Is It Time to Read the Comments?
The far right cultivates the comments. Maybe liberals should, too.
It is often seen as a sign of political sophistication to understand that nothing good can happen in the comments section. It can be maddening in there, but we have gone even further, fashioning our revulsion into a virtue.
We rely on high sources. “ I never saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by argument,” said Jefferson. “Reasoning will never make a Man correct an ill Opinion, which by Reasoning he never acquired,” quoth Swift.
One might suggest, however, that both these reassurances assume that online discussions are something they might not be — or might not be entirely.
I’ve never seen a referee reverse a disputed call, but that doesn’t keep coaches from yelling at them. Why? Because coaches are insane? Or because they know that by working the ref they are creating just a little bit of self-consciousness — a hint of prior restraint — that might make the official less likely to make the same call again.
Clay Shirky warned presciently before the election that liberals were taking fact-checking to a culture war. I’d like to suggest that comments are not a discussion at all. They are a brawl, and liberals have to show up — just show up — to keep norms from being swept away without opposition.
As I argued right after the election, our rational vision of opinion formation is out of date. The right knows and exploits this. The left does not. Instead, we take the “high road,” and reassure ourselves that the low road doesn’t matter. But in the shadow of this elitism, the low road has become a swamp with no rescue raft for even those who would seek it. We have abandoned these people digitally, in a sense, just as we’ve abandoned them geographically and economically.
What am I suggesting? That we all start trolling Breitbart, endangering our mental health in its information slums like online Mother Teresas? Not exactly, and I am not the first one to suggest a kind of liberal re-engagement with the forces of reaction.
But it’s important to realize — this based on my recent experience — that the point of comments is not to win or convince anyone of anything. If it were, Jefferson and Swift would certainly be right. Rather, the point of comments is to simply be there, to make the alternative visible, and shape the space of people’s future decisions — as the coach does with the ref.
There are people scanning for it, believe it or not. They have reached out to me — on the side — in otherwise hostile threads. This is how new alliances are forged, deep behind enemy lines.
And if you let go of the need to win and convince, you’ll find that the comments are not so frustrating after all, but are instead opportunities for missionary service, for spreading the Good (and non-Fake) News.
