As much as I despise people who deliberately or negligently derail a perfectly good thread, I want to give trolls their due. Note that my definition of "troll" is perhaps more expansive than the official one. There are plenty of people who aren't deliberately trolling but are so incapable of controlling their outburst that they might as well be doing it on purpose; these folks are just as deserving of our opprobrium as self-conscious trolls.
First of all, an unscripted opinion is a valuable thing. The tamer, more refined conversations (like you might see on Steven Landburg's The Big Questions blog or Scott Alexander's Slate Star Codex) are sometimes too sanitized. That very nice person who is trying to counter your argument might have had initial thoughts such as "You're an idiot" or "You're an asshole." It's good etiquette to suppress these reactions and give a more considered response. But doing so conceals some information about your interlocutor's mental state. It's occasionally useful to have this information, and trolls provide it freely. The problem with giving this information up too freely is that it leads to escalation, even if done delicately. "Oh yeah? Well I think you're an asshole!" So it's probably best that we politely keep these things to ourselves, but use trolls to reveal hidden information.
Also, even really bad counterarguments can be useful. It's like a game of "'Why?' Boy," in which you keep asking yourself how you know something to get at deeper and deeper layers of understanding. This process is named after the stereotypical small child who constantly asks "Why?" to each one of your successive explanations. Even if you yourself fully understand the details of your argument, all the way down the rabbit hole to the deepest layers of comprehension, not everyone will grasp it on the first pass. A troll who is playing "'Why?' Boy" with you forces you to refine and recast your argument, making it simpler to understand and digest. Don't pass up the opportunity to respond to a very bad argument. It may not do the troll any good, but an onlooker might be impressed and actually learn something.
I hope there are more elegant ways of getting information about people's emotional reactions, or refining your arguments, such that we can do away with trolling. At least for the second thing, you can practice on your own. Just imagine someone blurts out a flippant response and try to respond to that. I try to do this, and it pays off. I often anticipate a counterargument ("anticipate" meaning "to plan for", not merely "to predict"), so I have a ready answer. And, of course, sometimes I say something wrong and someone corrects me, often politely but sometimes not. I learn from these exchanges, too. (Sometimes, it's fun to play, "What if I'm the one being a troll?" It forces you to be more charitable to someone who appears to be spouting gibberish; always entertain the possibility that they aren't but that you are.)
I'm not quite saying "Hail trolls!" More like, "If we're stuck with these shitty behaviors, we might as well make the best of it."
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