by undo Mon Oct 29, 2018 3:24 pm
I've avoided Internet debates with bad faith trolls pretty well over the last year, I know there's no point in having a "debate" with people like this and you can't use facts and reason with someone who's whole persona is being a "reasonable centrist" who plays the both sides are equally bad-game, which is really effective on people unfamiliar with this kind of rhetoric. But I'm tired of watching these performances go unchallenged or misunderstood by onlookers as good faith-characterizations of reality (specifically, the "I don't care if you're white or if you're black, all racism is wrong!" / "calling someone a sexist, whether you're a woman or a man, makes you no better than the people you're trying to demonize!" / etc. This isn't a case of arguing with strangers on social media, but people taking this stuff into spaces I call home online and feel protective of as the fucking Twitter/Reddit-ization of the whole Internet is just turning every site I use into a monoculture of 4chan memes and ironic hate speech brushed off as jokes. After weeks of resisting this, I eventually got baited into replying and I think I let myself get cast as a disrespectful, far left asshole, which I don't care about except that this played out in front of a bunch of impressionable people who saw a "debate" that I let someone else define from beginning to end.
Complaining about this and letting it get to me feels incredibly immature and it just feeds into a cycle of feeling bad and stupid about even caring about it in the first place. I realize this is all in my head and that getting out of my head is the best medicine for dealing with it, but I'm stuck at the computer all day transcribing conversations from marketing focus groups and the boredom and ennui that comes with that is a poor condition for dealing with stress. Choosing to engage someone like this the night before a job interview was also a horrible decision, obviously.
I canvassed for [progressive Democratic congressional candidate in a contested race that is still leaning Republican] last weekend and it was not the energizing experience I was hoping it would be and I don't know if I have the time or energy to go back and do it again, but I tell myself that covering that neighborhood was still important, if only that it ensured that someone else was free to knock on doors somewhere else that may have yielded a better response. (Don't let this dissuade you from volunteering yourself, I just want to vent and the lack of response I got from canvassing probably had a lot to do with the day and time I was out there doing it.)
I am sorry to hear about your experience, Nick. I cannot offer any advice. I come from a very small family and have no experiences with dealing with people very close to me who have gotten wrapped up in those kind of resentment-fueled talking points. The closest thing I've ever experienced to that was watching the news with my dad two years ago and suddenly watching him get really riled up about...NFL players complaining about lifelong physical and mental health issues as a result of multiple concussions. He's suffered tons of injuries in his life, barely even watches football and clings to no grievances that could have made him sympathetic to the idea that football players are overpaid/shouldn't complain/should know what they were getting into, et cetera. This isn't really comparable to your circumstances but it was shocking to me how suddenly I was unable to address his concerns in any patient-sounding or unemotional fashion. It's completely disarming when someone you love suddenly surprises you with a belief you find morally unacceptable or incompatible with what you believe about that person.
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