Here is the promised diary about my hopes for conduct in this group. This is more than mere housekeeping; I do believe the smallest act is just as profound as the biggest ideal from which it springs. To understand the context of this diary, please read the first introductory diary .
In reading over the following introductory qualifiers, I have realized that my discomfort is showing. I am not an authoritarian. I passionately would like this group to provide both effective advocacy and enriching experience—there is no way to peace, peace is the way.
I am under the impression that an aspect of groups on dk4 is that we can set our own guidelines for behavior within diaries and comment sections. Nothing short of my suffering through a few years of participation in the jungle that is dailykos could bring my accepting self to the controlling attitude I have about how I would like us to treat one another within the group. I’m not sure how much this control can be realized, or will even be needed, but insofar as I can help it, I am determined that our discussions within this group be free of the pettiness and personal animosity which has become so common on the site.
I speak of control, but my plea is for self-awareness and self-discipline. The very same psychological mechanisms, universal human mechanisms, which enable people to torture are at work when one kossack begins to see another kossack as deserving of disrespect. I believe practicing skillful interaction right here right now to be part of our work toward realizing a society which honors the inherent rights of every individual.
This diary is not meta. Our focus is not on how other people behave, nor is it an analysis of past dkos flame outs. Our focus is on how we would like it to feel when we are interacting in our group, on what kind of environment is most likely to empower us in our quest to affect the real world, and on what each of us can do to contribute to realizing our wishes.
Please express reactions and thoughts in the comments section. Together we will set our guidelines; it is my fondest hope that we will continually insist with one another, and especially each with herself, that our guidelines be respected.
The human race is not divided between bad people who dehumanize others for selfish purposes and good people who always radiate acceptance. Virtually no categories are useful in this regard: Muslim/Christian, scientist/believer, gay/straight, pacifist/militarist, rich/poor, even Republican/Democrat—both sides of each divide contain some people who are more and some who are less given to treating others with disrespect. The sobering fact is, each of us faces the challenge of the tendency to disown our hatred, fear, and self-loathing by projecting them onto others. Seemingly, it is not we are who are behaving badly, it is others who are leaving us no choice.
If you have an eye for it, you will see dailykos littered with the results of this universal tendency: “You did it first/You did it worst” is a daily refrain. If you are courageous enough, you will see yourself being driven by these delusions.
Lest there be any misunderstanding, here is one example, from an extensive catalog, of my own behavior along these lines--the subject line of my comment was only two words: “Fuck You!” I wasn’t proud of it, but mainly because it interfered with my wanting to think of myself as a good person. I wrote it with passion, and I believed it when I wrote it. We are discussing things here that each of us can become better at mastering. When we fail, it is not because we are bad people; it is because we are human. Accepting this about ourselves is a necessary part of being able to react skillfully when we encounter it in others. We. are. all. human.
I don’t know why, but I feel I’m struggling to communicate these concepts that are so dear to my heart, not sure if I’m beating a dead horse or flitting around too much. Thank you if you’ve stayed with me so far. Let me get into some practical matters before returning finally to the process of projecting enemies, a process that lies behind so much suffering.
We will respond to the words people write here, not to who we imagine them to be. We will read comments with as fresh an eye as we can muster, even if we have never before agreed with a word the commenter has written.
We will disagree with content, not criticize character. We refrain from deducing what certain opinions “prove” about someone’s personality. People are free to have whatever personality they want. We are interested in what they have to say and what they can contribute to developing a culture of mutual respect.
We will never say, “You are wrong” without explaining what we think is right or, at the very least, what we believe to be wrong.
We will not bring in comments made at other times or in other places in an attempt to discredit someone. If a person says something which is in direct opposition to something she said elsewhere five minutes ago, we will only respond to what she says now. We are not interested in whether any certain individual is internally consistent; we are interested in internal consistency within our diaries and comment sections, within our group as a whole. If a person contradicts himself within a diary, then we will ask for clarity.
In disagreements, we will attempt to resolve the dispute or to define the point of disagreement. We are not trying to win. We will not resort to any of these tactics in order to “win” an argument: ad hominem, attacking character, insulting, sarcasm, or ridicule. If we become too heated to discuss respectfully, we will refrain from commenting rather than indulging our compulsion to argue.
As soon as we feel the conversation is not going to be productive, we will withdraw, allowing the other person to register the last point if he wishes.
We are willing to allow differing opinions to stand. Respecting a person’s right to hold and express an opinion is an essential part of the right to be treated with dignity. Furthermore, if we feel we have proven a person wrong, and they remain unconvinced by our thoroughly engaged argument, we will not treat this as proof of a personality flaw. We may state forcefully our evidence and our logic, but we will not forget the humanity of the other person, even including their right to what we see as flawed logic. All of us suffer daily under the illusion that our logic is impeccable in the face of mountains of neurological evidence demonstrating it to be quite the opposite.
Each person is the expert on what he means to say. If someone explains that we have misinterpreted a post, we will take his word for it, rather than insisting that he has said something else. Words are slippery and imprecise. We will not waste time trying to tell anyone she said something she didn't mean; rather, we will accept any clarification in good faith, letting go of what we thought the person said to replace it with a new understanding.
We will not use the guidelines of our group as weapons in arguments. Such behavior constitutes a serious perversion of commitment to the guidelines, supplanting our stated purpose with an egoistic desire to be right, to make others wrong. We will not use our self-satisfaction with our work toward creating mutual respect as an excuse to treat others with disrespect. This is the worst sort of violation, undermining our goal more insidiously than anything else we can do.
We are here precisely because we hope to refrain from dividing the world into good people who deserve respect and bad people who do not. I find such tendencies to be painfully ironic. My wife has said more than once, bitterly, “They should waterboard Dick Cheney.” How many of us have not felt that? How many of us see that we are expressing a willingness to do to Cheney what he did to others, and for exactly the same reasons? It is scary to admit, but our minds work the same as Cheney’s. We, all of us, want to waterboard only those people we feel deserve waterboarding. Unless the answer is that no one deserves waterboarding, then we still have work to do. (I am gratified to see that the word “waterboarding” still pops up as incorrect on my spellcheck. Here’s hoping the need to use it remains limited.)
In the comments, Scribe describes the most promising way of responding to problematic posters:
What we CAN and CANNOT control
There is no possible way to control other peoples choices of how they communicate here or anywhere else.
The ONLY control we have is over how we respond.
If we meet vitriol with more vitriol it gets ugly fast.
No other outcome is possible.
Nothing positive is accomplished.
Effective communication is dead.
People get harmed.
If we refuse to feed the cycle of verbal violence, it cannot thrive. Intentional trouble makers don't stay long when they can't get the response they desire. It's not fun anymore.
Put the public stoplight on the comment itself. "I will not respond to that kind of disrespectful comment." Then move on and let the comment hang there.
Otherwise, it's very useful to check out any assumptions we may be making about anothers meaning or intent, by simply asking for it. (Even if we're positive we think we already KNOW it!)
Again, this places the public spotlight on the comment content itself, and allows the commenter to clarify it and/or own the responsibility for stating their intent.
All of this of course, is a super challenge in any anonymous online venue. But I think if the faciltators of groups like this could all get on the same bandwagon and model more effective communication techniques, progress could be made.
I am desperately hoping, in the name of all that is holy, that together we can participate in discussions whose nature demonstrates that our expectations of world leaders are not unrealistic: through interacting with mutual respect, may we demonstrate that it is possible for people to transcend the human instinct toward projection, blame, and hatred.
Sam Keen has written brilliantly about the human facility for projection, for paranoia, especially at it applies to violence. I have posted the following excerpt from one of his poems several times. Please realize, this is not romantic or figurative, the process is not an exaggeration--it is a literal description of something virtually every one of us does, more or less unconsciously. The challenge is to realize that the image we develop of the other is delusional, it is one-dimensional. Without conscious effort, we remain convinced of its accuracy despite the brutal fact that it was created purely out of an instinct for self-justification. To transcend these tendencies, we must discipline ourselves to break free of the compulsive certain belief that, in any particular case, our thinking is justified and our projections of an enemy are accurate. We can make this into a practice as we interact on dailykos. And, who knows, we may even have an impact on the world outside ourselves in the process.
Sam Keen
How to Create an Enemy
Start with an empty canvas
Sketch in broad outline the forms of
men, women, and children.
Dip into the unconsciousness well of your own
disowned darkness
with a wide brush and
strain the strangers with the sinister hue
of the shadow.
Trace onto the face of the enemy the greed,
hatred, carelessness you dare not claim as
your own.
Obscure the sweet individuality of each face.
Erase all hints of the myriad loves, hopes,
fears that play through the kaleidoscope of
every infinite heart.
Twist the smile until it forms the downward
arc of cruelty.
Strip flesh from bone until only the
abstract skeleton of death remains.
Exaggerate each feature until man is
metamorphasized into beast, vermin, insect.
Fill in the background with malignant
figures from ancient nightmares – devils,
demons, myrmidons of evil.
When your icon of the enemy is complete
you will be able to kill without guilt,
slaughter without shame.
The thing you destroy will have become
merely an enemy of God, an impediment
to the sacred dialectic of history.
Tomorrow's diary will be as grounded as this one is theoretical. We will discuss ferallike's proposal for creating a database of proof that torture is not effective in obtaining information.