There are two comments here on the Motte that have, for the past month or so, been sitting amidst the 71 tabs I've got opened in my browser.
The two comments are fairly different;
The first is a more personal meditation on the human desire to 'be a good person', and how that may or may not align with the equally-human desires to 'fit in', and 'pursue Truth'.
The second is a political argument over whether Democrats/progressives/libs are the real hypocrites, and whether or not they were the ones to 'defect first' in the game of American partisan politics; pretty standard stuff around here, really.
The thing they have in common is that I've been intending to respond to them.
And yet, I haven't.
Part of this is due to a dynamic that ought to be familiar to anyone with a maladaptive relationship with deadlines- if you're late turning something in, the longer you wait afterwards to get around to it, the harder it becomes to ever actually do it; it's easy to put it off for a day or two or three, and before you know it, a week's gone by, and length of the delay in your response might raise some eyebrows when you eventually do respond. Repeat this cycle a few times, and eventually a month or two has passed you by- at which point, you might as well just not bother to respond at all- assuming you're even still in the same headspace necessary to give a coherent response, and that events in the meantime haven't made your response irrelevant, the other person's really going to wondering about your penchant for necro-ing old threads.
A larger part, however, comes down to a much simpler -and much less easily overcome- barrier:
Why bother?
In my very first comment on this site, I noted that the 'two screens' effect is very real, and that the picture that the screen the self-identified 'Red Tribers' on this site are watching is showing a very different picture than the one the few self-identified 'Blue Tribers' still active on this site are watching.
This isn't particularly surprising. For decades, Americans have been slowly but steadily self-segregating along 'tribal' lines; fewer and fewer of us spend much time interacting with other Americans radically different from ourselves. We might live in the same neighborhoods, frequent the same shops and restaurants, and be theoretically 'close' to each other (or not; the same self-segregating dynamic increasingly applies to physical locations as well), but it's increasingly rare for us to ever actually interact with our Others to any real extent.
Combined with the general shifts in how people interact with and perceive what are 'their' communities (triply so in the online age!), the balkanization of 'common' hobbies & interests, the fracturing of the media landscape, and the overall decline in common cultural touchstones and trusted authorities, the end is result is that nowadays its easier than ever for all of us to live in our own Bespoke Realities™. It isn't just that political polarization & disagreements are tenser & higher-profile then they've been in decades (though they are!); now, we no longer even need to have similar conceptions of what it is we're even arguing over in the first place!
I can rage over how Republicans are trying to destroy the government and intentionally harm millions of the worst-off Americans with their new tariff, tax, & budget idiocies- and you can scoff and dispute my entire framing, say how I'm being absurdly hyperbolic and hysterical.
You can denounce the large-scale concerted push by progressives to trans the nations youth; to turn them into Marxist-indoctrinated eunuchs conscripted as soldiers in the frontlines of the culture wars. I can roll my eyes and say there is no such phenomenon, and it's all a conservative bogeyman.
Etc, etc.
So in light of this situation, where we not only argue endlessly about the most basic facts of any given political disagreement, without either side ever having to concede to either the opposition's arguments, or even their basic worldview and underlying framing of the situation...
Why bother?
Why bother continuing to argue (and especially why bother continuing to argue online- an exercise in futility if I ever heard one!) when doing so is unlikely to change the other person's mind?
Why bother continuing to argue when the people I'm disagreeing with seem to have beliefs & experiences so wildly opposite of my own that I have to wonder if we're even living in the same country?
Why bother continuing to argue when people I disagree with just seem like they fundamentally can't be reasoned with at all?
And especially why bother continuing to argue when doing so is only likely to be """rewarded""" with mass-downvotes and distributed dogpiles by commentators on a forum you don't even really like, and only stick around on out of some sort of... IDK, perverse masochism, I guess?
Seems kinda pointless to me, tbh.
Despite my faint hopes, the dysfunction in this country appears to be acclerating.
We seem to be waiting on the precipice, holding our breath to see if the next few days heralds the opening salvos of the beginning of true, active civil conflict.
So I ask again- why bother? Is the time for talking over?
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
First of all: It's fun
Motte takes every possible step to be more grownup, but even this place can't escape the ultimate nature of political forums and maybe even human interaction in general - conflict, polemics, trying to appear clever, one upping each other, play. This place is a bit of an outlier, but internet forums are mostly for enjoying speechcraft skills of others, and exercise my own when (I'm under impression that) I have something witty to say. I find it inherently rewarding, if you don't, well, too bad.
Another reason why is to polish your own thoughts.
Writing is inherently more rigorous than just letting thoughts float inside your head and things that feel vaguely sound may turn out to be less so when properly formulated, so you get a lot of the value even before pressing "post"
Yet there's only so much you can think of on your own. Bouncing your thoughts against others helps in ways that are hard to really quantify.
An entirely different human being can say things you'd never think of, bite back with retorts that help you understand your own values and beliefs better even if you ultimately don't change your mind.
Talking to others can force you into creative exercises like "explain this thought as if you're speaking to someone mentally challenged and/or separated from you by great inferential distance" which is also illuminating.
I sympathize with your sense of alienation. People can be vastly different, and can often feel insane and incomprehensible. Overall, most of them are relatively stupid, so their words can be explained away by them being hopelessly confused.
That said, I'm convinced that there exist divides between human mental architectures that are more profound than just political disagreements, and language more often serves to conceal the true depth of that gulf than to bridge it.
Next time you argue with someone saying what is seemingly just stupid and offensive, consider the possibility that if you somehow truly understood him you would recoil, and inherent limitations of language, as well as your mind's reflexive attempts to parse inputs as something you think is reasonable both do you a favor.
Overall, just treat people, especially faceless strangers on the internet less seriously, they don't deserve it. Let others sink or swim on their own merit.
Came here to post this. Arguing online is entertaining. I possibly spent too much time in high school debate club as a teen
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