Quote:I understand all the rules of the legit talk thread, and will obey them. If I am found to have broken any of the rules, I will refrain from posting in the thread for a week. I understand that the purpose of this thread is to try and maintain discussion in good faith
As someone who occasionally goes completely off the rails at times, I just wanted to post about my experience here.
It seems to me like half the time any problems come up because one or both 'sides' in a conversation decide they no longer need to show any due reverence or respect for the other participants or their conflicting views, and phrase their language in such a fashion that makes that extremely obvious. It's one of those things that you can kind of become blind to because you've been engaging in it for so long that you no longer realize when you're doing it. I'm... not even sure how often I've done this, and honestly, I'm afraid to go back and check.
It's a rather fine-grained distinction to make, and I know some folks frown on the idea of 'tone-policing', but it is simply a part of our reality that we must accept - that people are emotional beings and can and will be prone to acting out emotionally given the proper stimulus to do so. As such, it only makes sense to be very careful in how we articulate ourselves in order to prevent that emotional side from overtaking everything. However, in some cases this may not actually be possible, because the subject itself is an emotionally charged one full of people with passionate stakes in the matter. I know exactly what those issues are for me, and I will not hesitate to admit that I should probably refrain from all topics discussing them, simply because I will not be able to behave in a rational manner.
At the same time, I also think it's important for people to understand and be able to recognize when those lines have been crossed. If you see someone acting out about a topic they really believe strongly in, it's important to trust that those feelings are genuine and come from the heart, rather than blowing them off and treating them as non-entities, which ALWAYS exacerbates matters and only makes things worse.
One of the most frustrating things I've dealt with is the one time someone decided to call out my behavior as 'emotional manipulation' (note - I am not interested in discussing that individual here, I am only focusing on the specific behavior). It wasn't until long after the fact that I realized how incredibly disingenuous such an accusation actually is, especially as the only evidence supporting such a thing is the author's own hunch and not a long-term pattern of behavior. To put it short, I was effectively being called a liar, and there are very few ways you can call someone that without making the target look extremely bad and possibly inflaming the situation.
If, on the other hand, the author assumed my behavior to be genuine (which it was) rather than fakery used specifically for emotional manipulation (which it wasn't), things could have gone on much more amiably than they did. Pointing out errors in logic is one thing - that's something I hope to see more of, if done with enough tact - but straight-up questioning the truthfulness of someone's admission of emotional weakness is... hilariously villainous, in hindsight.
Those kinds of behaviors are the sort of thing I want to see a lot less of around these parts. Or around the Internet in general, really. It is possible to have friendly arguments without matters devolving into emotional and verbal abuse and constant bouts of passive-aggressiveness. The problem is keeping things from ever reaching that point in the first place, as often only a small, seemingly insignificant trigger is all that's needed to cross things over from one side to the other. I don't really have a solution for any of this, other than that we, in general, as posters, need to work on our collective conversational skills as well as being able to recognize when our emotional states do not allow for the kind of productive conversations one would hope to have on here.
This is something I'm constantly working on, and honestly, how good I am seems to go up and down in long phases. A lot of it is just how much pressure I'm dealing with in my daily life, and I suspect that goes for a lot of posters on here as well. High stress is most definitely NOT conducive to any kind of conversation. Maybe all that's needed is for folks to go on a voluntary 'time-out' to go cool off sometimes. That's not a long-term solution, but it could help for the odd flare-up here and there.
Heh, but that just sounds like life advice in general. Unfortunately, not everyone is able to just disappear and cool off in their given life circumstances, but, generally speaking, every one of us benefits from being able to just sit back and relax every so often. If you can't get that time off, you may have bigger issues that need your attention than some stranger on the Internet saying things you don't like, you know?
To put it short: be truthful, be genuine, assume others are doing the same, and DON'T be nasty even if you completely disagree, and that would solve like 99% of issues on here that I see. The only hard part is getting everyone to cooperate, which I admit is still most of the challenge. Sorry I can't be of more help on this point.
