The Invisible Shield of Anonymity

Here at school, discussions on the student listserv often devolve into inflammatory (and often elementary) name calling. I think there are several basic reasons for this. In the first place, emails are often half-read, or skimmed. People jump head first into these arguments after having read just the first of four paragraphs of an argument. Conclusions are jumped to, and responded to, even though they might not have ever existed.

Read carefully.

Things quickly become personal. It starts with subtle jabs, questioning someone's ability to read, think, or articulate. These are always degrading and condescending. "I'm left to wonder if Mr. Jones has even travelled abroad, or knows what it's like to be in prison." You could always present your argument by explaining the benefits of traveling abroad, for example, or by describing the realities of prison life, ooooooor you could simply deconstruct your opponent by making blanket assumptions and sweeping judgments about the value of their life experience, or lack there of. You don't need to know if these things are true, just say them anyway.

From here things often turn ugly. Sure, there are always a couple of reasonable, even handed responses, usually sent with the intent of cooling the flames or putting an end to the ridiculousness that is ensuing. These messages are either ignored entirely, or repeated (practically verbatim) by others who feel the same way and either didn't read the first message, or just want their moment on the soapbox.

The conversation is instead dominated by the loud and obnoxious, generally. Despite spending countless hours in Legal Writing classes, learning how to carefully articulate arguments and present ideas, law students quickly fall back on more primitive tools of persuasion, like using ALL CAPS for the REALLY IMPORTANT WORDS, such as, "YOU'RE AN ASS!" or "APOLOGIZE OR ELSE." Keep in mind, these discussions are taking place before an audience of hundreds.

What's striking is not the language used, or the elementary argumentation taking place between groups of grad students. Rather, it's the ability of human beings to forget that they actually know the people they are talking to or about. It's our ability to write an angry, impassioned, and inflammatory email about a person who we see on a weekly, if not daily basis, and then knowingly send the email directly to that person.

Even if you never have to face the person (as is the case with the law school listserv), don't we all have to co-exist? Don't we have a kind of evolutionary duty to not fall back on our most cowardly, ineffective, lazy, and hurtful tools of argument?

Or don't we?

(Note: This is not to say that a person doesn't occasionally deserve a swift kick in the pants or an angry/impassioned email. It's just to say that a person doesn't deserve to be insulted when they disagree with you on basic questions of policy, law, etc.)