[Serious] You should FEEL BAD because you disagree with me

[Little lunch]

Suppose you're talking about some philosophical point. Maybe the definition of a word, or the quality of some piece of evidence. 

I can understand debating that more or less endlessly. People disagree, and this is good, because our thinking can only progress through discussion and dialectic. 

However, some people join those discussions solely trying to make other people feel bad. They type things without arguments, for the sole purpose of hurting someone else's feelings. 

I have never understood this.

For those on the receiving end: has this ever changed your mind? 

For those who do it: what is your goal?

I don't care if someone feels bad when I point out a reality.

If you don't accept, for example, global warming, I am not going to sugarcoat your ignorance. One would be wrong to ignore or deny it, and to me, would be dangerous in their voting habits too.

I also don't care if it makes someone feel bad when I point out the politician they support is a dangerous bully. 

I don't care if someone feels bad when I tell them evolution is fact and creationism and ID are garbage.

I don't care if I make someone feel bad if they support bigots or are bigots themselves. 

Some facts in reality are far too important to allow bullies or ignorance infect public policy to the point of being dangerous to things like education, economics, national and global stability. Some things are NOT up for debate. I don't mean from a free speech human rights aspect, I mean FACTS beyond personal bias are worth defending and should not be politicized.

But do you care about bringing someone around to your way of thinking?
Making someone feel bad often pushes that someone further in the opposite direction.
Without diplomacy, being right can be a lonely place to occupy.
Good intent does not always equal good results.

[Belacqua]

I don't care if someone feels bad when I point out a reality.

If someone says the world is square, and you say no, it's actually round, I don't see that as an intent to wound. They might be upset, but it's not as if your goal was to make them feel bad.
That's not really what I'm talking about. 

There are people who would, when they discovered you disagreed with them, write sentences designed to make you feel terrible. Not to improve your thinking or correct your error, but in the hope that you would suffer. (Not the worst suffering imaginable, but more than is required.) 

Sometimes I suspect there is a sort of Protestant moral component built into many atheist arguments. Not only is being wrong factually wrong, it is also something we want to punish. 

Why should we punish someone for disagreement about the definition of a word? Or some interpretation of a sociological issue? 

Isn't the desire to make others feel bad, unnecessarily, just the sign that a person is bad?

[The Grand Nudger]

Not really, that's just more protestant moralizing.

That you find a pattern of people in your life being dicks to you has a wide range of possible explanations and most of them aren't "they're bad people".  Frankly, most of the "bad person" explanations are going to surround you, not them.  It's a pattern in your life, after all.  The only thing your every interaction has in common, is you.

[Belacqua]

Not really, that's just more protestant moralizing.

That you find a pattern of people in your life being dicks to you has a wide range of possible explanations and most of them aren't "they're bad people".  Frankly, most of the "bad person" explanations are going to surround you, not them.  It's a pattern in your life, after all.  The only thing your every interaction has in common, is you.

Most of the cruel language on line is not directed at me.

[The Valkyrie]

I would feel bad for disagreeing with you if you were right.

However, since I'm never wrong that problem is solved.

[Yonadav]

Not really, that's just more protestant moralizing.

That you find a pattern of people in your life being dicks to you has a wide range of possible explanations and most of them aren't "they're bad people".  Frankly, most of the "bad person" explanations are going to surround you, not them.  It's a pattern in your life, after all.  The only thing your every interaction has in common, is you.

Most of the cruel language on line is not directed at me.

Cruel language doesn't bother me. That's just someone engaging in some nonsense that's cathartic to them. We're just names on computer screens. So I don't perceive hurtful language to be damaging to me.

I get a little more vexed when someone is just distorting my position and my character simply because they think that everything has to be an argument.  Like the idiot who recently told me that I don't seem to care about drunk driving. Fuck that guy.

[fredd bear]

Most of the cruel language on line is not directed at me.

Cruel language doesn't bother me. That's just someone engaging in some nonsense that's cathartic to them. We're just names on computer screens. So I don't perceive hurtful language to be damaging to me.

I get a little more vexed when someone is just distorting my position and my character simply because they think that everything has to be an argument.  Like the idiot who recently told me that I don't seem to care about drunk driving. Fuck that guy.

 I agree about the anonymity. Seems to give people licence to behave far more unpleasantly than they would in real life.

I admit that I am rarely as blunt to real life Christians than I tend to be here.  I guess I should try harder to be more civil.. Problem is I have never been able to suffer fools. Even so, I think it is possible to wound a person on a forum, intended or not.  You are indeed fortunate to be so thick skinned.

[The Grand Nudger]

Not really, that's just more protestant moralizing.

That you find a pattern of people in your life being dicks to you has a wide range of possible explanations and most of them aren't "they're bad people".  Frankly, most of the "bad person" explanations are going to surround you, not them.  It's a pattern in your life, after all.  The only thing your every interaction has in common, is you.

Most of the cruel language on line is not directed at me.

Most of the cruel language on line is not directed at me.

Cruel language doesn't bother me. That's just someone engaging in some nonsense that's cathartic to them. We're just names on computer screens. So I don't perceive hurtful language to be damaging to me.

I get a little more vexed when someone is just distorting my position and my character simply because they think that everything has to be an argument.  Like the idiot who recently told me that I don't seem to care about drunk driving. Fuck that guy.

Two assholes bitching about how people are commonly dicks to them.  Quelle surprise.

[Belacqua]

I get a little more vexed when someone is just distorting my position and my character simply because they think that everything has to be an argument.

Good point. This is worse than just name-calling, because it requires the misuse of reason. (As Dante shows, it is more evil to use your reason for bad purposes than merely to fly off the handle.) 

When this kind of thing happens I think it shows how little people are interested in spreading the truth, after all. It isn't about standing up for what's correct or improving understanding in the world. If that is what people are after, the "principle of charity" always works better. 

And most importantly the principle of charity, I think, benefits the person employing it more than the recipient. Because bullying is about enforcing conformity to an unstated norm. Whereas someone who wants to improve his thinking will be careful not to push away alternative ideas without making a careful effort to engage them at their best.

[Catharsis]

Suppose you're talking about some philosophical point. Maybe the definition of a word, or the quality of some piece of evidence. 

I can understand debating that more or less endlessly. People disagree, and this is good, because our thinking can only progress through discussion and dialectic. 

However, some people join those discussions solely trying to make other people feel bad. They type things without arguments, for the sole purpose of hurting someone else's feelings. 

I have never understood this.

For those on the receiving end: has this ever changed your mind? 

For those who do it: what is your goal?

That's called jealousy.