Some days I’m very capable of having civil discussions with people I disagree with, even when they say ignorant/oblivious/insensitive/false things. I really like to think that most of the time I try to engage people and at least understand them, even if I’m not likely to change my mind. But sometimes I have moments or phases where I’m fed up with all the bullshit and become very hostile (I bet Grayson can relate). This week falls under the latter category.

A thread on Will Hinton’s blog has spiraled out of control in no small part because I just can’t bring myself to quit calling bullshit on one commenter, who keeps responding with more bullshit. It’s childish and a complete waste of time (and probably burning a few bridges in the process) to even engage this person, whose idea of making an argument is to spam the thread with the first ten links that pop up in Google. And yet, I still do. Heat generating more energy than light, and all that.

On Peach Pundit, I used the word “bullshit” five times in two comments on one thread. There’s no question that that person totally deserved the hostility, though, because he’s a retarded partisan hack.

So, I’ll move back to thinking about the Will Hinton thread I mentioned. It was a book review of Pornified: How Pornography Is Damaging Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families (whose second edition changed “Damaging” to “Transforming” “Transforming” to “Damaging”). Let’s back up to the beginning. Near the end of the post in question, the reviewer Expat Teacher writes: “We should treat porn as we do smoking. Lots of naming and shaming combined with public service announcements that show the downside of porn usage.”

There are a few ways to react to that. My first instinct was to say “Fuck you, Expat Teacher. Who the fuck are you to define morality for me?” (this is the same whack job who wrote a post saying meritocracy is flawed, and that only good people should be allowed to succeed) My next instinct was to try to address it in as calm and charitable way as possible. Due to my current temperament, what resulted was something in-between that took less of a bareknuckle approach than “fuck you, you judgmental prick,” but was still oozing with contempt.

Part of what bugs me is that site is promoted as a forum for competing ideas, and not as a bunch of right-wing white dudes patting each other on the back. Yet, when people with competing ideas show up even with the best intentions and on their best behavior (not talking about today), they’re accused (by the moderator, no less) of being dogmatic or instigating flame wars.

Moving away from that momentarily, I’ve been thinking about some things Elizabeth Edwards said at ConvergeSouth. She is really high on political communication on the Internet. Unfortunately, her mic wasn’t wired correctly, so I don’t have a podcast of exactly what she said to reference. But the gist of it, if I’m remembering correctly, was she thinks the Internet is a spectacular place for people to get together and debate ideas. She bases this on her experience with her husband’s political campaigns and on her experience with basketball and breast cancer support forums.

Well, I disagree with her. I think the Internet is usually an awful place to try to debate competing ideas. Even if something resembling a charitable conversation is sustainable for a while, it’ll go to shit eventually. You can put a timer on and wait for the bomb to go off.

Can’t say that I’m sure where I’m going with that, so I’ll just move on for now and perhaps clarify tomorrow.

If this were a morality play going through the paces in a mainstream media cycle, this would be the part where I’d be apologizing for lobbing the first bomb in this case. Oh, I was so harsh, boo hoo, I’m reformed now, if I flog myself enough will you forgive me? But it’s not, and I’m not. That post and everything that followed it was complete bullshit, and it is asking a lot out of anyone to be charitable in the face of such a wretched and insulting pile of shit.

I guess if there’s a point to be made to Will or to anyone else at this hour where the paragraphs aren’t flowing together as well as I’d like, it’s that people shouldn’t confuse civility with capitulation. If I see bullshit, I’m going to call it. And you shouldn’t act surprised or hurt if that’s what happens.