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Discourse

There’s a way to do things, and a way not to do things. We all know the apocryphal tale of a person being able to tell a priest in church to “go screw himself”, as long as you know how to say it right.

It appears that there are many people who don’t know the difference between disagreeing and being disagreeable. Let’s walk through this together. I read Andrew Sullivan’s site almost every day. I only agree with him about once out of every 8 visits. I go to his site, not because I agree with everything he says, but he is a well thought out person of a different viewpoint. I don’t want to agree with everything he says, I want there to be disagreement. Andy challenges my thinking; as a result of that challenge, he makes my reasoning on a given subject stronger by causing me to disregard weak positions and causes me to reinforce my stronger positions. When I find myself disagreeing with him, I don’t go ‘crazy eight bonkers’ and write him a stack of hate mail. I don’t insist that Andy take my view of the world that of his own. I expect Andy to take an opinion that I would not. Frankly, I’m hoping he does, because that’s why I’m reading him in the first place. If I wanted to read what I think I’d just read my own blog, and what’s the point in that?

I often disagree with Andrew Sullivan, but I have no desire or need to be disagreeable about it, and he is under no obligation to facilitate that sort of discourse with me. Andy is entitled to his beliefs and it’s precisely his ability to expound on those beliefs that makes him interesting to me. I’m not the slightest bit bothered that his opinions are different than mine. Quite the contrary, I expect him to have an opinion different than mine.

Why is it that so many people read other peoples sites, where the masthead of the site clearly states someone’s political view and then act shocked when they read an opinion on that site that they don’t agree with? If I go to blogsforbush.com, am I really surprised that there is no Kerry support expressed by the site?

I have a stack of email a foot thick over one subject - The use of the word “victory” in my masthead. I got about 15 emails in the positive, and a stack of trackbacks, but I also got a hugely disproportionate number of emails from people who felt that it was akin to a racial slur. Now – had I seen someone use a word on their site that I found to be offensive, what would I do?

Avert my eyes
Write a cogent and simple email, that is not disagreeable, but disagrees.
Not visit anymore

Probably.

Would I ever flame the comments section?
Would I ever pound the other commentors with unwanted queries?
Would I ever insist that the author MUST see it my way?

Hardly.

It's time I explained a few things to some of you who don’t understand the difference between disagreement and being disagreeable. Varifrank is not a public utility, its a privately owned and operated website, created, owned and operated by solely by myself. I do not have a 'tip jar'. I do not have advertising. I am under no obligation to provide anyone with a forum on my site which to send his or her own thoughts out to the reading public. I provide comments only as an easy way on which to communicate with me on the subject at hand, it is not a cheap way for you to start a blog. It is also not a way to allow you to hijack the subject or to harass the readers. Right now, there is an effort underway by the demon like denizens of “democratic underground” to hijack what they consider to be ‘right wing websites’ by any means necessary. Some will hack the sites, and corrupt their content, some will commit Denial Of Service attacks against their sites IP’s. Some will send a spam wave towards the site, thereby clogging up the owners email with lots of useless email. Others are more subtle in their actions, by disrupting the comments section or bogging down the site owner with a great deal of disagreeable discourse they hope to dissuade the blog owner and its fellow travelers from having a voice.

We’ve seen some great bloggers, great minds who’s ideas we all benefited from reading silenced by this type of action. It’s not freedom of speech that’s being practiced by this kind of behavior; it’s thuggery, plain and simple. It has the same affect on a blog that broken windows, un-mowed lawns and graffiti does to property values.

If you have something to add, or if I’ve made an error, then by all means send a comment. The comments on this site are moderated by me, meaning they don’t get published unless I say so. I say so, not because the author of the comment agrees with me, but that the author of the comment has something that adds to the piece being commented on. Comments on this site are not a forum to attack me or the other readers. It’s not a method to get your own pithy statements on a web someplace so you can feel validated.

Here’s another clue to “how to do things”. If you want me to publish your comment, try to say what you want without acting like you are a victim of Tourettes syndrome. For the record, I’m not Jewish, I’m not Gay, nor am I a Woman, nor am I Black. I’m honored to be in their company, but if the basis of your argument is that “I must be a fill-in-the-blank racial epithet”, then you’ve just gone into the electronic circular file, even if you’ve just published the formula for nuclear cold fusion in your comments. For those of you on the left who feel its only us crazed right wingers who attack people, man have I got a stack of hate mail for you to read from supposedly pacifist people who can sling some pretty good racial epithets.

There is a way to disagree, without being disagreeable. If your disagreement is cogent, and well reasoned and civil to myself and the other readers, then it will likely get published. If you can’t get a grip on yourself, then not only will you not get your comment not published, but you will be banned from the site altogether. I need to protect your weak sensibilities from the damage reading my site does to your weak constitutions. I cannot bear the thought that I may be causing some of you such high levels of bile production.

Does it really surprise so many of you that there are people who disagree with your worldview? Do you really think that your vision of reality is universally felt and that any variation from that reality is subversive? I mean, I felt like that when I was 14 years old, but now that I’m in my 40’s I sort of figured out that opinions are like elbows, most people have at least two of them and most of the time it takes a great deal of effort to get them to meet in the middle, but they work just fine when they don’t.

When you visit a blog, think of yourself as being at a party where the host as invited you to meet people you’ve never met before. You are introduced to these strangers, you get to know them by eating and drinking with them, you politely listen to what they say, even when they are people you would normally not hang out with or agree with. But you do not throw lawn furniture at someone you disagree with; you do not “key” their car. At best you might stand in the kitchen and grumble under your breath and wish you would have driven yourself to the party, but you don’t try to burn down the hosts’ living room because someone said something you disagree with.

I worked in San Francisco for 12 years. I loved it, it’s a great city with some great people and the best food anywhere. One of the really cool parts of the job was that I was working in a culture that was completely alien to me. I was a conservative in the very capitol of leftist ideology. I worked there for 12 years, day in day out. Now, if after 12 years of day in day out exposure to leftist ideals hasn’t caused me to give up my orientation and become a Democrat, what chance do you think you have, dear DU Denizen, of getting me to change?

The thing is, I had some great friendships with people in SF who were really waaaaaay out there politically from me. We all managed to get along with each other fine. I once gave some frequent flyer miles to someone who wanted to fly in a jazz artist to a Christic Institute event. I once bailed someone out of jail after a protest against the President. When I had major surgery, one of the women who helped get me through that time was, and I’m not kidding, a real live Sandinista. They were my friends; their politics were secondary. We respected each other’s opinions, we knew that we didn’t agree, but we didn’t take it personally. One of my very best friends hates Bush so much he can’t bring himself to see or hear the Presidents visage or voice at anytime. When he comes over, he always says to me “ make sure you don’t have the TV on…” and I don’t. We have a lifetime of friendship together, that’s much more important than politics. We disagree with each other, but we are not disagreeable.

I learned along time ago that not all lefties are idiots and not all right wingers are Klan members. People are people, you accept them as they are or you leave them alone. All I ever ask of someone in regards to their politics is the answer to this one question:

“Are you prepared to be wrong?”

If someone wants to talk about politics with me, that’s the first question I ask. If you’re not prepared to be wrong, then there’s nothing to be said and we should talk about the negative effects of the ocean tide on fishing. I am prepared to be wrong; I am always interested in hearing a different idea on a subject. I am a pragmatist before I am anything else. I’m not saying that you are wrong, but if you are not prepared for the possibility that you might be wrong, then we are not having a conversation, we are just listening to the b-b’s in our heads rattle around. I don’t believe any human owns the truth, the truth is discovered through a sort of adversarial process akin to the way our law works, or when its done properly, science works by using the skeptical analysis approach.

We discover the truth together. None of us owns the truth, it is discovered via our discourse and disagreement.

Embrace the diversity of thought, kids. It's your only hope in discovering the truth.

Posted @ October 17, 2004 11:09 PM | Current Events

Posted by: superhawk at October 18, 2004 06:14 AM

Posted by: Steve Teeter at October 18, 2004 10:37 AM

Posted by: Peter Conover at October 18, 2004 07:00 PM

Posted by: _Jon at October 18, 2004 07:31 PM

Posted by: Alan Winship at October 18, 2004 08:28 PM

Posted by: Frank Martin at October 18, 2004 09:24 PM

Posted by: Sallie at October 19, 2004 05:42 AM