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People who criticize tone police are technically right that the content of an argument is what should matter, but that smacks of ignorance of how humans engage

People who criticize tone police are technically right that the content of an argument is what should matter, but that smacks of ignorance of how humans engage in conversation. If someone is screaming at me and ending every sentence with, "you fucking moron!", there is approximately a 0% chance I'm going to take them seriously and I'm going to assume emotional outbursts will be sent in return to any responses I care to make. How many pro-choice people do you think are persuaded by the people screaming "murderer" outside of Planned Parenthood? People have a limited amount of time to deal with all of the issues in the world. If you can't explain your argument in a calm, rational manner, people who are on the fence will shut you out. See what Howard Dean's screaming did to his campaign.

atq2119 8y ago
And then there's King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail: https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.... Sometimes you need to make waves in order to advance a cause. Now that doesn't mean you should be uncivil (like screaming "you fucking moron!"), but it can be a fine line to walk. So it's understandable that tone policing itself can become a controversial topic.
- yourbandsucks 8y ago
  It's proportionate to the cause. If we're talking about the Jim Crow south, that's one thing. King even wrote a whole essay about how white moderates 'tone policing' the civil rights movement needed to get on board or get out of the way. And he was right. Emmett Till's lynching had just happened, they were being categorically denied rights, and then getting fucking attack dogs unleashed on them, churches firebombed, etc, when they spoke up. Some of the noisier people on twitter and in our workspaces in 2018, however... their net effect is giving talking points to Sean Hannity. At least 80% of America is turned off by their rhetorical excess. King's body of work was productive. He was after results, not after feeding his own ego or outrage.
  - deanCommie 8y ago
    The problem isn't any different in 2018 than it was in 1955. The MAGNITUDE is different, but the magnitude is always different. In 1955 there was a higher murder rate and a higher rate of disease. Just because both are lower in 2018 doesn't mean we don't continue to invest significant effort into working on both murder and disease. In 1955, Jim Crow laws were appalling and inhuman. Lynchings were accepted by large segments of society. In 2018, we still have strong systemic bias in police forces that handle black criminals with a significantly higher rate of violence than white criminals leading to many preventable deaths. And we still have a justice system that punishes black criminals more severely than white criminals, affecting community cohesion and health. These are still serious problems that need significant effort into solving. That is 99% of what the noisy people on twitter and in your workspaces are talking about. But Sean Hannity and Co pick up on the 1%, or misintepret the 99% and present it as some rhetorical excess about feelings and safe spaces and outrage. No. It's still about human lives.
    - yourbandsucks 8y ago
      1) You're trivializing just how bad things were, a little bit. 2) I'm not arguing that racism doesn't exist. I'm arguing that the outrage-addicts are ineffective, and that they suffer from a bias towards slacktivism and purity-gating. Contrast with King and especially LBJ. Making change requires building bridges.
  - tome 8y ago
    > King even wrote a whole essay about how white moderates 'tone policing' the civil rights movement needed to get on board or get out of the way. It's that very letter, isn't it? "I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate ... the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is ... the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice"
bartread 8y ago
> People who criticize tone police are technically right that the content of an argument is what should matter, but that smacks of ignorance of how humans engage in conversation. Absolutely nailed it. If you're unpleasant/uncivilised to deal with then the content of your argument becomes irrelevant because a decent portion - and perhaps even the majority - of people won't want to have anything to do with you. Being obnoxious is another class of communication where good content is masked by bad delivery, the same as if you fail to communicate and explain your point clearly: again, the message gets lost. People switch off and disengage. Good manners really do oil the wheels of communication on difficult and contentious topics even if it means the process takes longer than you'd like.
- taneq 8y ago
  It also depends hugely on context. A well placed "you might have a point but you're acting like a dick" might bring a discussion back into civility, but then you also get people trying to shut down a discussion that they find uncomfortable by focusing exclusively on criticizing incidental word or phrase choice.
yesenadam 8y ago
Tone policing is to do with (objecting to) not what they say, but how they say it, so I think what you give aren't examples of it at all. What you say about behaviour makes sense, but I don't think you read the wikipedia link to learn what tone policing actually is, as you're complaining about something else entirely.
YorkshireSeason 8y ago
How many pro-choice people do you think are persuaded by Symmetrically, how many pro-life people do you think are persuaded by the people screaming "woman-hater/sexist/misogynist" outside of Planned Parenthood? If you can't explain your argument in a calm, rational manner, You overestimate the efficacy of explaining in a calm, rational manner. As a university teacher with > 10 years experience, I can tell you with extreme, and reliably reproducible experience, that explaining in a calm, rational manner is also typically overrated. Year in, year out, I tell my students to test their coureswork before submission to ensure it compiles, year in, year out, I tell my students not to cheat etc etc ... and year in, year out, a large number of students ignore my calm, well-argued and perfectly rational advice. What screaming (or the university equivalent: bad grades) achieves is not so much conviction, but communicating urgency. How to react to urgency a different matter. A second social function of screaming (re-)producing simple us/them group identities.
- beaconstudios 8y ago
  people often don't do what's best for them. But that's a separate issue from trying to convince someone to join your cause. If you're representing advocacy group X and you're being melodramatic and throwing a tantrum, rather than pinpointing the issues you want to solve and proposing solutions, I'm much more likely to think that said group is composed of adult babies making childish complaints and unworthy of respect or attention. You'd be essentially leaving it to me to independently discover if there is any value in the group, rather than taking the opportunity to inform me yourself.
  - watwut 8y ago
    They are not trying to convince you to join their case. Neither group. You are unlikely to be in position to do anything about their cause and even if they convinced you, you would likely remain passive. Both are attempting to force change or prevent change. For all values in calm rational discussion pleasant discussion, it does not bring change. It makes you pleasant, but does not really bring results where real stakes are in question.
- 8y ago
fjsolwmv 8y ago
The Dean Scream stuff was a dirty tricks attack by his opponents. If he didn't scream they'd attack him for something else, loker being too calm (see Jeb Bush's 2016 campaign). If you libe your life trying to avoid giving your unethical enemies anything they can twist into an attack, you'll paralyze yourself.
mbesto 8y ago
Or more succinctly put - context matters.
dahart 8y ago
> See what Howard Dean’s screaming did to his campaign. I totally agree with everything you said, except this isn’t a fair or good example of what you’re talking about at all. That meme was a manufactured attack. Dean was rallying, and if you watch it in context, there’s nothing there. The clip was taken out of context to make him look irrational. You can do that to pretty much any politician with videos from rallies.
MaysonL 8y ago
People outside of Planned Parenthood screaming "murderer" aren't try to convince, they're trying to intimidate. Howard Dean's scream wasn't. The scream was no louder than the audience: it was merely isolated by a directional mike.
Viliam1234 8y ago
> If someone is screaming at me and ending every sentence with, "you fucking moron!", ... I'm going to assume emotional outbursts will be sent in return to any responses I care to make. This is a good reason not just to avoiding debates with screaming people, but also to ignore them. People are sometimes wrong. Happens to the best of us. Other people give us feedback. The screaming person who responds to feedback by more screaming... is more likely to be wrong. In theory, one could first spend a lot of time debating patiently and politely with as many people as possible, weigh the arguments, and determine what is most likely to be true. And then, start screaming at people, to spread the message quickly to many people. But in practice, people who are screaming now were most likely also screaming yesterday.

atq2119 8y ago

And then there's King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail: https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.... Sometimes you need to make waves in order to advance a cause. Now that doesn't mean you should be uncivil (like screaming "you fucking moron!"), but it can be a fine line to walk. So it's understandable that tone policing itself can become a controversial topic.

yourbandsucks 8y ago
It's proportionate to the cause. If we're talking about the Jim Crow south, that's one thing. King even wrote a whole essay about how white moderates 'tone policing' the civil rights movement needed to get on board or get out of the way. And he was right. Emmett Till's lynching had just happened, they were being categorically denied rights, and then getting fucking attack dogs unleashed on them, churches firebombed, etc, when they spoke up. Some of the noisier people on twitter and in our workspaces in 2018, however... their net effect is giving talking points to Sean Hannity. At least 80% of America is turned off by their rhetorical excess. King's body of work was productive. He was after results, not after feeding his own ego or outrage.
- deanCommie 8y ago
  The problem isn't any different in 2018 than it was in 1955. The MAGNITUDE is different, but the magnitude is always different. In 1955 there was a higher murder rate and a higher rate of disease. Just because both are lower in 2018 doesn't mean we don't continue to invest significant effort into working on both murder and disease. In 1955, Jim Crow laws were appalling and inhuman. Lynchings were accepted by large segments of society. In 2018, we still have strong systemic bias in police forces that handle black criminals with a significantly higher rate of violence than white criminals leading to many preventable deaths. And we still have a justice system that punishes black criminals more severely than white criminals, affecting community cohesion and health. These are still serious problems that need significant effort into solving. That is 99% of what the noisy people on twitter and in your workspaces are talking about. But Sean Hannity and Co pick up on the 1%, or misintepret the 99% and present it as some rhetorical excess about feelings and safe spaces and outrage. No. It's still about human lives.
  - yourbandsucks 8y ago
    1) You're trivializing just how bad things were, a little bit. 2) I'm not arguing that racism doesn't exist. I'm arguing that the outrage-addicts are ineffective, and that they suffer from a bias towards slacktivism and purity-gating. Contrast with King and especially LBJ. Making change requires building bridges.
- tome 8y ago
  > King even wrote a whole essay about how white moderates 'tone policing' the civil rights movement needed to get on board or get out of the way. It's that very letter, isn't it? "I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate ... the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is ... the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice"

bartread 8y ago

> People who criticize tone police are technically right that the content of an argument is what should matter, but that smacks of ignorance of how humans engage in conversation. Absolutely nailed it. If you're unpleasant/uncivilised to deal with then the content of your argument becomes irrelevant because a decent portion - and perhaps even the majority - of people won't want to have anything to do with you. Being obnoxious is another class of communication where good content is masked by bad delivery, the same as if you fail to communicate and explain your point clearly: again, the message gets lost. People switch off and disengage. Good manners really do oil the wheels of communication on difficult and contentious topics even if it means the process takes longer than you'd like.

taneq 8y ago
It also depends hugely on context. A well placed "you might have a point but you're acting like a dick" might bring a discussion back into civility, but then you also get people trying to shut down a discussion that they find uncomfortable by focusing exclusively on criticizing incidental word or phrase choice.

yesenadam 8y ago

Tone policing is to do with (objecting to) not what they say, but how they say it, so I think what you give aren't examples of it at all. What you say about behaviour makes sense, but I don't think you read the wikipedia link to learn what tone policing actually is, as you're complaining about something else entirely.

YorkshireSeason 8y ago

How many pro-choice people do you think are persuaded by Symmetrically, how many pro-life people do you think are persuaded by the people screaming "woman-hater/sexist/misogynist" outside of Planned Parenthood? If you can't explain your argument in a calm, rational manner, You overestimate the efficacy of explaining in a calm, rational manner. As a university teacher with > 10 years experience, I can tell you with extreme, and reliably reproducible experience, that explaining in a calm, rational manner is also typically overrated. Year in, year out, I tell my students to test their coureswork before submission to ensure it compiles, year in, year out, I tell my students not to cheat etc etc ... and year in, year out, a large number of students ignore my calm, well-argued and perfectly rational advice. What screaming (or the university equivalent: bad grades) achieves is not so much conviction, but communicating urgency. How to react to urgency a different matter. A second social function of screaming (re-)producing simple us/them group identities.

beaconstudios 8y ago
people often don't do what's best for them. But that's a separate issue from trying to convince someone to join your cause. If you're representing advocacy group X and you're being melodramatic and throwing a tantrum, rather than pinpointing the issues you want to solve and proposing solutions, I'm much more likely to think that said group is composed of adult babies making childish complaints and unworthy of respect or attention. You'd be essentially leaving it to me to independently discover if there is any value in the group, rather than taking the opportunity to inform me yourself.
- watwut 8y ago
  They are not trying to convince you to join their case. Neither group. You are unlikely to be in position to do anything about their cause and even if they convinced you, you would likely remain passive. Both are attempting to force change or prevent change. For all values in calm rational discussion pleasant discussion, it does not bring change. It makes you pleasant, but does not really bring results where real stakes are in question.
8y ago

fjsolwmv 8y ago

The Dean Scream stuff was a dirty tricks attack by his opponents. If he didn't scream they'd attack him for something else, loker being too calm (see Jeb Bush's 2016 campaign). If you libe your life trying to avoid giving your unethical enemies anything they can twist into an attack, you'll paralyze yourself.

mbesto 8y ago

Or more succinctly put - context matters.

dahart 8y ago

> See what Howard Dean’s screaming did to his campaign. I totally agree with everything you said, except this isn’t a fair or good example of what you’re talking about at all. That meme was a manufactured attack. Dean was rallying, and if you watch it in context, there’s nothing there. The clip was taken out of context to make him look irrational. You can do that to pretty much any politician with videos from rallies.

MaysonL 8y ago

People outside of Planned Parenthood screaming "murderer" aren't try to convince, they're trying to intimidate. Howard Dean's scream wasn't. The scream was no louder than the audience: it was merely isolated by a directional mike.

Viliam1234 8y ago

> If someone is screaming at me and ending every sentence with, "you fucking moron!", ... I'm going to assume emotional outbursts will be sent in return to any responses I care to make. This is a good reason not just to avoiding debates with screaming people, but also to ignore them. People are sometimes wrong. Happens to the best of us. Other people give us feedback. The screaming person who responds to feedback by more screaming... is more likely to be wrong. In theory, one could first spend a lot of time debating patiently and politely with as many people as possible, weigh the arguments, and determine what is most likely to be true. And then, start screaming at people, to spread the message quickly to many people. But in practice, people who are screaming now were most likely also screaming yesterday.