On the futility of arguing on social media

I came across this article this morning. I urge you to read it. It explains a great deal about the nature of discourse in social media, and on the Internet in general.

I don't think I'm a classic mook, because I don't get involved in the Internet of Beefs to get noticed by anybody. I succumb to temptation because I'm an opinionated smart-ass who is easily triggered. Or rather, because- in Myers-Briggs terms- I'm an NT, a kind of person who sees debate and argument as a kind of sport to be enjoyed for its own sake and no more inherently antagonistic than a football game.

My father was also an NT. Some of our best time together was spent arguing, or rather debating, as a form of recreation. My mother was unable to understand this. She thought we were going to kill each other. Actually, we were bonding, and having a great time doing it. We weren't really angry with each other at all, and when she tried to intervene to prevent bloodshed we both wondered what her problem was, anyway.

As prideful (and ridiculous) as this makes me, when I engage in mooklike behavior on the Internet I rarely see myself and my opponent as evenly matched. Occasionally I am overmatched, and end up kicking myself for biting off more than I can chew. I see it as a point of honor to admit it when I'm beaten and to concede any point my opponent has fairly won. But I don't like it, and I don't admit that I'm licked until I can no longer deny it. Oddly, in some ways, I actually appreciate it when that happens. It means that I've learned something, and I come away feeling that I owe the person who has kicked my butt my gratitude and thanks.

More often, though, I end up frustrated because I am engaged with a true mook. My opponent is overmatched but unable to recognize much less admit it.  I may be advocating a position, but I'm also engaging in a sport, and at least theoretically open to being proven wrong; he or she is existentially committed to an untenable position and cannot admit defeat even on small points. subject, or moves the goalposts, or falls back on the notion that "LOL" is an argument.

I don't like losing an argument, but I can accept it gracefully when I do and not only mentally congratulate my opponent but appreciate any lessons learned. But I have a very low tolerance for the Dunning-Kruger effect, and when I encounter it, my fallen nature often takes over and I can get contemptuous and nasty.

The problem is that there are very few real debates on Facebook and fewer still on Twitter. But there is an endless supply of mooks, debating issues they don't understand and positions they are committed to out of emotion or ideology. At a time at which information has been more available than ever before, the same is true of misinformation, and arguments on social media are almost always about who is right and only rarely about what is right.

There are very few debates on the Internet, but there are an awful lot of arguments, and it's just not possible to tell the difference without actually engaging in the fray. Which is why I, personally, keep telling myself not to take the bait.

And yet, I keep doing it.