Tags
abuse, blogging, bullies, free speech, insanitybytes, internet culture, politics, social justice
What is abuse? For those who don’t know, that’s a bit of a rhetorical question. I have a pretty keen and clear idea of what abuse is, physical, emotional, spiritual, psychological, as well as the cumulative impact of even mild abuse over the long term.
On the internet however, abuse is a term that gets tossed about rather casually. I myself am apparently sometimes abusive, as in I abuse people with my opinions, or with my faith, or my unwillingness to agree politically. Sometimes I abuse people by being unwilling to provide a soft and compliant target for their abuse. Perhaps a dozen times I have been accused of oppressing someone’s free speech by not posting a comment that simply calls me delusional, stupid, etc.
I have a somewhat cynical and jaded view of this kind of abuse, as in we’re all going to be abused in life, get used to it. There are mean people in the world, there are people whose opinions differ from ours, and there are some people with bad manners who don’t even recognize how awful their behavior is. Abuse is a fact of life. The only way I know of to avoid it is to stay in bed all day and even that is a questionable strategy.
I get kind of annoyed with the expanded definitions of “abuse” we sometimes encounter on the internet. They tend to trivialize the nature of genuine abuse. If everything is abuse, than nothing is anymore. Trigger warnings for example, your words are re-traumatizing my trauma. Micro-aggression is another one. Am I the only person so busy trying to duck the macro-aggression, I haven’t got time to analyze life for micro-aggression? Sometimes I wonder.
Something I found kind of amusing in terms of comedic or karmedic justice, was Bahar Mustafa’s recent arrest for internet abuse. She is the diversity advocate at Goldsmiths University, a feminist, a social justice warrior, who is very focused on abuse…..other people’s, not her own. At some point she decided to tweet, #kill all white men, which depending on what country you live in, can be legally defined as malicious communication, abuse. It is somewhat funny that the same restrictions on people’s speech that she herself has advocated for, have now come around and bit her in the behind.
This picture is unrelated to anything, I just found it to be an amusing example of internet culture. In social media we would call it sub-texting, and yes that is frequently used as a form of abuse. In case anyone wonders, I am a huge fan of free speech and do not really support the idea of arresting people like Bahar Mustafa for things like “mean words” or “bad hashtag” or “wrong-thought,” but she apparently does. Or at least she did.
See, there's this thing called biology... 
“Sometimes I abuse people by being unwilling to provide a soft and compliant target for their abuse”
Indeed so. You big meany.
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Ha! I know, right? Some people get very upset about that. Go figure.
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“If everything is abuse, than nothing is anymore.” True enough, and this is the danger of shutting down the conversation simply because someone disagrees with you, while also keeping healthy boundaries with things that are, in fact, abuse. It’s both a fine line, and not. I’d not seen the news-bit that you mention and link to … that’s unfortunate all the way around (the violence of that ‘hashtag’ and that it was used by someone advocating against abuse. Sheesh.). A quagmire.
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In that case, I used to be abusive on FB and Twitter. Then I got ganged up on by two Christians, which, in my opinion became a bullying situation. I can’t even remember the topic of conversation. Other times, when I held stronger views in the virtual world, I was blogged about, which, in my humble opinion, whatever I said provoked some thought. I wasn’t trying to be right, just heard from a different perspective. I don’t know why folk get so mad when you don’t think like them.
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Ha! Good point Totsy, about sometimes getting bullied by other Christians. I’ve bumped into that on the internet a couple of times myself, which really surprised me. I shouldn’t be surprised, I’ve just never seen it before and I think it’s an especially wrong headed thing to do. 😉
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The simplest defense is to be in God’s will. The more you have to manipulate your circumstances, the less likely it is you are in God’s will – to borrow a phrase from Augustine’s Confession: sine vi humana, sed verbo—“without human force but by the word of God.”
“The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” Exodus 14:14
Steady on sister.
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I love that quote, thank you. “without human force but by the word of God.”
I’ll have to post that on my fridge. 😉
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Ahhh, IB you and I will have to agree to disagree on this matter. Bahar Mustafa ran her mouth and got dinged for it. And so it should be. We have strong hate laws and anyone who speaks hatred here in Canada gets similar treatment. I know that Americans will die for their free speech, but we do not hold it so dear. We hold that hateful words inevitably lead to hateful actions , so the best way to stop it is to nip it in the bud. Even you are of the faith that the Lord created the universe with the Word. Hateful Words beget hateful action and hateful action begets harm. To say that hateful words do not constitute abuse does not make sense to me. We (and Americans) have outlawed bullying, slander, threats, etc.All only words – and yet you will allow hate to be spread without resistance against groups by calling hateful words free speech. You bemoan (and rightfully so) the verbal abuse you suffer through your Christian activities – and that could easily qualify as slander or bullying and you could, if you so desired, call for police action against those who do it. And yet you think it is not only fine but a protected right to call blacks Niggers, or to denigrate Hispanics, or to call Jews vermin – all because you believe that free speech is a higher order of responsibility. I, and the 35 million of your northern neighbors, disagree, as do the citizens of many other countries in this world. If I could be so bold – this same concept had caused no end of problems in your society. For instance the shootings last year in Dallas when some do-gooder free speech advocate decided to put on a cartoon symposium on how to draw images of Mohammed. That was done deliberately under cover of free speech to elicit a violent response from the Muslim community and try to start a violent encounter – obviously with the hope of having a few Muslims shot a killed. After all – less Muslims equals a better world doesn’t it? (for less perceptive individuals that is sarcasm)In a way it worked – it did start a gun fight, but of course the organizers were prepared with armed guards because they knew what would happen. Is it really necessary to use free speech as a weapon? Personally I think that if the free speech abuses, threatens or has the possibility of being perceived as threatening, then it is not justified. As I said IB, I suspect we will have to agree to disagree. And I say that in a totally non-abusive way. 😀
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What do we argue about? What is the cause of the “abuse” we heap upon each other? We dispute the Truth.
Some proclaim the Truth. Some deny the Truth. Some are confused by the Truth. Some lie. Yet until we seek to silence the speech of others, hateful though the speech of some may in fact be, there is some chance we may hear the Truth.
Consider. In some countries some of your words would be considered hateful, and they would be banned.
What is the problem of regulating speech? We must trust someone to decide who will be silenced. Yet who among us is so wise and so pure of heart? Even the Truth, perhaps the Truth in particular, hurts. When people tell us “truths” we don’t want to hear, we can call that abusive, threatening, and hateful. We can make up an excuse to silence those hateful souls. Under the cover of the dark of night, we can arrest them, kill them, and bury them. Then we can hide the Truth, and we can hide from the Truth.
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Ahhh, very poetic and quite delightful prose Tom. I am literally smiling while I write this. What you say is true – see I don’t disagree. There is a problem with it though – the same problem we have with our laws and the reason why we have courts. If I am with another man and he, through no fault of mine, decides to kill me and tries his best, and in the process he ends up dead – then I just killed. And on its face, that makes me wrong. But I did have the right to defend my self – I was not the aggressor and I did at no time try to harm him – just keep him from harming me. So we go to court and we draw a jury of my peers. And therein lies the answer Tom – the consensus opinion of those of like understanding. That is the basis for what we define as “truth”. You and I know that is not always just but it is the best humanity has when determining the elusive truth is required to get to action. The Truth is only known to the Lord but we humans have to find some way to estimate it in order to deal with those situations which occur in our lives. And we use consensus opinion as the best judge – precisely why we believe that democracy is the best form of government – consensus. It is my position that the majority of citizens would consider hate speech to be abusive and so it would be – by decree of consensus. That is how we allow free speech but not abuse.
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Hmm, well Paul, consensus is a terrible judge. Consensus gave us slavery and denied women the right to vote. Consensus is not always morality or truth.
One problem with hate speech is context and intent. Those two things are vitally important. For example, you just used a couple of racially biased words and said something about getting rid of Muslims. Hate speech? Yes, in some quarters. There are people who would not even bother to examine your context or the intent behind it. They would simply think the worst of you and you would be toast.
Than there is sarcasm, social commentary, humor. Although I find what happened to this woman somewhat funny because she brought it on herself, I doubt her intent or context had anything to do with a genuine campaign to “kill all white men.” I could be wrong there, but as you can see I’ve just repeated her words and really the only reason I haven’t been charged is that I don’t live in the UK and I haven’t annoyed the powers that be and created an internet sensation that gets anyone’s attention.
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Indeed consensus can be notoriously wrong, and yet in breaking matters, it is all we really have (hindsight sometimes shows how seriously wrong we all were, but that is not always an option).. We could run around this tree forever IB, both of us have good arguments (and Tom’s prose is excellent, isn’t it?) and I am sure we will not agree. I draw the line of abuse at words and you draw it at actions – and never the twain shall meet (unless the two twains happen to be on the same twack.) 😀
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Consensus. The essence of democracy, that worst of all governments, except for all the others save one, a republic (Hopefully, the dear departed soul of Winston Churchill will forgive my alteration of his words.).
What is the problem with the tyranny of the majority, a consensus? Tyranny of the majority is still tyranny and no less harsh. The consensus may have numbers on its side, but consensus is no guarantor of wisdom.
The people who devised our system of of government made a choice. Every citizen has indisputable rights. That is, instead of the tyranny of consensus, they chose to create a republic.
Therefore, each of us can say what we want. There are some practical restrictions. There is that classic about yelling “fire” in a crowded theater — when we know there is no fire. If we libel or slander other people, those can sue us. However, the important restriction is this. We can talk all we want, but we cannot force anyone to pay any attention.
Hence, our founders decided in favor of restraint, the better part of wisdom. When they thought someone was saying things best not heard, they just allowed him his right to speak and ignored him.
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@Paul
One last thought, I hope, with respect to this observation.
I doubt our Lord distinguishes greatly between word and deed. When we communicate, we act to do so, and the tongue can be just as damaging as any weapon. Therefore, I think the threshold for prosecution under the law (When do we prosecute someone for what they have said?) must be at the point their speech actually does violate the rights of another.
Anyway, I thank you for your compliments and for your capacity to discuss our differences with such civility.
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It is always a pleasure to discuss with you and IB, Tom. I see the process as beginning deep inside with feelings – perhaps before that – then to thought, then to words, then to action. At some point we have to individually decide where we will draw the line. I know we all draw the line at or before action – which is basically what makes us civilized.
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With this term “Abuse” it is with many other terms used to judge peoples behaviour: “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it”. Today it is pretty easy, for sure, to be branded as an abusive person. If you critize another peoples political, religious etc. ideas (in particular if you make a few points that are irrefutable, they call you abusive. If you question the hypocrazy of any religion or other dogma (such as gender equality or green political correctness) you suddenly find yourself classified together with mass-murder, darth-vader and sodomist.
I think the term “Abuse” should be restricted to case when one makes negative, derogatory remarks about another persons features for which he/she is not t be blamed (like stature, size, health status etc).
But I like any hard, critical, even unpolite comment about other peoples political, religious, social etc ideas or about their prejudice, paired with self-confident and an astonishing absence of basic knowledge. When a friends couple recently told me that they refuse any vaccination for their kids, and they swear on homeopathy and body-waves, I told them without any hesitation that in my eyes they are “stupid and completely uneducated and that I wish later in life their kids will sue them in the court for neglectance”. Was this an abusive remark ? I don’t think so. It might have been unpolite, but I had the intention to painfully damage their weired ideas.
If a family sits there, crying about the last words of their son who fell as a marine in Iraq or elsewhere in the world (where he “only” did his job), I would frankly tell them “Yes, I feel with you, I know how bitter it is to raise a stupid son”. Is this abusive ? It is true, he should have informed himself a bit better, but he only saw the glossy pictures and cool guns and uniforms and muscle shirts and hummer cars and Tom_Cruise sun glasses. If he thought that this is all he can get, and nothing he could loose, than he was stupid, and even a priest calling him like this on his grave should not be blamed “abusive”.
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Hmm. Well you know what I think is really missing in the world? Common courtesy and basic good manners. Sometimes we have no business expressing our opinions about the behavior and circumstances of others and to do so would simply be rude. Sometimes we are called to speak the truth, but sometimes the truth is simply used as a weapon to pour salt on people’s wounds and to make us feel superior. That’s impolite, rude, and abusive.
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Sometimes it’s best to say nothing. Absolutely nothing.
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I AGREE, AT TIMES SILENCE IS GOLDEN. :):):)
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I’ve been working through the issues relating to freedom out on my blog for the last two months, in ways sometimes veiled and sometimes overt. It’s been coming up in my conversations with friends, so it’s obviously a sticking point for me.
The exercise of freedom comes with responsibility. Abuse on the internet often reflects the decoupling between our actions (writing of strongly-worded statements) and their psychological consequences to the reader. In the worst case, some manage to create whirlpools of angst that they use to suck psychic energy out of others.
It is that pure spiritual experience – clicking on a link and feeling the energy drain out of me – that causes me to shy from the American celebration of “freedom of speech.” Speech is an action that generates a psychological context that creates a social dynamic. We need to ask ourselves “What kind of society are we generating with our speech?”
In all except a very few cases, Jesus did not attack the powerful. He built a community of disciples around him – the weak and dispossessed. When his teaches were contradicted by the religious authorities of the day, he would expose their hypocrisy, but always for the benefit of the understanding of his disciples. So I think that the it is necessary to focus first on trying to use our words to lift up those that have been beaten down, and only turn negative when deconstructing the conventions of thought that hold them down.
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Well said, Brian. I’m with you in spirit, intent, morality, idealism, how we ought to behave.
Where I diverge however, is in what we should to do about those who do not comply. To bring in the full force and power of the State to force people to comply with what we perceive to be acceptable words and thoughts is tyranny, fascism, bullying.
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I understand. There’s Niemollers poem, inspired by the Brown Shirt revolution in Germany:
It is up to us to use our voices to undo the psychological damage wrought by hateful speech. The state should act to protect victims when words become action.
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So you are saying Brian that it is the responsibility of the individual to use words against words, and the responsibility of the state to use action against action?
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Niemoller’s poem suggests that if we do not exercise freedom of speech to counter hateful speech, we will eventually be confronted with governmental coercion.
In the context of the current discussion, I was trending in the direction of: using free speech to counter hateful speech with hatred of the hater is counter productive. Jesus’s example illustrates the wisdom of using our speech to empower the oppressed, which may extend to countering the positions of the oppressor when they invade the community we empower.
This does not mean that the individual should not take action in other ways, only that attacking hateful speech tends to inflame passions, rather than to facilitate healing.
When speech does turn to action, much depends upon the context. Well-managed state institutions do develop wisdom and experience that can be useful in minimizing violence. That does not mean that violence can be prevented. In specific circumstances, an individual may be driven to action because public servants are not on hand to moderate a crisis. However, I would tend to argue that it is ill-advised for citizens to organize outside of governmental oversight to take action against chronic conflict. In a democracy, the right approach is to elect representatives that will organize those efforts on the public’s behalf.
When attempting to moderate hateful speech, however, governmental intervention does tend to make plausible claims of tyranny, which can lead hateful speakers (particularly those convinced of their righteousness) to organize to protect their “rights” over those of the victims wounded by their speech. The example of the Southern Poverty Law Center showed that facilitating a dialog between speakers and victims (sometimes through court orders) was often an effective way of bridging the divide that separate them. I found this to be the case as well when I found myself confronting prejudicial thoughts about Muslims in the aftermath of 9/11. I would say “Well, I was down at the Islamic Center on Friday, and the Imam offered some thoughts on the topic. Can I share them?”
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“Niemoller’s poem suggests that if we do not exercise freedom of speech to counter hateful speech, we will eventually be confronted with governmental coercion.”
Kind of interesting, Brian the UN heard some testimony from a couple of women who really want the internet regulated and monitored for what they believe is hate speech. I am really opposed to this, in terms of putting the power of the United Nations in charge of regulating our speech. Bahar is or was of that same mindset, so the fact that she got arrested herself was a bit amusing.
I think I tend to believe in Niemoller’s poem instead, that the way we counter act hate speech is with free speech of our own. I really dislike the idea of bringing the gov in to coerce speech.
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Pingback: The Practice of Freedom: Speech vs. Abusive Speech | everdeepening
O.k., you are definitly right when you say that basic good manners and common courtesy are missing (but who knows, maybe we are just fooled by comparing old Gregory Peck and Doris Day movies with the full spectrum of todays real life ?). When I hear that a presidental candidate (you know whom I have in mind: Donald-the-roof-tile-Trump) makes stupid remarks about his competitors face or her gender, this is what I call abusive. When somebody makes generalizing and derogative remarks about other ethnicities (or even followers of other faiths), this is also what I call abusive. But I don’t know if it should be a matter of legal prohibition. In an argument between ideas or political opinions, however there can not be any limit. Can one abuse an idea, or a faith ? When I say that the holy bible are fairytales, that Jesus (in case he lived) has not performed any miracles, but that he was an ordenary man, maybe a good guy, as million other good guys in mankind, but for sure not somebody to make a cult of personality around: Would this be called abusive, and me being prosecuted by Paul and 35 million Canadians ?
You see I studied physics and genetics, and if people approach me stating that there was no evolution on earth and that they can communicate with angels on the other side of the moon, I could be equally feel abused, since this is against my believe in logic and science. But even if these people come with a whole army of followers, and with very well made words, and they outscream me, I still would not call them abusive. It is their right, and it is a battle of arguments. And I don’t see any reason why religion, christianity, islam, hinduism or the church of the flying spaghetti monster should be granted a special status of protection.
regards, michael
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