Why Can't We All Just Get Along
I think James Poulos gets the question of blogger collegiality exactly right:
The big conspiracy here I think is one among people who like a good conversation, and have discovered a consistent set of conversation partners whose content and style best compare and contrast with their own. Professional bloggers are paid conversationalists — or should be, at least. And the good social art of collegiality well understood is an essential part of good conversation — especially good public conversation. People sometimes fear that the blogosphere will close itself off to new talent, but, based on the dynamic I’ve just outlined, that strikes me as impossible. The ‘gold rush’ is probably over, but blogging will probably take on the generational tempo of the music world, with big acts retiring for a while to pursue real lives and then making comeback tours after a suitable hiatus — and with lots and lots of new acts competing for attention. Sometimes attention is won by mere novelty, but more often it’s won by talent.
Collegiality as he describes it is easiest to achieve amongst folks who don’t live and die by their agendas (which is not to say that the people he lists don’t care about enacting particular reforms and agendas). But even amongst outright advocates, I believe that collegiality and respect are worth striving for, and that it’s possible to achieve this without descending into the squishy and compromised realms of Broderistic cocktail-party fraternizing. There are exceptions, of course, but one can still maintain a radical posture and consort with those who disagree with it — even (perhaps especially) radicals of the opposite stripe. I’m not much for sports metaphors, but, in this case, one seems called for: It’s possible to go out on the field every day and play as hard and well as you can, genuinely wanting to win — but at the end of the game, you can still shake hands and grab a beer.
I agree with you as far as it goes. I believe in collegiality and mutual respect, though I fail at maintaining those things myself often enough, I’m afraid. (The Internet format doesn’t help.)
What bothers me is people who, in the name of collegiality, exclude arguments the see as beyond the bounds of polite discourse. You wind up in the weird situation where someone closes their mind to another person’s argument out of the auspices of keeping an open mind. It goes like this: you come up with a political argument that the other person feels is beyond the pale— for example, saying that an idea is totalitarian, or racist, etc. The other person, in the name of mutual respect, says “you are disqualified from the conversation” (in one way or another), because you’ve violated what they see as the bounds of friendly discourse. But that confuses procedural issues (insults, threats, arguing in bad faith) with political issues (ideas that are “out of bounds.”) Then the person who has excluded another’s argument pats himself on the back for his open mind.
The other thing is that you sometimes get people for whom collegiality is just a vehicle for self-aggrandizement; “I’m the guy who’s nice and collegial.”
— Freddie · May 7, 07:24 PM · #
Freddie — sure, it’s tough. You have to be invested in your issues and beliefs without taking attacks all that seriously. This is not an easy thing to do. And you have to be willing to go after others while hoping that they don’t respond to you with an attitude of dismissal, to say, no, this is wrong, I don’t agree. And your last point is quite correct. Collegiality isn’t, in and of itself, a position. Instead, it’s a way to approach other positions, one that allows for furthering the discussion in a way that typical attacks don’t.
— Peter Suderman · May 8, 04:07 AM · #