Socratic Trolling is Good for the Soul
Living in New York, among like-minded liberal intellectuals, it’s easy to live in an echo chamber. It’s comforting to think that everyone agrees with you, that the world is full of friendly people. It’s easy to think that the good guys are winning and the last remaining shreds of prejudice have been reduced to microaggressions, and there really are no foaming-at-the-mouth racists or sexists anymore. Many people have taken this complacency so far as to get angry at anyone who points out there are still problems in the world. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard people tell me to pipe down because racism and sexism are over and we live in a wonderful new world of equality. But that world is an illusion, and a dangerous one at that.
If you scratch the surface just a little, you will find a seething morass of hatred and bigotry.
People come to confront this reality in different ways. Some people debate a racist uncle at Thanksgiving, some visit their significant others’ families in the South, some read the news about anti-government crazies in Oregon.
But one way to confront the reality of bigotry in America is to troll conservative nuts on Facebook. Poke at people just a little, and they will tell you what they really think. And friends, what they think is truly horrifying.
In 2015, I started arguing with people on Facebook. Some people came to me, debating me in the comments of articles I posted on my wall. Sometimes I would engage with acquaintances in the comments of my friends’ posts. And sometimes I would go to a page that posted things I liked and duke it out in the comments with total strangers.
My goal in these interactions was to ask questions that teased out the racism / sexism / homophobia / classism / what-have-you behind supposedly neutral comments. It worked pretty well. But I was really surprised (although I shouldn’t have been) by the personal insults and attacks I received from people who I had just poked into revealing how bigoted they really were.
Friends and friends-of-friends tended to be more or less civil, but from strangers I got stuff like this:
Of course, the fact that someone is cursing at me indicates that someone does indeed care, but who am I to quibble?
I got a lot of people calling me names and making accusations about my character:
As everyone on the planet has figured out by now, Men’s Rights Activists are particularly vicious and prone to ad hominem attacks:
But it’s not just the personal attacks (although those are hilarious). It’s also the violence with which these people attack anyone who suggests something wrong has happened, and tells them to calm down and take a joke.
As we all know, “it’s just a joke” is another way of saying you think the amusement of people too lazy to come up with a non-misogynistic joke is more worth protecting than other people’s lives and dignity.
This “oh calm down” attitude is probably the most frightening thing I’ve come across in my year of Facebook trolling, because it’s so pervasive and so seductively “reasonable.” Calling liberals and activists hysterical and dismissing them as getting worked up over nothing is a classic strategy used by those in power to prevent social change movements from getting any traction. Women who don’t want to be called stupid, Muslims who don’t want to be called terrorists, black people who don’t want to be called criminals — we’re all just a bunch of over-sensitive whiners getting worked up over nothing. It’s incredibly effective. And frankly, I have never seen anyone angrier than conservative white men telling liberals not to be so angry.
I’ve learned some truly horrifying things about the workings of people’s minds, and I would recommend the singularly enlightening experience to any number of people. Anyone who is tempted to dismiss complaints of racism or sexism or homophobia as specters of the past is in desperate need of a stroll through the comments.
It’s depressing, but it’s also really exciting. Because I have some reason to believe my year-long trolling experiment has not been in vain.
After a particularly active week, I received this message from the moderator of a Facebook page I had been commenting on a lot:
So I read the comments you post on [page] all of the time (mostly because it’s my job to read the comments, like literally, I get paid to monitor the facebook page) but also because I always agree with you. It’s nice to find likeminded people out there, and even nicer when you click on their profile and see a mutual friend, lol. Anyways, I just wanted to write you and thank you for your constantly insightful and articulate comments on [page]’s facebook page. It makes my job more enjoyable.
And in one long comments discussion, another poster asked me for statistics backing up my point, I provided them, and she promptly pivoted on the spot and said that she now agrees with me.
That’s right, a Facebook comments debate actually changed someone’s mind.
I have also had quite a few people come up to me IRL and tell me they found my comments in a debate interesting enough to go out and do some more research on the subject and come to a more nuanced conclusion.
Many people have told me that arguing with trolls or trolling bigoted strangers is a waste of my time, and I should just ignore these people because I can never convince them. And that’s true. I have never successfully converted a foaming-at-the-mouth bigot into a cuddly liberal, and I never will. But I don’t care, because that’s not the point.
Think of Facebook debates like Socratic dialogues.
I’m serious. Socrates very effectively used a debate with an interlocutor as a way of convincing other people watching the debate. Using his interlocutor, Socrates showed the weaknesses in the commonly-held views of “the Many” exemplified by his interlocutor, and demonstrated how his own arguments could withstand the same critiques.
The same strategy works with Facebook debates. Here’s how I approach these debates to maximize my chances of actually convincing people:
Step 1: choose an interlocutor espousing a common view you want to debunk.
Step 2: force your interlocutor to fully and clearly articulate their views.
Step 3: point out the holes in the argument and/or mock its abhorrent bigotry.
Step 4: present your reasonable alternative.
Depending on the topic and the kind of person you’re debating, this strategy is sometimes more and sometimes less effective. But as long as you stay on message and never resort to name-calling, it never backfires. You’re not going to convince the person you’re arguing with, but that isn’t frustrating as long as you remember that that was never the goal.
You can convince the silent watcher on the thread, or the person who timidly jumps in with a comment or two. Just because you don’t see them doesn’t mean they’re not there.
Reasonable people are out there, listening. Trying to reach them is not a waste of time.
And even if you don’t convince anyone, forcing yourself to put your arguments into concise, pithy Facebook comments (or Tweets, or Medium responses) is a very helpful exercise. It has helped me work out the kinks in my beliefs and arguments, and inspired me to research new topics in order to respond to people. I have even changed my mind a couple of times in response to someone else’s arguments.
Oh, and it’s really really fun.
