Why is it that online, people are willing to regularly interact with those that if they happened to meet in the flesh they would in all likelihood despise?<\/p>\n
Up until recently, I used to frequent various web forums in which many of the debates were lively and far ranging in subject: from religion to politics to Iraq to Israel to culture and, erm, back to Israel again. In short, topics which would appear on a British blog on any given morning. Like commentors on blogs, opinions tended to be polarised, simplistic: things were either Good or Bad. Thatcherism was either evil or not. The USA is either evil or not. Fox hunting is either evil or not. You know the stuff.<\/p>\n
For a few years I used to enjoy the debates, putting a view forward, digging up links to back it up, relishing in crushing an opponent having first led him into a cunning trap; not so much seeing your argument brutally torn apart and leaving you feeling naked, realising that you really should have fought on firmer ground. <\/p>\n
It is a pretty obvious fact that online, people often mix with their ideological opponents as much as they mix with those whose views they share – and to a far greater extent than they would do in the real world. I have little idea why this is, other than that the internet is a better medium for arguing than say, across the floor of a pub, where things could end up outside on the street. It can hardly be deemed unhealthy to mix with people of vastly different opinions, and having ones views challenged on a regular basis not only keeps the mind sharp but serves to identify those ideas which are held dear from those on which you can be turned; knowing exactly what you believe in is probably difficult for those who have never had to present their point of view and receive criticism in return.<\/p>\n
However, where I have found myself increasingly put off from contributing to online debates is those in which I find myself arguing with people not just with different opinions from my own, but with people with vastly different values. Having a difference of opinion and sharing the same values makes for a decent and lively debate where the rules of the contest are known and need not be stated. Having an argument with someone who shares neither your opinion or values is neither fun nor of any benefit whatsoever (except perhaps to make you grateful that you turned out like you are). This might seem like I’m stating the obvious here, but for a long time I used to spend time in the virtual company of people whose values were completely different from mine, and it never occurred to me that the reason I stopped enjoying it was because their values – not their opinions – were vastly different from mine. Looking back, I can see clearly now that those who I enjoyed debating with the most were those that shared my values – in exactly the same way that all the people who inhabit my offline world share my values.<\/p>\n
Rather unsurprisingly, in the real world my friends do not state openly and without shame that the 9\/11 attacks were fully justified. They do not excuse the murder of innocent civilians by ‘militant’ or ‘resistance’ groups. They do not shrug off the deaths of millions of people as being an acceptable cost of advancing an idea, nor do they try to convince me that shooting a 13 year old boy in cold blood and throwing his body down a mineshaft was an act necessary to right previous wrongs. I rarely, if ever, find myself breathing the same air as somebody who thinks Bush is the same as Hitler and that Che Guevara’s life is to be celebrated. And not one of my friends or acquaintances with whom I’ve had a drink has espoused a wish for Thatcher to develop cancer whilst mourning the passing of Yasser Arafat.<\/p>\n
All of the above, so thankfully absent from my offline world, were an almost daily occurence in my online one. So why did I choose to keep such company for so long, when in the real world I would have looked on them with only scorn and contempt? I have no idea. But I have found I enjoy surfing the internet far more since I decided that I will not communicate with those who do not share my values, whatever their opinions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Why is it that online, people are willing to regularly interact with those that if they happened to meet in the flesh they would in all likelihood despise? Up until recently, I used to frequent various web forums in which … Continue reading