Are we breeding civil, substantive racists and misogynists?

Politics and religion
1

I found this exchange on Hacker News fascinating.

I think the relevant guideline puts it well:

Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

The inadequacy of this guideline and couching most moderation along its lines is why the problem and ‘dynamics’ as tptacek puts it, exist in the first place.

The site selects for and breeds civil, substantive racists and misogynists (along with the hyper-sensitized responses) like a hospital breeds antibiotic-resistant superbugs.

I can see selects for, but breeds seems a stretch. Unless you mean breeds civility within racists and misogynists, which seems beneficial?

Yes, mostly the second thing. It’s the opposite of beneficial - because the guidelines say ‘don’t be a meanie/obvious blowhard’ and most people who get called out for anything are called out for something along those lines, bigots who adapt to these can and sometimes do last on the site for years.

HN’s mods put in a great deal of effort in and are surprisingly successful at containing the far more basic and common human impulse to be a jerk to strangers online. They have rules, they enforce them, they publicly shame rulebreakers, etc. You are explicitly not allowed to be an asshat on HN and everyone knows it. The place would be better if ‘don’t be a bigot’ got the same treatment. All caps users and transgressors against HN’s fundamentalist quotation marks cult are exposed to more public opprobrium than your typical “human biodiversity” sea lion.

I had never thought about it this way, but he’s right – a racist, misogynist, or bigoted line of argument is far more dangerous when it is draped in the robes of overt civility. So to the extent that we are teaching people …

Hey, it’s OK to say racist / sexist / bigoted things, as long as you say them in a civil, substantive manner

… we are indirectly creating much more powerful racists / sexists / bigots, who will become immune to less sophisticated moderators who will only see “well, what this person is saying is kind of morally abhorrent, but they aren’t saying it in a mean way…”

2

I’d say this is directly relevant to Anonymity, Trump supporters, the right-wing media, and the gman account as well.

4

Let’s use Charles Murray as a hypothetical case-- civil and substantive, all right. Do we want him on our forum? (I’d say yes, because sweeping the racists under the rug is no longer an available option, but I could be persuaded otherwise.) If we let him in, are we training other racists to be civil and substantive?

5

As long as people are only looking for big, offensive, trolly statements like “Hitler did nothing wrong!” then yes, we are just training people to be more subtle. When someone can walk into your community and start “just asking questions” or “look for a discussion” of the merits of ethnic cleansing or about how white Europe is committing suicide at the hands of the invading hoard, you’ve got a problem.

But even on this board there are several different types. Some are purists and just want to engage in a discussion with anyone, no matter how abhorrent. Others say that even giving these bigots the time of day is a bridge too far and that they should be banned outright.

So it’s complicated. I find myself more towards the “fuck those guys, ban them” side. I think they’re taking advantage of our liberal democracy’s desire to engage in a discussion with another willing party in good faith in order to come to a satisfactory conclusion. They’ve weaponized that very effectively.

6

This is a stupid thread. Not only is the setup meaningless – who the fuck cares about Hacker News? – but it hides the underlying struggle the left has been engaged in for years now by setting up racists on one side of the argument.

The real problem that has shaken the faith of progressives, and that we’ve talked about in multiple threads on this forum, is whether to continue believing in the long-standing progressive principle of rational discourse or resort to an emotional response to quickly shout down anything vaguely related to unprogressive thought. And the victims aren’t racists but rather true believers in progressivism like Yale professors that want to have a calm exchange about cultural appropriation without getting screamed at, but can’t because they fall in the wrong place on the victimization totem pole.

Might as well close the thread and try again.

7

The other implied question is

exactly what is morally abhorrent, and who decides that?

… certainly over the arc of history, our thinking on morality has shifted. Slavery used to be A-OK 300 years ago, for one thing.

To put a finer point on it in today’s terms:

Which morally repugnant arguments? The ones that justify the cold-blooded murder of innocent babies? Or the ones that justify the patriarchy’s control over women’s bodies?

and

A black person continually asked to consider — just hypothetically, just for a moment — whether she was possibly inferior to other humans would have to be masochistically broad-minded to entertain this challenge more than a few times before dismissing it, and the sort of people who presented it, forever.

8

We all decide this for ourselves.

9

image
image.jpg540×960 37.7 KB

10

Let me take a stab:

There is a difference between “Sweeping <insert your favorite “oppressed” idea> under the rug” and refusing to engage in further debate about a settled issue with every outwardly-calm ideologue who happens by. Hitler did not, in fact, do nothing wrong, and while free speech is a great thing, re-opening debate about that issue cannot in any serious way be considered substantive.

So the moderators of a forum that wanted to be maximally “inclusive” of these sorts of debate, would at the very least have dedicated threads to some of the most hot-button issues and delete or move all posts on those issues that aren’t made in those threads. Ideally, there would also be a way to “close debate” on an issue; perhaps the best way to do that would be to let each individual decide to set a thread to “settled” for their own mind and then the thread itself would appear in a different section of the forum.

Under a system like this, you might be willing to debate Charles Murray on the question of whether or not Kennedy’s replacement should be voted on prior to seating the new Congress, but you would not want to see any posts from him with “innocent” questions about Maxine Waters’ IQ.

I have another thing to add: for a forum that doesn’t want to engage in the level of moderation required to implement my suggestion above, the main solution is for forum members to “shout down” people who try to derail into these discussions. Perhaps that could be improved if there was a way to report a post or even line-item down-vote a post, with a specific citation for the “non-substantive” points within it (as opposed to the broader “I flag this for being a meanie”). Simply using 50 words in complete sentences with calm phrasings doesn’t make your post substantive.

11

image

12

I had the same thought. I can easily envision a racist being civil. I have a harder time imagining them being substantive.

13

It is very true that “political / religious issue” topics are an order of magnitude (maybe even more than that) more likely to generate problems. We saw this on our first Discourse beta site at Boing Boing, and it’s still true today.

It’s almost like you need two different moderation systems: a lightweight one for the easy stuff (everything else) and a heavyweight one for hardcore mode (politics / religion), and it should be triggered per-topic. If the site admins aren’t willing to incur the emotional labor of heavyweight moderation, they probably should disallow politics & religion altogether, to be honest.

This is why codes of conduct typically outlaw this stuff (and by this stuff, I mean racism / sexism / bigotry) from the outset. For example from https://www.contributor-covenant.org/

making participation in our project and our community a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of age, body size, disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, level of experience, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.

14

Fair warning - this thread comes fairly close to having me say I’m triggered in a completely serious way. For the most part that means that this might be long, slightly rambling, and not as composed as normal. Those of you that have already decided I’m a sea lion, a tool, an idiot, or just a civil racist aren’t going to be swayed but at least if I type this I’ll stop thinking about typing this.

The background has mostly been said before. I’m the embodiment of privilege (cis, white, male, secular but with not completely antagonistic feelings for faith, and more or less middle class) but I feel fairly aware of this and try to act on this awareness. Generally grew into an Enlightenment / Classical Liberal identity yet over time I have come to feel that Classical Liberalism goes too far in prioritizing the individual over the group.

The problem is that I am a moderate. Not just a political centrist but specifically a moderate who feels that pursuing even a good goal to excess leads to bad consequences. Yes, it might be privilege that allows me to hold this view. To me Wumpus’s seemingly rhetorical question of who decides what is morally abhorrent isn’t a rhetorical question. It’s a statement that the same people who say we need to divide things fine enough that everyone should recognize that there is a difference between pansexuality and bisexulaity and acknowledge that difference when labeling things by constantly adding letters are the same people who want to declare that there is no possible distinction in anyone who isn’t publicly 100% toeing the party line.

To quote from the same NY Times story quoted earlier in the thread

But as the definition has expanded, even honest critics — people who earnestly disagree with their peers, even by a very little bit — can find themselves accused of discursive sabotage.

As someone who is politically Q (questioning or queer both fit) I find that the idea behind this topic is fundamentally a silencing of my existence. I’ll use an example because Wumpus tossed it out.

Personally I’m pro-choice and have been since I had any feeling on the matter. But I can see a perfectly logical, reasonable, and non-evil person coming to the conclusion that life is life and conception begins at birth. That doesn’t mean that everyone who is anti-abortion has come to their opinion by weighing the harm done to the mother versus the harm done to the baby. Some might be unthinkingly religious, some might be actively misogynistic and view the harm done to the mother as a benefit. But I’m not going to be able to read their minds so my default assumption is that not everyone who opposes my view is evil. Reading the SCOTUS thread I suspect my view is heretical.

Similarly, I am a globalist who would like almost totally open borders and free trade. Yet I some sympathy for those who argue that they are living in areas that have economically lost to a mixture of technology and globalism and our government should do more to help the current citizens instead of others. Intellectually I think they are wrong but while the past me would have stopped at that the current me recognizes the feelings of roots and community in their views. My comment about an emotional dislike of Democrats was given a somewhat dismissive reply. Yet I still think that it is likely that the evil that is Trump won not due to a solid broad base of racism but due to a small core of believers and many emotional converts*. So I call for civility and suggest that the progressives would be better off not tarring 46% of the country with a broad brush but specifically focus their ire. Oops, I guess I just declared I wear a sheet.BTW, fun fact; I get all of my news from NPR and really hadn’t even heard about this meme about Trump supporters calling for civility. I realize that doesn’t matter but I find it interesting.

I don’t want to return to the unending discussions of Usenet but I feel that embracing the idea that all discussion is purely public announcement and activism even on a forum is going too far.

15

I really hate that so many people mix fights to stop racism, sexism and bigots as some sort of progressive or liberal agenda. Here’s the thing, there are conservatives who are women, who are minorities, and who also have little to no tolerance for racism, sexism or bigotry. It’s not some sort of liberal ploy; it’s not some sort of progressive agenda. It’s life. The fact that so many fall for this line of thinking just tells you how well these bigots mask their actual intent.

16

I have little to add to his excellent post, which reflects my views quite well. But I will say reading this thread is extraordinarily depressing.

I especially find the hubris in this thread astonishing.

Remember. There is a non-zero chance that EVERYTHING you believe in the world, from does your spouse love you, to who is the greatest basketball player, the worse president, and are star trek transporters possible, is completely and totally wrong.

There is almost 100% certainty that SOME thing you believe is wrong.

Now maybe debating these things on internet forum with strangers, isn’t the best way to find out “what you know that ain’t so” but it is hardly the worse.

17

I agree with this completely, but I think the argument being run here is that everything is worth debating EXCEPT racism and misogyny. Those are two things that we as a group hold to be self-evident.

Even your founders set this at the very top of their declaration. All people are created equal. You can debate anything but that. That’s my take anyway. E.g. tolerate everything except intolerance etc… Of course this can lead to its own problems, but I think that is the perspective.

18

Well who decides what qualifies as racism and misogny? Does believing that woman should generally get custody of children, how about that the Navy SEAL should be required to accept woman qualify as misogny? Is it racist to believe that it is ok for Harvard discriminate against Asian students, or that affirmative action for African-American students is wrong? See I’m not 100% certain of the answer to any of these questions, and I’d like to see all sides get an opportunity to argue those points.

19

Again, I personally agree with you. Grey areas should get the benefit of the doubt and be open topics. Yet I also think it’s crazy to believe there isn’t a line here, a point where reasonable minds can all agree that something is overtly racist.

Where that line is depends on the community, for instance I’ve been in a church where anything other than “X are sub - human” is acceptable.

My own view is if someone comes in defending Trump characterizing Mexican immigrants as rapists or thugs, or the idea that a judge can’t be impartial because they’re Latino, or saying that Muslims shouldn’t be allowed in, there’s just no point in having a discussion. I know from bitter experience with a family member that there is nothing to be gained.

20

BTW, yes this is possible even longer. For that my apology is sincere. I do not want to dominate the talk nor do I want to belabor the point but perhaps I am compelled. As I stated earlier; this is as much for me as for anyone else.

Second BTW, just a quick acknowledgement that I realize the Times article is more descriptive. What bothers me is using it as support for enhancing the pace of formal conversion of even rational spaces into ideological spaces with no room for questioning (ie making it prescriptive).

@Nesrie I agree although I also note that you leave it as your side is right and the others are deluded. You might mean that you think they were deluded into voting for someone who is much more overtly racist and evil then they expected. I’m not sure I’d say deluded for that because he’s certainly turned out worse than I expected (I didn’t have high expectations but I didn’t expect this much outright evil) but that is just word choice.

On the other hand it is very possible you mean, I might even say likely from your wording, that as women and as POC these people would automatically agree with the Correct View if only they weren’t deluded. I don’t want to put words in your mouth but “are women, are minorities, and who also …” is a logical statement that denies non-minority men the ability to have “little or no tolerance for racism, sexism, or bigotry.” Not that they might have different priorities of social justice versus economics, Not that they might have been deluded on how evil Trump would be. Not that they might have been biased specifically against Hillary or felt that religion was important to them and the Democrats opposed religion or any other reason.

I’m sorry; as white male I’ll agree completely fine that we should be continually asked to consider - at all times and always because it is The Truth - the fact that we are absolutely inferior to other humans. Yes that’s sarcastic but you’ve about made me swear and I don’t swear so at least paraphrasing a quote from the Times can give me room to pause…

I initially responded because, as a moderate centrist my position can’t exist without debate, discussion, compromise and a recognition that we all have different values but for the most part we can agree on something that is good even if not perfect for anyone. But if the progressives feel that white men, even just white men who voted for Trump, are inherently irredeemable I have reached an ideological impasse because of the idea that all people are created equal.

We can work to remove institutional racism but there will always be bigotry. Sometimes bigots get into positions of power; those will be considered dark times and we hope to minimize them and protect against them. But bigotry is the flip side of friendship. We’re social animals and will always have a bias for those who are close to us in some way. We want to minimize it in the government sphere but we shouldn’t be surprised or shocked when it sneaks in and someone wants to promote USA, USA, USA.

We’re also imperfect. For the past couple of years I’ve taken my robotics team through an engineering design process when the rules for the competition are released. Often they think they have the Solution on how to win the game/make the best robot (making the robot has a couple of extra criteria so they aren’t exactly the same). Then we talk a little more and we change some weights on our criteria and we come up with a different Solution. Between the crowd sourcing of many teams and the head to head competition we will more or less know the Solution at the end but in the beginning we we have to weight our criteria as best we can while realizing that we can’t assume everyone has the same weights or even the same criteria.

Politically its the same. Perhaps I’m naive but I think we need to work with the people we have not the people we want humanity to be. Research shows that there is a noticeable difference between the the moral foundations of different groups.

Moral Foundations

Unless we want to automatically judge some portion of humanity as morally lacking (a judgement that I am not ready to make on a group level even if I might be willing to make it on an individual level) I think we have to accept that different groups weight the criteria differently and possibly even have different criteria.Thus even in good faith individuals within these groups will come to different opinions on political matters

21

Having just typed a long response I hope I can remain short here.

I agree with your examples. I’m less clear about someone who says lets focus our efforts on Americans versus non-Americans. Or even someone questioning how many people attempting to enter are really economically motivated instead of being refugees. I know how I lean but I have a hard time morally condemning someone for a different opinion .

Similarly, a straight Muslim ban is way across the line. A ban on people from states that are Muslim and also fall on an already existing terror list (I know that is not the case of any proposed ban and a terror list is in itself political) might be justifiable if it had clear provisions to protect those who are already here. Of course a ban of people from random countries might not be racist and still make not sense!