The title of this post is from a phrase Sean Dailey used, when commenting on my troubles with Facebook …
You should have seen some of the hate leveled at Bishop Paprocki last week in some Facebook comboxes. I refused to join in. It would have merely been dancing with devils.
Now a man is never a devil, but we can be tools of devils, and there is a diabolical influence at work in people’s minds today.
For instance, would an “argument” like this make sense to you, or to anyone?
A: That’s a beautiful sunset – it makes the sky rose colored. I’m glad we can see it. What a shame if there were a shopping mall here obstructing our view.
B: The sky’s not rose colored! You’re wearing rose colored glasses! And what an arrogant jerk you are to suggest that shopping malls are not as good as sunsets. All things are equal. The sky is always equally blue – always and everywhere, even at night. Look at how much patience I have in dealing with someone like you, who are an irrational, smug prideful twit. People like you drive me crazy.
A: Well … maybe it’s not exactly rose colored, but it’s not blue right now, and how can you simply shut your eyes to the fact of this sunset that’s staring us in the face? Just look at it. Don’t you see it? And as for shopping malls, they’re fine for what they are, but when compared with sunsets …
B: You’re a racist, too. You see different colors in everything. And you HAVE NOT RESPONDED TO MY CRITIQUE OF YOUR ARGUMENT! I hate dealing with people like you. I’m out of here. You’re being irrational.
A: What exactly did your critique of my argument consist of?
B: I refuse to repeat what I said. It’s not worth my time. Scroll up and read it again! But you won’t – proof that you’re not interested in seeking the truth, but only in making your own bigoted case.
A: I have scrolled up and I’m still confused. Really, what did your critique of my argument consist of? For one thing, I’m not making an argument, just pointing out something we both should be able to see, if we both look at it. For another, our mutual “argument” consists of me saying the sunset is rose-colored, and you saying it’s not. And calling me names.
B: You’re the name caller! You just called me a “name-caller”! Name caller!
… and so on.
But the fact is that this is the way people argue on the internet. Seriously. This is the level of conversation you can expect to have on serious subjects on Facebook and elsewhere. You may think I’m exaggerating, but if you do, it’s probably because you’ve never experienced this.
Let me analyze what’s going on above and then show how it applied to my latest foxtrot with the devil.
Contempt for Reason is shown in the following ways during any internet discussion …
1. WEARING BLINDERS. Refusing to see what’s being pointed out; refusing to acknowledge what is right there before our eyes. Denying that the sky is blue – or whatever color it happens to be.
2. ASSERTING SUBJECTIVISM. Claiming that an opponent’s position is merely his own private illusion. You’re wearing rose-colored glasses when you look at that rose and call it rose-colored.
3. SNEERING. It’s not enough to assert subjectivism, an internet opponent will not simply
- Refuse to see what you’re pointing out (#1 above),
- State or imply that what you’re saying must be a private mirage (#2 above),
but also
- Sneer at you for having some sort of intellectual or moral handicap for seeing this so-called mirage. If you see colors in nature, you’re a racist.
So how does this play out in real life?
Yesterday I posted a series of Observations, one of which made the apparently radical claim that men and women are different and that when women go wrong sexually it’s usually a sign of a more deeply seated psychological problem than when men go wrong sexually. Clearly, that’s a bold conclusion that can easily be argued, but what happened was far from an argument.
This observation was shared by a Facebook friend, and a number of secular folk outside my circle saw it. There followed dozens of livid comments, all of which missed the point. Some people were mad at me for saying women were better than men. Some people were mad at me for saying that men were better than women. Some people were mad at me for suggesting that there was anything wrong with sluttish behavior in women. Some people were mad at me for suggesting that there was anything wrong with sluttish behavior in men. Some people were mad at me for suggesting that there was anything wrong with sluttish behavior at all in either sex. Everyone was mad at me for saying that there was any difference at all between men and women. When I foolishly responded and said, “Why are people angry that I’m pointing out that there are differences between men and women?” people got angry because I said they were angry. People called me a bigot. People dismissed me for being a neanderthal. A relative of mine even commented and said that I should only write about baseball – the implication being that I don’t know what I’m talking about when it comes to men and women.
And the most indignant of my opponents said more of less the following …
How dare you romanticize women in such a way! There is obviously nothing at all different between how men and women look at sex. To suggest that there is, is bigoted, prehistoric and offensive. Not only that, but then you jump in the comment boxes and say that you’re simply pointing out something that’s obvious. You say we’re foolish to argue that men and women are the same. BUT NOBODY’S SAYING THAT! WE’RE SIMPLY SAYING THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEM! Don’t put words in our mouths! And respond to my argument! You refuse to respond to the points I am making! I have no time for people like you. You are despicable. You are why I hate the Catholic Church.
Funny, perhaps, but really not so much.
Because you can’t argue with anyone any more in the world at large, it seems. Reasoned discourse has vanished because we hate loathe and despise Reason.
God is truth and that infuriates us and the demons who make us dance. We hate the whole idea of truth – particularly the truth that is imprinted in Nature, which is the evidence of God. And this is true whether I’m right or wrong about the psychology of sex; it’s not the validity of my original assertion I’m defending, but the very process of rational thinking itself, which has not only been abandoned, but which is more and more held in contempt.
And if you are foolish enough to do what I did, to suggest that men and women are different and that unchastity is a sign of a psychological disturbance, particularly in women – if you do such a thing on Facebook you are apparently casting pearls before swine, and when they turn to rend you, you see the glare in their eyes, you feel the heat of their breath, and you catch the froth of their pig-slobber – and you know that the fury behind their barrage of nonsense is not of this world.
I’m inclined to differ with your reasoning, though not your conclusion. The reason that sexual misconduct reveals a deeper and more disturbing disorder is because it reveals a disturbing lack of self-preservation–a lack of concern for the consequences which are far more difficult for women to avoid. When men act out, they are sinning in a way we understand– they are selfishly making their own pleasure a priority over the good of *other* people. When a woman acts out sexually, she makes her own pleasure–or her desire to influence or please a man, or her need for affirmation, whatever the goal–a priority over *her own good.*
Both men and women, of course, when acting out sexually, violate the goods of the children they may conceive and the institution of marriage which acts to preserve the well-being of other people’s children. Any behavior that promulgates further the separation of sex from child-bearing and family is an act of aggression against children.
So, although female sexual misconduct is more disturbing, because it reveal self-destructive tendencies, I would argue that this difference, in quality if not in severity, is comparable to the difference between the murderer and the murder-suicide. The obvious unbalanced mental state of the latter is not in any way better or worse than the callous selfishness of the former; merely more pitiable.
Kevin, heed this, test it within your own personal experience, go to bed with it, deposit it in the bank, and in all ways, remember it, and keep it close forever:
Don’t hang out with people who tear you down.
(It’s a fundamental law for mental health. It can also be read in some contexts, such as the one you describe: Don’t get sucked in to argument–by any name. Where reason is unwelcome, no argument, no logic, no sanity, no dialogue can exist. Rage, hate, and ignorance always consume all the oxygen wherever they are encountered. Flee.)
Great article, Kevin, as well as Kate’s comment below it. Keep up the good fight for reason and the truth of nature and God.