A blog that I like to read has in the last few months become almost unreadable due to a numbingly endless series of posts by so-called "trolls" espousing right wing points and positions. The main problem stems from the grinding repetition of stupid "talking points" and a particularly arrogant and triumphalist tone, encouraged by an apparently irresistible urge on the part of the readership to argue with them, no matter how painfully stupid the topic.But lately it's occurred to me that there's another thing these "trolls" do that I find grating. They start at least half their posts by referring to "you libs". Now, I am completely comfortable with the shorthand description of my general political outlook as "liberal". I've always preferred it to the more weaselly "progressive", which was mostly adopted because the political right was able to successfully demonize the word "liberal".
But while I can broadly be characterized as a liberal, I, and most of my political fellow-travelers, are not in lockstep on every position when you begin to speak in terms of specific issues. In fact, unlike the more doctrinaire "conservatives" (the most ardent of which most certainly are NOT), you will find a very wide set of opinions among the people who populate the left-of-center continuum. In some areas I am very liberal, in others, much less so.
But in thinking about it, it occurs to me that definitions like this are essentially asking the wrong question. It's as if you and I were having a conversation and I suddenly left my chair, floated into the air and flew around the room, and you asked me what I could see from up there. The right question would be what caused me to be able to fly? Politically, this is also the right question. What informs my positions, what is it that brings me to these positions?
The thing I find most appalling about the extreme right wing in American political thought is their utter lack of compassion and their undervaluation of their community. Whether it is the deaths of a hundred thousand Iraqi women and children or their neighbor's loss of their house due to their lack of health insurance, the right wing refuses to endorse a position that could prevent either. It seems to me that my positions are mostly based on compassion and community. America is going to spend a certain amount of money. I'd like to see that money spent to help Americans be healthy, educated and secure. I'd like to see that money spent more on raising people up and improving their lives than on killing them.
If they were truly opposed to ALL spending equally, then I'd have more respect for their position. It would still be insane, but at least it would be consistent. Instead, they seem to have no problems with international military adventures and unspeakably massive spending on what we have euphemistically come to call "defense". But spending American money to help Americans, whether they be sick, out of work, homeless or old is something they continue to rail against, and seek at every opportunity to obstruct. I don't understand this sort of thinking - it just cannot be reconciled. Just as the same people who feel it is within their purview to control a woman's personal medical and reproductive decisions because to abort a fetus is killing, and killing is never acceptable are the ones who rabidly support wars, occupations and capital punishment. They should call themselves the party of cognitive dissonance.
It is beyond frustrating to even have to have this argument, let alone endlessly repeated, over and over. How do you argue with someone who is taking a position against their own better interests? How do you overcome this kind of indoctrination, that causes people to passionately support those who would see them lose everything and die hard rather than offer them a hand? What can you say? President Obama has said some hopeful things, but it is clear that there are powerful forces deploying to resist his attempt to make America a more compassionate place. I am not, frankly, optimistic.
posted by mikey @ 12:59 PM
9 Comments:
The power of tribal identification is strong, especially in the authoritarian mindset.
In fact, it's funny how often you see it in trollcomment. If one liberal says something, all liberals must believe it; it's the way authoritarians think, and there's trouble comprehending that others might not.
The 'othering' is a part of it too. Having an Enemy has been hardwired into the Right for forty years now, and The Left or Liberals fill a niche as easily as Blacks or Gays or Nazis.
It's funny though to see Troll behavior, because it's pretty easy to identify. The returning ones have found a few easy buttons to push, and jump into any thread, about anything, to change the subject to the best bait. There's enough commenters that someone ALWAYS rises to bite.
And I'm as tainted as anyone; I've bitten at the bait myself once or twice; including an epic battle with AA and Shoelimpy.
But I think I'm getting better, really I do.
Trolls don't look as cute as the one in the illustration, do they?
I've always preferred "progressive" to liberal. To me, a liberal is someone who somewhat understands how rotten everything is, but is too invested in the system to bring about the radical change necessary.
Either way, there's little about which to be optimistic.
In case you didn't know (& if you give a flying whatever) today's your man Houseman's 150th birthday.
Thanks Bouffant!
That's covered in Win.
Hmm. I wonder why Google didn't do a special logo today.
Must be something wrong with my browser...
mikey
I finally stopped trying to reason with conservatives after reading Dr. George Lakoff's books about framing - not just Don't Think of an Elephant but his big book Moral Politics and also Dr. Altemeyer's book on the Authoritarian Personality (and writing a book myself that uses a lot of information from these two guys). It made me understand that they literally do not hear facts if those facts conflict with their worldview.
I don't engage them in argument because there is no chance of reasonable dialogue when you're dealing with a mindset that is formed at the subconscious level and is therefore impervious to fact. If a fact and a frame collide, the fact slides off and the frame remains. I saved myself much frustration once I understood that.
Have you ever, and I mean ever, convinced a conservative to see your side of an arguyment through a relentless introduction of facts? I haven't.
Not only am I not a psychiatrist, I have severe doubts about Frist-like analysis from a distance. Now that we're past the product warning label...
Part of the problem is the authoritarian-followers' desperate need for a source that has an air of power. Example 1: We joke about the search for the vault copy of Obama's birth certificate, but there are people who really believe that some piece of paper somewhere has more meaning than Hawaii's statement of its public records. Example 2: The justification for hundreds of billions in military spending but not for national health care is that the constitution mentions the latter but not the former and how can we go against the literal words of the founders? Example 3: My introduction to the wonderful world of inter-tube trolls came on a religion forum (where, in a strict sense, I may have been classified as a troll, but I did not engage in troll-like behavior). I was astonished at the fundamentalists' ability to memorize and swear by a literalist interpretation of the bible while completely missing the meaning of every passage.
Part of this kind of trollery seems to be anger at those of us who recognize the world for the contingent, relativist, socially-determined mess it is. If you want an instruction manual of under four pages written in 24-point Comic Sans, our views must be maddening.
In my only comments on said site I was guilty of said transgressions not too long ago. I am guilty and embarrassed as I now see what you mean. Today Retardo had a "shorter" post up about Pipes and Israel. There were already over 100 comments when I checked the page. Was it insightful commentary on how warped the right wing and some dems narrative is regarding Israel? Fuck no, it was all, "Bookmark this, Libs." and 200 variants along those lines. It is to the point where any post there that contains over 100 comments is instant red flag to not read past the end. The trolls? They won man, and we are all kind of worse off for it.
I've mostly been reading with filters off lately. Much better, but still some repetitive awful when people just cannot let go of this notion that they have something to say to trolls.
Between the killfile and Tintin running the disemvoweler, it's become bearable.
Plus, it's hilarious to watch the trolls flail when they realize they're being disemvoweled.
Followed immediately by being appalled at the commenters who feel the need to decrypt the disemvoweled to continue responding....
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