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Out there on teh interwebs, there seems to be a huge misunderstanding about how people display their emotions. I understand, really, that in a text-based medium without facial expression, body language, and vocal tone and inflection, it can sometimes be difficult to tell what emotion someone is feeling when they write their responses in a blog or forum, and we often project what *we* would feel if we used those words.
People seem to mistake a correction and a difference of opinion for someone getting angry or upset, particularly when the person being corrected has some sort of attachment to the concept being corrected. We see this all the time, and I journal and tweet about it. Anyone remember the series of posts that went something like this:
"The sky is blue"
"Dude, you're wrong, the sky totally is too blue!"
"That's what I said, the sky is blue"
"No way man, the sky is so not green!"
"Buddy, that's not what I said. I said the SKY is BLUE"
"Why are you attacking me? You're so angry and filled with hate! My opinion that the grass is blue is every bit as valid as yours!"
"Uh, WTF? Are we in the same conversation?"
Which series you ask? Well, that's my point - it happens over and over again. This happens to people who self-identify as skeptics, as science-based, and as rationalists all the time, me especially. Apparently, having a difference of opinion automatically means (to some people) that the person holding the difference of opinion must be angry about it. And that's just not true. Sometimes, the further down a disagreement we go, the more frustrated we can get when arguing with someone who clearly has no clue what he's talking about. But frustration is not the same as anger.
So I'm going to give a couple of examples to illustrate the difference to help ya'll out.
This is an example of a post from someone who spotted a factual error or believes there is some kind of incorrectness and is pointing it out:
Notice there are no inflammatory words, no emotional language (except, perhaps, condescension - whether intentional or not, people who address the argument itself in a debate tend to sound like they're being condescending and sometime's they are, but many times they're not), no cussing, no name-calling, no insults, no exclamation marks or capital letters, no snide comments about your mother or your character.
Now let's look at an example of someone who is angry while posting:
Here, we see cussing, we see emotional language, we see all capital letters and exclamation points, we see name-calling, we see snide remarks about your character, we see nothing addressing the topic at hand, and we see obvious, intentional condescension.
Please make note of the difference.
Having a difference of opinion or pointing out an error does not automatically mean that the person making the post is feeling any particular emotion at the time of posting. Making a well-thought-out, verbose post also does not necessarily indicate the poster's emotional state. As someone once said, correcting lies and falsehoods is complicated because a lie is off running, out the door, and has circled the globe 3 times before the truth has even tied its shoes.
It is in your best interest to leave the assumptions about people's emotions out of the dialog and address the points at hand. Even if the person *is* angry, stick with the points being brought up unless and until the poster is so angry that there is no useful information in the post to dialog about, at which case, asking the poster if they are angry and suggesting resuming the discussion later might be appropriate. But simply disagreeing with you does not, automatically, imply that someone is angry, even if they are long-winded. And if they say they are not angry when you accuse them of such, accept that at face value and go back to the topic, because telling someone you know how they feel, especially after they've said you are wrong, usually results in making that person angry anyway.
People seem to mistake a correction and a difference of opinion for someone getting angry or upset, particularly when the person being corrected has some sort of attachment to the concept being corrected. We see this all the time, and I journal and tweet about it. Anyone remember the series of posts that went something like this:
"The sky is blue"
"Dude, you're wrong, the sky totally is too blue!"
"That's what I said, the sky is blue"
"No way man, the sky is so not green!"
"Buddy, that's not what I said. I said the SKY is BLUE"
"Why are you attacking me? You're so angry and filled with hate! My opinion that the grass is blue is every bit as valid as yours!"
"Uh, WTF? Are we in the same conversation?"
Which series you ask? Well, that's my point - it happens over and over again. This happens to people who self-identify as skeptics, as science-based, and as rationalists all the time, me especially. Apparently, having a difference of opinion automatically means (to some people) that the person holding the difference of opinion must be angry about it. And that's just not true. Sometimes, the further down a disagreement we go, the more frustrated we can get when arguing with someone who clearly has no clue what he's talking about. But frustration is not the same as anger.
So I'm going to give a couple of examples to illustrate the difference to help ya'll out.
This is an example of a post from someone who spotted a factual error or believes there is some kind of incorrectness and is pointing it out:
In your post, you made several logical fallacies, including a straw man argument, a non-sequitor, a false dichotomy, a false premise, and begging the question. Since you made those errors, I have to assume you do not understand the very foundation of the subject you are arguing, so here entails a very long, wordy post to explain the basics before I can even begin to tackle the arguments themselves. Now here is a long section tackling each of your arguments in turn because it takes only a sentence or two to throw out a a handful of falsehoods but it takes volumes of text to correct them. Here I might follow up with a personal anecdote to illustrate my points, along with citations if I have them.
Notice there are no inflammatory words, no emotional language (except, perhaps, condescension - whether intentional or not, people who address the argument itself in a debate tend to sound like they're being condescending and sometime's they are, but many times they're not), no cussing, no name-calling, no insults, no exclamation marks or capital letters, no snide comments about your mother or your character.
Now let's look at an example of someone who is angry while posting:
Look you fucking moron, I wasn't fucking angry until you kept insisting I was angry. Quit fucking assuming you have any goddamn motherfucking clue about what I feel! You have the fucking NERVE to assume you know ANYTHING about me, let alone assume you know BETTER how I feel than *I* do, you pissant little asswipe?!? Now go put your tiny little pointy head back up your ass and FUCK OFF so the rest of us grownups can get on with the conversation!
Here, we see cussing, we see emotional language, we see all capital letters and exclamation points, we see name-calling, we see snide remarks about your character, we see nothing addressing the topic at hand, and we see obvious, intentional condescension.
Please make note of the difference.
Having a difference of opinion or pointing out an error does not automatically mean that the person making the post is feeling any particular emotion at the time of posting. Making a well-thought-out, verbose post also does not necessarily indicate the poster's emotional state. As someone once said, correcting lies and falsehoods is complicated because a lie is off running, out the door, and has circled the globe 3 times before the truth has even tied its shoes.
It is in your best interest to leave the assumptions about people's emotions out of the dialog and address the points at hand. Even if the person *is* angry, stick with the points being brought up unless and until the poster is so angry that there is no useful information in the post to dialog about, at which case, asking the poster if they are angry and suggesting resuming the discussion later might be appropriate. But simply disagreeing with you does not, automatically, imply that someone is angry, even if they are long-winded. And if they say they are not angry when you accuse them of such, accept that at face value and go back to the topic, because telling someone you know how they feel, especially after they've said you are wrong, usually results in making that person angry anyway.
