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More civil insolence

My disclaimer/policy on comments here has occasioned a bit of discussion on the tubes. Isis reckons that those who say it is a bad thing to piss on the rug will do it anyway when things get heated. Golden Thoughts compares this to the Civil Rights movement, and that those who say “don’t piss on the rug” are comparable to the people who arrested Rosa Parks for sitting on a bus. I have to say that I can’t see it, myself. But it raises an interesting issue: when is it right to be nasty in debate?

Because, sometimes, it is, and everyone agrees that it is. What we are arguing about now are the circumstances. More below the fold.

First of all, I must say that I wasn’t there, didn’t see what happened, and I know nothing more than it has the smell of a traffic accident, with each observer seeing a somewhat different aspect of the incident at ScienceOnline2010. However, I know some of the participants directly or indirectly, and some of the claims made about the behaviour and what triggered it strikes me as, well, unlikely. Anyway, that’s for them to sort out.

Let us start by noting that debate is a dialectic process: this means that there is a give and take of communication. It also means that, to communicate at all, there have to be conventions. I list one take on those conventions here. Without conventions of what is acceptable behaviour, agreed by both sides, there can be no debate, only armed conflict. What those who say it is OK to piss on rugs are asserting is that these conventions favour the powerful and defeat the weak before the argument begins. This is probably true. That’s when you have to re-evaluate conventions. Only if you cannot find shared conventions does argument dissolve into abuse.

Now, when you are first meeting someone in debate, you have to assume certain things about them. Is it fair to assume that because I am male, white, middle class and western that I share the hidden brain of that group? It’s a reasonable bet. But such class-based categorisation depends on a lack of information about the individual with whom you are actually dealing. Suppose, as you get to know me, that I turn out to be actively trying to overcome those attitudes in favour of a more equalitarian view. Suppose you find that I try very hard to treat all comers civilly and equally. Suppose I do not oppress minorities. Are you excused from treating me civilly because of my membership of a class that you despise?

Think very hard about that. It’s in effect to justify discrimination on the basis of what groups someone falls into. Sure, you are doing it for the Very Best of Intentions, but we know where roads thusly paved lead. If you cannot reason with me because I am white, male and all the rest, why try? Why not just ignore me, or seek to suppress what I can say by employing any guerilla tactic you can? End justify means, after all (the idea that they do not is, of course, another tool of the patriarchy/capitalist oppressors/other hated group).

It seems to me that there has arisen a split over the last century or more between those who try to employ reasoning (not Reason – that’s an equid of an alternate aposematism) to argue to true conclusions, and those who think reasoning is a matter of social jockeying for power. As a philosopher, I value the former, but I know that we have to recognise that power relations enter into every interaction. Nevertheless, it doesn’t follow that because some conventions disadvantage minorities, that the mere fact of having conventions does; nor is it true that because some people use rules of reason to establish and strengthen their unjust social control, that all uses of reason are of that kind. There are some pretty basic fallacies involved, of the kind that first year students doing reasoning skills are expected to learn.

Don’t get me wrong: academic disputes can get heated and nasty. They can be about who is cock of the yard in this or that field or department. As Kissinger famously stole the saying, academic politics are so vicious because the stakes are so low. But not all, and not even most. By and large, collegiality is the norm, as it would have to be (any society that lacks a general cooperative aspect will shortly cease to be a society, ipso facto). It is not the case that appeals to at least try to be civil to begin with, are unnecessary. Assuming that one cannot be civil with white males, etc., well, that’s just prejudice.

I was most hurt by those who knew me, and had engaged in several years of debates with me, who nevertheless sat back and failed to object when I was being attacked for my pleas for civility because I was a white male d00d. That was basically the reason I left Science Blogs. There are always bullies and those whose first response to anything they do not like is to accuse others and shout. You have to deal with them, but you cannot argue with them, for the shared rules are just not there. So you shrug and move on. But when your character is being attacked, not for anything you may have said or done but because of which class of people you fall into, you expect those who are your friends to come to your defence, and apart from a couple of worthies, none of those I expected would do this did. Oh well, that’s how one works out who is reliable as a friend, I suppose.

So the reasonable response is to disengage, and I did. And in setting up this sanctuary here, I decided that life is too short to continue to fight against those who refuse to even allow that one has the right to debate at all. Which is why I will thank you not to piss on my rug. Until they come to take away my ownership of this place and the right to have it, my rules apply. If you attempt to do that, though, I will get nasty, and I will be right to do so.

Those who have been subjected to discrimination often turn out to be as discriminatory as those they oppose. This is understandable. And I do agree that when you are faced with an opponent who will be aggressive towards you no matter what you say (i.e., who isn’t debating but using only rhetoric and drowning your voice out, like O’Reilly telling his guests to “Shut up!” and then claiming victory), the rules of debate and civility no longer apply. Sometimes that is because the other person is so oblivious of the actual message they are sending that they fail to see that is what they are doing (for example, making a comment about Jews to someone who you do not know is Jewish, or someone you do know is Jewish but you fail to understand how antisemitic your comments are). Their ignorance is no excuse. But that is the last resort. You don’t assume that the slightest hint of aggression indicates you are facing a mass murderer, and kill them. You must make a proportionate response.

That’s all I have to say about civility.

48 Comments

  1. Chris' Wills Chris' Wills

    Well being rude to politicians is normally OK, seeing as they are prone to not telling the truth.

    But that’s just one of my group biases.

    In general civility works, simply because if your opponent is reduced to using invectives they’ve failed.

    I was taught and still hold it to be true that, swearing is a sign of poor education and/or deliberate rudness. In either case why bother arguing just ignore them and fight against their views by other means.

  2. What those who say it is OK to piss on rugs are asserting is that these conventions favour the powerful and defeat the weak before the argument begins.

    What’s ironic in this instance is that incivility is used as a weapon, and the fact it works suggests that those using it are the ones with power.

  3. Argument by analogy is a tricky thing and some people never get the hang of it.

    Unless you have suddenly been given government funds to run your blog as a service to the public, the anology to the Montgomery Bus Authority ain’t even close.

    A somewhat trickier analogy is to the American Interstate Commerce clause, used to force just about all businesses (e.g.. lunch counters) to stop segregating based on race and other such characteristics. But unless you think it is right and proper to allow someone to go into a lunch counter and spit in the other customers’ soup (as long as the spitter is not a white male d00d) you have to do more than make a blanket generalization for the analogy to work.

    But, of course, the real purpose of such an analogy is not to make an argument at all. As Bob notes, it is simply used as a weapon of mass disruption … turning the argument away from the original subject and forcing one’s opponent onto the defensive by having to explain why he really aren’t “Bull” Connor, instead of pressing his own point.

    Effective but cheap … in all senses of the word.

  4. isn’t Bull Connor …

    When is WordPress going to get a preview pane for editing comments?

  5. Debate has become so debased in net.usage that I go with discussion. Not least is that the net seems to consider rug-pissing a prime form of debate. Regardless of that, though, I still prefer discussion (as I elaborate in that post), as debate presumes that neither party will be changing their mind. Debate is a play to an audience, not to the person you’re speaking to. Again, some figure that rug-pissing is a great play to their audience.

    Be all that as it may, I’m more than a little baffled at the notion of a rule against rug-pissing being something that is a defense of the powerful (White Male Patriarchs) against the not-powerful. ‘Pissing contest’ was supposed to be one of those bad things done by the powerful to silence others. And at least at one time (I haven’t been getting the memos lately) one was supposed to ensure a quieter, non-combative, supportive classroom (and other) environment so that the not-powerful would feel more comfortable and able to speak their piece. When did that rule change to you were supposed to tolerate all behaviors? (Or was there a clause that certain classes of people, only, were allowed all behaviors? In which case, how are you, as a blogger, supposed to know that they’re members of the class you’re supposed to tolerate all behaviors from?)

    All that aside, is what would happen if I were to drop my own ‘civility’ comment policy. I blog on climate, and there is a large group of folks that delight in pissing on rugs — the more the better. And I’ve been called names for not letting folks come piss on my rug (well, burn down the house more like, but details). The thing is, the complaints have come from older, white, men — the powerful, in the usage of those complaining of civility. One can look larger scale and see readily that the fear, uncertainty, doubt industry in climate is the powerful and very powerful (major corporations, a definition of power), and skews heavily to older, white, and male (see, for example, John Mashey’s analysis of the signers of the recent APS letter or the speaker’s list at the Heartland Institute’s ‘conferences’). Now, if and as they remain civil, on topic, etc., I have no problem with such folks posting, and some do. That’s to the good.

    Conversely, if and as people not in the FUD business fail to follow the rules, their notes get bounced.

    But, funny thing, w.r.t. the complaints about oppressing the not-powerful. The non-FUD notes have never been bounced for language, just for topicality*. (I do have a rule about the posts having to be on topic. Then again, I also have a regular post — ‘question place’ — which is awfully wide as to what’s on topic.) It is some FUD commenters only that seem to feel it necessary to piss on the rug.

    There’s a related observation on climate blogs. Some pride themselves about letting ‘anything’ be said in their comments. (The ones I’m thinking of are lying in saying this, but no matter.) And what is observed is that their comment sections are so urine- and feces-laden that even the blog owner occasionally complains, wondering where all the informed commentary disappeared to.

    Regarding climate blogs, at any rate, failure have rules on civility and topicality is the fastest route to both having a crappy blog, and to disempowering anyone who is not a major energy company or lover of piss. Just seems an odd sort of goal for the folks critical of your comment policy (and my more gently-worded but fundamentally similar one).

  6. Discourse in the academy shouldn’t always be governed (in the sense that a governor limits RPM in an engine…) by rules about which word should be employed. I also believe that emotion and language need to be used for effect sometimes, just to break through the white noise.

    Do you recall the scene from The Lion in Winter when Henry and Philip meet? Henry says:
    “You haven’t got the feel of this at all, lad.
    Use all your voices.
    When I bellow, bellow back.”

    • J. J. Ramsey J. J. Ramsey

      “When I bellow, bellow back.”

      Trouble is, not all those who bellow want people to bellow back at them. Sometimes what happens is a verbal shoving match. Other times, the bellowers will dish it out but be mad when their targets dish it right back, even if the bellowing back is milder than the original bellow.

  7. You’re right, randwest, but that doesn’t mean one should disobey the rules all the time. Doing something for effect only works if it’s rare.

  8. Jeb Jeb

    I think rules like rug pissing only become a problem if you take a diffrence of opinion to be a sign of disrespect.

    This was certainly the line used in my department as a p.g. student. To hold a diffrent point of view to a senior member of staff was dis-respectfull.

    Its somewhat frustrating as if I don’t agree with something it does not instantly indicate to me that I am correct, I also consider the possibility that it may indicate a problem or fault with my
    own thinking and if a say nothing I am going to learn nothing.

    I only comment on a few blogs where I share the same perspectives as the owners. It would be perhaps at times more usefull to try and engage in places where I don’t agree but the standard academic tactic of ignoring comments and exclusion from disscusion would almost certainly be employed.

    I find I learn a lot from the articles posted but very little from contributing to discussion.

    I also have a tendancy to say nothing if I see a potential fault in other comments for the most part.

    These are wonderfull learning resources but I personaly feel debate can be somewhat limited at times and I learn very little from participation.

  9. jeb jeb

    p.s John I left a comment on Isis that I hope you may find helpfull in resolving this matter.

    Unfortunatly I have personal experiance of some of the issues that surround such matters. Not a thing I like to discuss in private let alone in public but as I think it goes to the heart of the matter I bit the bullet.

  10. jeb – I just read your comment on Isis’ blog. That Wilkins fellow is OK, isn’t he?

    • jeb jeb

      Indeed. People come up with very strange contradictory notions. But then if people did not many of us who use this blog would all be out of study options.

  11. John Wilkins John Wilkins

    My head, which was already the size of a minor planetoid, has reached Jovian proportions…

    • John Wilkins John Wilkins

      … and is mostly gas also.

      • ckc (not kc) ckc (not kc)

        does it have a big spot?

    • John Wilkins John Wilkins

      I don’t like to talk about it. There’s a reason I use an avatar.

      • Right, let’s get NASA to fire a probe at him.

      • John Wilkins John Wilkins

        Just watch out for my moons, and do not try to take any photos of my hexagonal bottom!

  12. Coming from a rather rough-and-tumble family, I have a cousin who says he’s never impolite; he always shoots the other person before it gets to that point. He’s largely joking.

    I think your point about disengaging is important; arguments have an instrumental value, not an intrinsic value: when they aren’t going to get anyone anywhere, the most fruitful thing is to let them go, and if you’ve already made a sincere and honest attempt to take the other person’s concerns seriously and find that they’re just not returning the favor –then it’s not just reasonable to do it, it’s the wisest thing to do.

    People lose their tempers, sometimes justifiably, sometimes not, and incivility from that is only to be expected on occasion, even in the best of company; but there’s something a tad unreasonable about people for whom incivility is a calculated tactic for painting their opponents as always in the wrong.

    • John Wilkins John Wilkins

      Losing one’s temper is part of being human. I have been known to do it on occasion (not too often, though; even that has instrumental value. If I lost my temper at my last industry job, people would scatter, because I had a rep as a hard to disturb guy; what would make me lose my temper was when someone abused my staff. So it only happened the once).

      But I’m not talking about the occasional flare-up. I’m talking about those who reserve the right to treat others badly because they claim the moral high ground for being abused in the past. Some people who have been abused in the past do not seek this exemption from civil behavior. I do not know many Jews who claim they have an unqualified right to be abusive because they were treated so badly in the past, for instance. But a certain philosophy of “debate” claims an asymmetric right to do just that.

      Incidentally, WRT the “pissing on the rug” thing; I set that up here. Here I am a petty tyrant. I also employ similar rules at my RL home, as my kids will attest. But under your own roof you can pretty much set the rules that suit you, and I have no right to criticise you unless you injure others. So if you dislike rules, don’t have any. I personally think anarchism is a simplistic and ultimately inhuman philosophy, but go for it. Just not here. Dada is gaga IMO.

      • jeb jeb

        The history of Gaelic Scotland provides a clear historic example of the abused becoming the abuser.

        It was interesting to watch the research break that identified the extent of Gaelic involvment in slavery after the clearances.

        As it involved both re-drawing accepted pictures of Gaelic identity and the African American community as well.

        Many slaves were Gaelic speakers and to some extent influenced by Gaelic culture; the roots of identity proved more complex than straight African origin and the image of the persecuted Gaelic speaker also had to adjust and accept it was capable of also playing a very diffrent role in history.

        A very emotive and highly charged subject.

  13. John, it’s your blog. You get to run it how you like. I like the way you run it, and your “pissing on the carpet” analogy is a good one.

    If someone comes into my living room, they won’t be welcome if they start to insult or harangue me or the other guests. They can disagree with me or others who are present in a friendly, polite way, but if they are not there in a spirit of friendship, and they insist on continuing to demonstrate it, they can piss off.

    The bottom line is that entry to my living room is a privilege not a right. I am not the government, and no one has a right to say whatever they want in my particular space.

    I think it’s perfectly legitimate for you to treat your private blog as analogous to your living room, and I’m trying to follow your good example (though my own application of the principle may be idiosyncratic).

    • Ian H Spedding FCD Ian H Spedding FCD

      I agree entirely, particularly with the point about entry being a privilege not a right. I don’t know if that warning has helped but this blog certainly isn’t pestered by the carpet-pissers in the way that, say, Pharyngula is. Being boring probably helps. Not that I think this is boring, of course, but for most of the regular CP-ers the subject-matter probably is.

  14. I wouldn’t piss on your carpet because I’d probably end up having to sleep on it if I came to visit.

    • John Wilkins John Wilkins

      Well you’re not coming to visit now, if that’s the only reason.

  15. Jeb Jeb

    You always give the impression of someone fully house trained Thony but it does look like you may pose a clear and present danger to the local lamp -post’s.

  16. Pierce R. Butler Pierce R. Butler

    Since precision of language seems to be a cardinal virtue around here, I feel it obligatory to call out the carpet-defiler who uttered:

    Suppose I do not oppress minorities… because some conventions disadvantage minorities…

    The problem, of course, is that on occasion majorities are those with legitimate complaints of oppression: apartheid South Africa comes to mind, and those of a certain chromosomal configuration may have a word or two on the subject. (We are of course compelled not to refer to those of us with income at or below the median, as doing so would constitute class warfare, which naturally the better people in society never perpetrate.)

    I was about to suggest “underdog” as a more appropriate term, but my canid companion – who does spend much of his time close to the ground – found the implications unsuitable. This leaves us with “oppressee”, a wordoid for which Google could find only a mere 7,020 links, suggesting that even Monty Python has failed to recognize its rightful stature. We must form a committee at once!

  17. MPL MPL

    Why is it that when something like this happens, people seem to try to anonymize their discussions of it? I followed a bunch of links, and almost all the discussions seemed to be carried on in pronouns—“the original commenter”, “the same person”, “him” etc.

    Is it some sort of instinctual community-repair effort, a hope that removing the names might remove the tempers?

    • John Wilkins John Wilkins

      Interesting question. Yes, I suspect it is a way to defuse the situation and make the topic less personal. Besides, calling the original poster “that rat bastard” offends.

  18. jeb jeb

    I found this odd to start now it gets even stranger.

    • MPL MPL

      Maybe we could all just switch to hardwood floors?

      • John Wilkins John Wilkins

        You’ll notice I say “don’t piss on the floor”, not “the carpet” or “the rug”. Also I hardly ever use the phrase “you controlling bitch”.

      • MPL MPL

        > You’ll notice I say “don’t piss on the floor”,
        > not “the carpet” or “the rug”.

        I stand (continently) corrected.

        > Also I hardly ever use the phrase “you
        > controlling bitch”.

        There really aren’t many proper occasions to, are there?

  19. jeb jeb

    I just do not understand how on earth you can take youre policy and come up with the conclusion drawn in that cartoon.

    • John Wilkins John Wilkins

      Let’s just say they are… overinterpreting things a little.

      • I think that’s a re-enactment of The Henry and Zuska Show (coming to a boxing ring near you soon!). I suspect it isn’t wholly accurate.

  20. I bet you never thought that this was the way that you would finally achieve worldwide fame John!

  21. I really don’t understand what this is all about. I guess you had to be there. 🙂

  22. jeb jeb

    As I take an active interest myself in matters relating to educational exclusion (dyslexia)
    at our rather nice new Scottish Parliament. It also creates some online issues on occasion as some folks find poor spelling to be a grave offence.

    I did a slight bit of digging as I am aware from using the internet for a good few years that the this is my living room etc etc. is used in more than a few places in disclaimer policies.

    I thought the meaning was rather clear and standard.

    Google did yeild up lots of nice offers for cut price sofas but I did manage to get this one.

    Not a blog I follow written perhaps unsurprisingly by a social media commentator on his “living room policy” it’s certainly more in line with how I have come to understand it’s online usage.

    http://redcouch.typepad.com/weblog/2006/10/living_room_com.html

    He links to this from one other social media type. Who would appear to advise the corporate world.

    “I have had many clients ask me about the risks of blogging. How do you keep competitors and arch enemies from taking over the conversation and dissolving the “conversation” into a shouting match?”

    http://overtonecomm.blogspot.com/2006/10/5-tips-to-avoid-comment-hell-dealing.html

  23. Dave Dave

    Wow, some of my favorite t.o folks back in one place for a moment.

    Anway, my apologies for the thread necromancy, but it seems to me that one thing left out of the conversation about civility is the consequences. Those that argue that the rules of civility are a means of oppression (which to me is a different thing than having been used as a means of oppression — just about everything has been used as such at one point in history) are essentially arguing for a right to be rude without repercussion.

    To bring this back to the “living rooms,” while I cannot think of one at the moment, there may be an occasion where “pissing on the floor” is an appropriate thing to do. But if I were to take that action, I would very well expect that you would respond by kicking me out of your house, or in a blog, banning me. Floor-pissing may be a valid and even possibly necessary means of expression, but I dont expect to piss on your floor and have you smile and offer me another cup of tea.

  24. Jeb Jeb

    Sometimes you do need to fire the gun but it always helps to have the bullets and fire it in the correct direction I find.

    Or else you are just left standing with a red nose waving the flag contained in novelty firearms that says bang.

    But manners are the correct target and often the battle line.

    I remember a story told to me conserning an academic from years ago who produced some outstanding work.

    When female students at Edinburgh were granted the privalage of being able to wear trousers the story goes said prof. dressed in mourning dress attending subsquent lectures as if for a funeral until retirment.

    It is with polite customs and manners that these ideas are often reinforced.

    When such “good manners” are broken they cause ill humour and offense. Take Linnaeus musing on the philosophical beard when women first entered university and he remarked (in lecture if memory serves me correct)

    “God gave men beards for ornimental purposes and to distingush them from women.”

    What may appear at first to be floor pissing may be a perfectly valid attempt to change manners, habits and dispositions.

    Sometimes it just looks like floor pissing no matter what it may claim to represent.

  25. “You don’t assume that the slightest hint of aggression indicates you are facing a mass murderer, and kill them. You must make a proportionate response.”

    “Ah, but it’s a slippery slope!”,

    whispered the Devil, with a glint in his eye.

    • John Wilkins John Wilkins

      President Andrew Jackson said “It’s a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word.” And read some uncorrected Hobbes, sometime!

      • English spelling had not been standardised in the 17th century and if you want an illiterate scientist read some of Newton’s manuscripts.

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