Broadly speaking, I think you're correct. I found a massive disconnect between how I operate when discussing online vs. how other people seem to, and it drives me bonkers. My response was why I began this Community in the first place. The only way you can realistically "win" is to make yourself better. If the other people in the discussion are focused on defeating you instead, then they've already lost at the outset.
When I discuss things online, I can’t even partially understand how people don’t want to have a more cohesive / logically sound opinion. You'd want to be more informed about a topic and smarter overall, wouldn't you? I'm happy when I'm proven wrong because it means I'm now a better, smarter person and that is a massive win.
I agree that you should be trying to understand people. After all, if you're potentially looking to change a mind, you can only do it once you understand them and can speak to the underlying issues with their argument.
I am fine with hate speech existing as long as it's in a space that it can also be safely dismantled. If they're free to speak, so are those that can utterly demolish that speech. If either drops their poop and then refuses to engage, that's when I have a problem. If you look at where things fall apart in most online discourse, it has to do with the terminology they use. Each "side" of an issue has their own version of terms, and pretend that their opponent is using the same terminology they are.
To quote myself in a previous weekly thread:
Some of those issues are persistent in Lemmy to this day and are things I tried to add rules against in the sidebar. Things like:
- Calling someone dumb for bringing forth a logical opinion. No discussion, no “here’s where things fall apart” or “here’s why that isn’t applicable to the situation”, simply “lol fuck u, ur dum.” Or as with modern social media, a drive-by downvote. Most often in the forum days, this would come from someone who you’d recognize as being very opinionated, but not intelligent or self-aware enough to articulate why they felt a certain way. We’ve got tons of threads on this community where bad logic is called out, then the person downvotes and doesn’t comment further. My feeling is that this is because they don’t want to be wrong, so they don’t engage. They internalize the idea that their opponent must just be stupid, and walk away.
- You can be right for the wrong reasons, and wrong for the right reasons. There are tons of examples. You do not have to disagree with someone in order to point out that their reasoning sucks.
- Your morals are not an argument. You can use how you arrived at those morals, but not the morals themselves. Your morals are not logic and apply only to your outlook.
- It’s okay to be wrong. It’s downright awesome to become smarter due to someone correcting you or providing newer / more accurate information. You shouldn’t argue from a position of “I’m right, let me convince you.” Instead we should approach things from “This is how I arrived at this position. Are you able to articulate why I’m incorrect in believing this?”
Things at present remind me of my high school days and that “shut up nerd” culture that the jocks were stereotyped to have. Everyone thinks they have the moral high ground. Everyone thinks their position is the most defensible. Everyone feels they are better than their out group.
(Also, fantastic job sticking to the posting guidelines! Wanna be a mod?)
It's been an uphill battle, but you're very welcome!