The right way to be and the wrong way to be

[Belacqua]

@Belacqua I tend to disagree. I don't think it is necessarily good to not be vulgar and rude. I think it's a common part of any social contract but I can't say that it's necessarily good or bad. I think it is just how some people have normalized, and it's an indicator, but I wouldn't say good/bad. Unlike "the world" or the "whole internet" this is a community. I have specific entry criteria and rules that are clearly layed out. We are very seldom allowed that same comfort in the real world. If a bully approaches you on the street, there's little you've done that could have prevented that. There are tons of rape victims and social injustice victims that deal daily with unwritten and immoral perceived rules and attitudes, that are followed by immoral actions. Unlike the real world, we have the ability to filter who is allowed into this conversation, so the bully isn't even on the street. In fact the power was given down to the individual to mute people. This was never a completely free space for all and I don't think anyone here is under the impression that it ever was.

Yes, I think your description here is exactly right.

This is a community with set criteria, some of them written and some of them tacit. It is a community which has normalized and justified vulgarity, rudeness, and insults. Typing posts with the intention of making someone else feel bad is standard procedure.

I'm not saying this should change. This is the forum that people made, and this is the way they want it to be. I'm descriptive, not normative. (What I want for myself may be different, but that's not about the forum.)

(I'm still not entirely clear on why people do these things. It's clear that insulting people doesn't change their behavior or punish them in any effective way. It looks as though the rudeness is done for the benefit of the person being rude. There is either some sadistic pleasure in attempting to make someone feel bad or, as I noted yesterday, a performative pleasure in demonstrating that the insulter is tough or powerful somehow. But I don't really understand this.)

This is a safe space for people to pass judgment on others and then, once the individual has been deemed unworthy, vulgar personal insults are judged to be good and appropriate. And not only individuals --- that worldwide phenomenon without clear definition called "religion" is also judged worthy of any sort of insult, even if the insult is not factually true.

This forum deals with bullies by encouraging them. The rule is simply that the bully must aim at the right target.