Last Thursday I had a Law & Economics class where someone really got to me. We share the class with the University of Washington's Evans School of Public Policy, which sounds impressive and important, but is, in fact, a bunch of people for whom either four years of political science wasn't enough, or who want to legitimize their empty-headed political ideas by getting a degree in them. But I digress.
Anyway, one of the Evans School dudes was really needling me. He was sooooo smug, and nothing sets me off like smug. Arrogance, jerkiness, rudeness - all those things I can deal with, but smugness, especially from someone who has no right to be smug, really gets my goat.
I had stayed home that morning to work on a paper, and drank a whole pot of coffee. Then on my way in, some promoters were giving out free Monster Energy Drinks on the Ave. (I'm pretty much assuming those types of drinks will be illegal in your time.) I was FLYING in class, and particularly strident. And the dude was needling, eye rolling, interjecting bumper sticker wisdom... And partly because of the lack of sleep the night before and the over caffeination, I left madder than hell.
I don't think it's that the smug dude was extraordinary, especially by Seattle standards. In fact, I think it was that he is completely typical for this place. I think the fact that he was the norm all around me was what got me.
The next day, it came out that the National Security Administration had been collecting telephone data for years, and had been using it to construct calling patterns to locate terrorists. This isn't the first time such a secret program has been outed by reporters with misplaced priorities, but the wailing and gnashing of teeth was audible all over the city. Perusing the local fishwrap (is it still fishwrap if it's on line, even if that's still all it's good for?), I came across a forum full of smug and self righteous fools who were convinced the Great Orwellian Nightmare was finally upon us.
Now, I know that arguing on the internet is pretty much useless - ESPECIALLY when you do it anonymously. But I pretty much wanted to vent. So I went on, raged about hippies, and explained to them how dumb they all were. Which they were. I even threw in some facts, which were ignored haughtily by the elitists. So I raged some more, got one of them to rage back about how rich and successful he was in between his complaints about "The Corporations", had another explain I was covering up the 9/11 conspiracies, and had yet others take a break from calling all Republicans fascists and Nazis to explain how I was unpersuasive because I threw the word "hippy" around a lot. I kept going back, because for some reason I really, really needed to expend the rage and energy. It's frustrating to be a conservative in this town and in a huge university, where common sense is an uncommon virtue. So basically I was just taking the opportunity to shout at every stupid thing I'd ever heard or seen since I moved here, with the Prince of Smug from class foremost in my mind. And for awhile it felt really good. I'm not gonna lie.
But, of course, that kind of emotion takes a lot of energy to sustain. I let it run its course, and while I didn't change any minds (although one guy offered to vote for me), it felt good for me, until it tuckered me out. Now I just think it's funny.
There's a couple of lessons in this. First, anonymous debate on the internet rarely has anything to do with debate. Mostly it's just repeating platitudes and shouting at each other, ignoring things that don't fit into your point of view already, and looking for the dumbest things your opponents say so you can feel smarter than them. This is true even if you actually ARE smarter than them. Which is why it's also true that arguing on the internet is like running in the Special Olympics...
(Hopefully, you will be horrified that I would ever have thought that was funny. But it's just too apt.)
That's not always bad, sometimes it's cathartic. But it's not a process by which you inspect and attack ideas to test their veracity. It's just chest thumping.
It's also hate-feeding. Fortunately, I just got exhausted with it. But I can see how scholars turn personally bitter over scientific disagreements, and why people can't let go of it. Self-righteous indignation - ESPECIALLY when you're actually both right and justifiably indignant - feels so, so good. It also feels good when you're wrong, though, leading to a false sense of being right. And chasing that feeling is really what those message boards are all about.
It's funny, as I sit here and type this, how this makes me feel just the opposite as I did when furiously pounding away on my keyboard spewing unfettered and well deserved bile at hippies everywhere, past, present, and future. I could almost feel my soul twist when I was doing that. But this? This makes me happy - I'm calmer, feel full of joy, and have regained the sense that things are actually pretty much right in the universe. So thanks for that. It's a benefit of writing this blog to you that I didn't anticipate. So I guess the other thing is that it's a good reminder how poisonous argument (instead of debate) can really be, and to know when to do what. And why debate is best done with your real name attached, so you still feel like a human being who can be held accountable later - which is why I do it that way on the Federalist Society blog.
So as I was about to type this rambling story, I saw a good capper for it. Senator John McCain, whom you will have either never heard of or will be President when you are born, gave a graduation speech at a notoriously fundamentalist Christian university. The founder of the University is a man named Jerry Falwell, who is pretty much a complete jackass, and has said some things that make most Christians just shake their heads. McCain himself called him an "agent of intolerance" a few years back, and so everyone was wondering how and if that was going to come up - especially now that McCain is running for President and has to reach out to the Christian conservatives.
What he said was brilliant, and so apt to what was on my mind, that I just had to share it. Here's Byron York's telling of it:
When McCain rose to speak, he did not return the tribute. In fact, he mentioned Falwell's name exactly once, when he said, "Thank you, Dr. Falwell." Then McCain began what seemed to be a boilerplate graduation-address introduction, talking about what a know-it-all he had been when he was young and how he became much less certain of his rightness as he grew older. But he was in fact laying the premise for everything to come. He loved to argue back then, McCain said, and arguing is still a good thing. In fact, we owe it to ourselves to argue. "We have our disagreements, we Americans," McCain told the students. "It is more than appropriate, it is necessary that even in times of crisis, especially in times of crisis, we fight among ourselves for the things we believe in."
That led McCain to the most disagreed-upon issue in American politics today, the war in Iraq. He supported the decision to go to war, he said, and he still does. But he respects those who disagree and believes Americans "should argue about this war." "If an American feels the decision was unwise, then they should state their opposition, and argue for another course," McCain said. "It is your right and your obligation. I respect you for it." And then, with a Lincolnesque touch, he added, "But I ask that you consider the possibility that I, too, am trying to meet my responsibilities, to follow my conscience, to do my duty as best as I can, as God has given me light to see that duty."
With that, McCain moved on to that third way of dealing with his clashes with Falwell, and, by extension, with millions of Christian conservatives who might not necessarily follow Falwell but who were put off by McCain's attacks in 2000. "Let us argue with each other then," he said:By all means, let us argue. Our differences are not petty, they often involve cherished beliefs, and represent our best judgment about what is right for our country and humanity. Let us defend those beliefs. But let us remember, we are not enemies. We are compatriots defending ourselves from a real enemy. We have nothing to fear from each other. We are arguing over the means to better secure our freedom, promote the general welfare and defend our ideals. It should remain an argument among friends; each of us struggling to hear our conscience, and heed its demands; each of us, despite our differences, united in our great cause, and respectful of the goodness in each other. I have not always heeded this injunction myself, and I regret it very much.
Brilliant. It wasn't the standard drivel about how we should all get along, or about how at the end of the day, our differences don't matter. Because they do matter. But giving people the benefit of the doubt when it comes to their motives and intentions will make you a batter person, more able to communicate with people and to move them your way.
I hope he winds up being a guy you've heard of.
Love, Dad.
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