Looking forward to the ironic pileons
April 20, 2016 8:47 AM   Subscribe

"When we punish others, we're advertising our own moral character" is one of the assertions made in this piece on Vox that offers a number of explanations for the question of "why it's so easy to get sucked into fights on the internet."
posted by MoonOrb (21 comments total) 11 users marked this as a favorite
 
Some of this smacks of the virtue-signalling people, people who literally cannot believe that anyone would do anything, even something expensive or difficult, except to impress other people and/or feel smug. Yes, it's true, when we punish others, we're advertising our own moral character. That doesn't mean it's the only or even an important aspect of any particular punishment.
posted by praemunire at 8:52 AM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


We make ourselves right by making other people wrong. The more other, the more wrong.
posted by y2karl at 8:53 AM on April 20, 2016 [3 favorites]


We make ourselves right by making other people wrong. The more other, the more wrong.

You're wrong.
posted by bondcliff at 8:57 AM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


No, you're wrong!
posted by entropicamericana at 9:00 AM on April 20, 2016


I think they're wrong that only humans show moral outrage. Konrad Lorenz described jackdaws mobbing bullies— jackdaws who were preventing weaker members from nesting.

As for Internet mobs, I would think it's relevant that our behavior evolved to deal with groups of 150 or so max. There's nothing that tells us to cut it out because a thousand or a hundred thousand people have replied already.
posted by zompist at 9:03 AM on April 20, 2016 [6 favorites]


If there is anything that The Family Circus has taught us, the enemy is Not Me.

Upon review: there is an argument to be made that the corvidae also make moral judgements.
posted by y2karl at 9:07 AM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


Our, as Robert Anton Wilson said, humanity is keen on finding No-Good Shits and dumping on them.
posted by acb at 9:14 AM on April 20, 2016 [5 favorites]


obligatory xkcd comic.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 10:11 AM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


"guilt is not something that should be privately assigned to some individual, but rather something shared by everybody in some mysterious way." (Marshall McLuhan)
posted by philip-random at 10:26 AM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


What a weird piece. "Why is there so much moral outrage on the internet?" kinda reads to me like "Why are all these people who can suddenly speak directly to millions of people, instantly, disagreeing with each other so much?" I think the answer is in the medium itself. With the kind of comprehensive reach the internet provides, you can actually encounter many, many times more horrible opinions than you would in your daily physical interactions. It's no surprise then that the pushback would be pretty considerable, too.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 11:11 AM on April 20, 2016


I also think the lack of looking at the other person's face makes anger easier and empathy harder. It's the sane thing with 'road rage' - easier to get angry at a hunk of metal and it's faceless driver than a person.
posted by Zalzidrax at 11:26 AM on April 20, 2016 [2 favorites]


It's the same with voicemail.
posted by y2karl at 12:13 PM on April 20, 2016


easier to get angry at a hunk of metal and it's faceless driver than a person

The other day some guy in a white Trans Am was careening up and down the narrow, residential, child-and-small-dog-populated street in front of our house at 50 miles an hour. I was taking out the trash and, in a moment of completely bone-headed, self-righteous hubris yell "slow down" as the car passes.

Tires screech to a halt. Car backs up. Local drug dealer who's girlfriend lives next door fixes his gaze on me from the driver's side window. I avoid eye contact and calmly go back inside as he begins to shovel his car backwards and forwards in front of our house, over and over again at maximum horsepower, engine and dual exhaust roaring, for several minutes.

Next time, I'm gonna go pick a fight with some dorks on the internet instead.
posted by ducky l'orange at 1:38 PM on April 20, 2016 [2 favorites]


This is another case where some form of group selection would provide a straightforward contribution, if not the whole explanation. But because group selection is anathema, everything has to be explained via self-interest, including the parts that get incredibly convoluted when self-interest is the only available theoretical tool.

I have no idea if group selection does have anything to do with this behaviour, but, given that humans are one species where group actions can have a major impact on the survival and reproduction of individuals, it's at least worth talking about. It's okay - Wynne-Edwards is dead. And given that the whole article already consists of ridiculous evo-psych Just So stories, adding group selection wouldn't make it any more ridiculous.

How was that rant?
posted by clawsoon at 2:38 PM on April 20, 2016


The phrase "virtue signaling" is really problematic here, for reasons they obliquely point out:

Jordan stresses that people aren't being purely selfish or disingenuous when they're expressing moral outrage on behalf of others. "They actually do feel moral outrage," she says. But this research does help clarify why this instinct came about. It's a way of demonstrating our moral character.

Calling it "signaling" suggests it's some sort of intentional communication, and of course people react to that interpretation. "Why the instinct came about" is a much better description.
posted by bjrubble at 7:21 PM on April 20, 2016


"Demonstrating" could also be interpreted as intentional, but it doesn't have to be. I mean, if like praemanure up at the top of the thread you interpret "virtue-signalling" as "that's all you're doing" (or "that's all that's going on whenever someone expresses judgment"), then it's a problematic phrase, certainly. And maybe that's what it's supposed to mean, but I think what the passage you quoted is saying is that one can express moral outrage *and* that there can be an element of displaying or signalling moral worthiness to others at the same time. And other people will make their own judgments about the relative proportion of the two.
posted by uosuaq at 8:51 PM on April 20, 2016


“I am expressing justified moral outrage, you are virtue signalling, they are a mob obsessed with punishing a trivial error.”
posted by pharm at 12:19 AM on April 21, 2016


I think a lot of it has to do with depression and mental illness.

When you feel numb and down for a long period of time, it feels really good to feel anything. Convince yourself you're fighting evil and then it's justified to spend your time working yourself into a nice, frothy lather and howling angrily at the world.

It also gives you a framework for continuing your patterns with moral legitimacy. If someone tells you to knock it off, they're shitlord oppressors. You're not spending too much time on social media, you're "raising awareness" or "amplifying voices." You can wrap your self loathing in rhetoric. You're not scum because you're depressed, you're scum because ugh, fucking white people, am I right?

And it gives a sense of belonging that may well be absent in the rest of your life. Online you're a tireless crusader for truth and justice, not one of those rubes that doesn't even know your pet issue is a thing

It gives meaning to a chaotic and unruly universe. There are definite Bad Guys out there that the idiot masses don't know about but if we raise enough awareness and enough people wake up to it, we can throw off the shackles and the world will be better.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 1:13 AM on April 21, 2016 [3 favorites]


Is 'slvox' a tag yet?
posted by aspersioncast at 8:39 AM on April 21, 2016


A quick search reveals that it was. Can we bring that back?
posted by aspersioncast at 12:38 PM on April 21, 2016


I've often thought this was the case. Happens regularly on Metafilter, imo. Despite being the best of the web, shittiness gets presented everyday here, fodder for outrage. Long and convoluted threads develop passionately arguing the fine points, often among people that fundamentally agree with each other. And the passion sometimes gets carried over to Metatalk for some dramatic mega threads. It's not unusual for people to throw up their hands and give up because not everyone will see the light on any particular issue. And of course, it's never me that does this sort of thing. It's always someone else.

Though I've seen it much worse on other forums dedicated to topics that you'd think would have little relevance or opportunity for punishing/shaming aberrant behaviors/beliefs. One forum I sometimes visit is dedicated to knives and knife collecting. I find it fascinating and weird how often threads really don't seem to be about knives at all. It occurs to me that the members are more interested in making declarations about their personal values and forging alliances with other like minded members, through the brands and features they admire. And they're very passionate about it. Identities are very tied up in their choice of cutlery. When pointing out that their arguments seem only relevant to knives and knife collecting as proxies for less tangible ideas, ideologies and beliefs, boy do they get irritated.

I suppose this is a pretty common behavior in one way or another all over internet communities.
posted by 2N2222 at 5:48 PM on April 21, 2016 [1 favorite]


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