I don’t know about everybody else but I hate it when everybody is upset. I also like having arguments about things. It’s fun (to me) to make points, dig up facts, pull apart what people have said and expose the flaws. The problem is the first part, arguments about things are also arguments between people.
Part of the reason why I’ve been tolerant of trolls around here is a troll basically advertises themselves as 1. being an arsehole and 2. up for an argument. Unfortunately, trolls run away but also drive away nice people. Obnoxious people are also people who want to make arguments personal as quickly as possible.
There isn’t a nice boundary between impersonal arguments and personal ones either. Stating that a claim is false has implications that the person making the claim is confused, stupid or dishonest. Actually demonstrating somebody is wrong can be humiliating for the person, often because they themselves have staked something about themselves (reputation, claimed expertise, etc) on their claim being correct. On the flip side of that, even if nobody introduces any overt personal elements to an argument, somebody who mischaracterises your point or even just repeatedly (and genuinely misunderstands your point) can be so aggravating as to be upsetting — which trolls know well but also sometimes can be 180° flipped (you are annoying somebody because they think you don’t understand the point they are making but you do in fact understand it but they don’t get the basic flaw in their own thinking).
There is also a further dimension: some topics should be emotional. A dispassionate argument about whether a group of people deserve the same rights to be treated as human beings is not validated by being clinical and focused on (supposedly) rational debate. That doesn’t mean the defence of the humanity of people should be irrational but we should passionately reject dehumanisation when we are faced with it. Again, trolls know this and this is another reason why trollish behaviour gravitates towards racism and prejudice.
So what features of an argument minimise the aggravating aspect and maximise the fun elements?
- Recognising that some topics will be upsetting — basically, any topic that questions the right for somebody to exist is not going to be a topic that can be discussed in a “fun” way. That includes topics (eg the ethics of wars) that we should discuss but we should recognise that such topics will be heated.
- Arguments should avoid personal stakes, this is harder than it sounds because we should respect people’s actual experiences. That gets tricky quickly when people reasonably bring up their own expertise or own circumstance to illustrate a point. However, then doing so it increases the personal stakes in the argument. If somebody says that their chiropractic treatments relieve their chronic pain and helps them live their lives, telling them that it is all dangerous bunk is not unreasonably going to seem like a personal attack.
- Arguments need off-ramps other than one person “winning”. In the example above with the chiropractic claims, the right “move” for the person (rightly) sceptical about the efficacy & safety of the treatment is to leave the argument without conceding that getting chiropractic treatment is a good idea.
- Off-ramps don’t include telling people they are obviously upset even if they are obviously upset.
- And back to the first point…some arguments are worth having even if the person you are arguing with IS upset. However, those aren’t the fun kinds of arguments.
That’s all I have for the moment.
Camestros Felapton 
13 responses to “Is nice conflict possible?”
I sometimes think nice conflict could be possible if people were trained that way–the same way we potty train them. It might be as simple as a new set of rules of manners–things we seem to have gotten away from. Somewhere in the process of undoing really awful rules that were meant to keep minorities down, I think we lost a lot of rules that we should have kept (or at least revised).
“Don’t try to ‘fix’ other people unless they invite you to do so” is a rule I’d like to see. That covers everything from improving their grammar to telling them how they need to talk about a minority group that you don’t belong to to most other kinds of unsolicited advice.
For example, the person talking about their chiropractor doesn’t really need you to tell them “You’re wasting your money–that stuff doesn’t work.” I claim the flaw here is that you’re speaking as the voice of authority trying to “fix” this person’s bad choices.
But if a third person says, “Really? I’ve thought about trying that.” Then I think you’re free to say, “I’ve never believed in it, personally.” Now you’re actually having a conversation–not trying to “fix” anyone else.
It leaves open the question of how to deal with an ill-mannered person. If you tell them they’re ill-mannered, aren’t you trying to “fix” them? Traditionally, you didn’t tell them anything; you just shunned them and talked about them behind their back. Perhaps the hope was they’d have at least one honest friend to tell them, “The reason no one invites you to parties anymore is that you keep trying to ‘fix’ people.” That implies, though, that the person actually did ask for help.
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Good points and I think that’s a good rule of thumb
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Some people are also more or less able to detach ‘criticising my idea’ from ‘criticising me’. I’ve seen it explained as one of those hard-wired communication preferences people trip over if they don’t know to look out for them. Two people at the opposite end of that spectrum are not going to have a nice argument if they don’t understand that aspect of each other.
Psychological safety is much bandied around now as a thing of value to creative teams who need to have robust discussion of ideas, but it’s not an easy thing to build and you need to start again whenever a new person gets involved. This makes it an even more difficult thing to build in a public space.
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Debate clubs are supposed to be a “fun” argument. You will be assigned randomly to either side of an often hot-button issue and expected to argue it so well that you win even if you’re firmly on the other.
Sometimes it works; sometimes you just get Cancun Ted.
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[…] KEEPING THE HOME FIRES FROM BURNING. Camestros Felapton asks “Is nice conflict possible?” and devotes a post to ideas about how to manage blog arguments. […]
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“ Stating that a claim is false has implications that the person making the claim is confused, stupid or dishonest.”
Nope, it implies that they’ve made a mistake, which humans regularly do. Although debating in writing is harder than doing it in person (owing to the lack of cues from facial expression, vocal tone and gesture), sticking to factual argument and refusing either to take or make arguments personally enables honest debate. As you say, some topics must be discussed, despite the difficulty (e.g. the current wave of anti-semitism). Greg’s point about focusing on making one’s own argument and not trying to fix one’s opponent is a very good one.
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The short answer: Use nonviolent communication, also called giraffe language. It involves many of the techniques you’ve already mentioned. De-escalating a situation.
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Nice conflict is possible, but only among people who value it and are willing to make the effort not to give or take offense unnecessarily. All argument is inevitably somewhat personal, but you can choose whether or not to emphasize this — “this statement is wrong” vs. “die, scumbag!”
Trolls have the advantage that they’re not trying to discover or demonstrate truth, just to get a reaction, so they can freely throw out whatever B.S. might serve for that.
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It’s easier to keep a discussion civil if it’s about relatively speaking “small” things than if it’s about big issues. It’s easier if participants agree on base premises than if they have very different worldviews. It’s easier if people agree on basic principles of how knowledge is made.
And ultimately, I don’t think it’s possible to keep a discussion civil without fairly active moderation – without handing out some sort of “penalties” and sometimes actively locking out people who aren’t doing their part.
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It would be wise to realize that many arguments are not about facts that can be verified, but rather about people’s values and emotional reactions. You can’t really tell people that they shouldn’t feel what they feel or value what they value. Those feelings are deeper than rational analysis. Rationality can help you get what you want, but it can’t tell you what you should want. It’s feelings that do that.
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One thing I have learned is that, often, people on both sides of an issue feel like the other side is deserving of contempt. When it is pointed out that they have departed from the facts and are in fact just showing contempt, the answer is typically “but they are wrong, and therefore deserving of my contempt.” It’s not just the ‘other guys’ who fall into this trap.
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Sure.
One way of enabling that is to not pre-frame or re-frame the discussion in ways that provide a rhetorical advantage to one’s self. (i.e., “when did you stop beating your wife, Mr. Smith?”)
Another would be to avoid the reflexive presumption of malintent. Or conversely, presume good intent when positive proof to the contrary isn’t present.
@ryanmerrilljones
Indeed. Kind of why I am digitally homeless. The people that I guess I’m supposed to agree with seem to be as willing to express contempt in lieu of a position as the people that I’m supposed to disagree with.
Regards,
Dann
Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind. – Rudyard Kipling
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Nice conflict might be possible, so long as the people in involved don’t lie constantly, which excludes you from the range of people for whom “nice conflict” is an option.
Dann, you’re digitally homeless because you have burned all of the bridges around you with your constant dishonesty. Maybe if you had thought about this ten years ago and stopped constantly lying, you wouldn’t have the reputation you have and might not be treated with the contempt you have earned.
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