalt these imageboards as the only place people can truly be themselves, without being burdened by their identity or consequences. This includes genuinely awful or hateful opinions. Anons have a broad, often absolutist view of free speech, sometimes extending that so far as to include threats of violence or extreme pornography. Anons are extremely protective of their culture and this very broad view of free speech, because of both great faith in their ability to self-police argument and an unconscious, internal reliance on irony.

The atmosphere is that of a paradoxically jovial angry mob. Almost everyone sees their own point of view as the consensus, assuming that most people most people agree with them. Any possibly contentious statement is presumed to be ironic, told as a joke or to rile up people who disagree. Since everyone assumes that anyone who disagrees is arguing in bad faith and doesn’t mean what they’re saying, anyone who disagrees is a fair target for apparently hateful mockery. This basic assumption of bad faith applies even when arguments are long-lasting and well-known: for example, the console war arguments in /v/, 4chan’s video games sub-board. However, this mockery is defanged by anonymity and irony.

Everyone’s anonymous, so a poster can just join the winning side of an argument, cheerfully mocking their own older posts. One poster can even play both sides from the start. Every anon can choose whatever opinion they want to have on a post-by-post basis, so everything flows smoothly even as people hatefully attack each other for having the wrong opinion. Anons believe in this free marketplace of ideas: good ones survive the firestorm, while bad ones burn to ash as everyone dogpiles on mocking them.

Wayne and I were talking about this conception of discussion/argument today and I can at least partially understand how it’s shaped some of the conversation within Gamergate (the overall situation, not the group) and created many of the problems. (Anders Sandburg has an interesting piece about such culture clashes.) I think it’s important to look at the background people are coming from and the Internet etiquette norms that they’ve absorbed.

At the same time, bad faith arguments are something I don’t practice and I find trolls kinda appalling, because the idea of getting enjoyment from making other people angry, upset, or otherwise unhappy seems something only a retrograde would relish. I blogged about arguing on the Internet a while back and said I’d follow up and talk about bad faith argument, but I never have, because I find its habitual practitioners antithetical to the way I try to think.

Don’t get me wrong. I like debate, and life with Wayne is a lively series of conversations in which one or the other will often take the role of devil’s advocate just to see how sound or defensible an idea is. But that seems different to me than taking on the Internet identity of someone who believes something just to see if you can get other people riled up enough to waste time on composing eight page replies to your argument rather than something, I dunno, actually productive or enjoyable.

But, as Wayne can testify, I am painfully earnest about a number of things, including the idea that the human race should be advancing and that part of that advance is being fairer about our treatment of the people and world around us. The idea that love is both greater than and preferable to hate. That cruelty only creates more cruelty. That civility and an assumption of good faith should be the baseline, rather than the exception. And that we are fallible creatures who are nonetheless capable of learning from both experience as well as questioning ourselves.

Part of my plea in the Clarkesworld column is that we stop arguing in bad faith and lazy categories. It’s a Quixotic fight, but I’ll continue to carry its banner. And part of that banner is to argue in good faith, to ask questions and interrogate the world around me to see what blinders it’s imposing on me. That’s a vital part of making good art. And good conversation.

If you’re familiar with C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, you may know what I’m quoting in the title. In the final book of the series, The Last Battle, there is a group of dwarves who believe in their cause so strongly that they cannot perceive reality. There are multiple interpretations of the dwarves, particularly given how prone to Christian allegory Lewis’s work is, but I think they hold a lesson for those of us witnessing and/or participating in arguments on the Internet.

Here’s the thing. Everyone believes their own worldview. It may not totally jibe with the one they project to the world, a la Stephen Colbert. But deep inside, everyone is the champion in their own narrative, or at least that’s the impression that everyone I’ve ever met or read about gives me.

And because they’re the main character in their story, people like to believe that they are good or at least mostly good. But that definition of good can vary wildly from individual to individual. It often is a combination of definitions associated with a particular religion along with whatever personal modifications one requires. Their attitude and behavior toward other beings are shaped by those definitions.

So, the dwarves are being good according to their own dwarvish standards, which, depending on our own internal definitions may or may not seem incorrect to us. That’s worth taking a moment to think about.

It’s a point that often gets overlooked, particularly in arguments on the Internet. As is an accompanying point, that in arguments it is much more common for every participant to believe themselves fully in the right than it is for any of them to believe themselves in the wrong.

Am I saying bad faith arguments are never made, that no one enjoys playing devil’s advocate or creating an elaborate chain of logic one could slip around an opponent’s neck? No, those exist but should be saved for another time. What I’d like to focus on is how one person who’s convinced they’re right can listen to another person who is also convinced that they’re right and end up at a meaningful conversation.

We get angry when people disagree with us. We become defensive when we feel we are under attack. That is a normal response that goes back to our early days of being human. But one of the cool things about human beings is that we can recognize that impulse in ourselves, and take it into account, and then move on to a more considered response which by no coincidence is usually a more courteous response.

To me, part of my definition of being good is questioning assumptions as well as what I’m told by my surroundings, particularly popular culture, and my own biases and filters. It seems to me more meaningful to be good in a way that I know to be correct because I have spent time thinking about it than to accept a definition pre-created for me. I can conceive of a world view, however, where that is not true.

And part of that definition is being willing to listen, to try to find common ground and agreement. To take a little time for give and take, rather than worrying about who’s the most rightest of all. Passionate anger can be a great motivator. But what it’s best at is creating more passionate anger.

Am I saying I am never offended ever? Holy smokies, no. But I am saying that I try to be willing to listen. That I try to extend the person I am listening to the courtesy of assuming they speak in good faith. If they don’t, eventually that will come out, at least in my opinion. Yes, I may feel that they should be listening to me first and that viewpoint may be justified. But what is more important, being right or achieving communication that may enable change of that worldview, or even mine?

I’m aware mileage as far as agreement goes will vary wildly among readers of this blog. And I will save how one reacts to bad faith arguments for some other post. But to me, operating by these guidelines is more effective than not, and gives me the satisfaction of knowing that at least I tried.