What does 'cheese-eating' mean?

@ehBeth,

I really liked the Scientific American piece you linked. It sure matches my experience over all these years. And what that piece reveals/discusses is exactly why, on the thread I started, I bring in high quality and thoughtful writing by non-site writers/analysts rather than getting into pissing contests with others on the site (contests I analogize as two men standing on either side of a creek pissing on each other and then arguing which of them is wetter).

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pull out the farthest fringe elements

I really do like this notion. Just intuitively, it makes sense. When we read of some protest/counter protest where heads get bloodied or totally uninvolved businesses get trashed, most of us wish the extremist types would have gone fishing instead of attending.

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@blatham,

Who defines the "fringe" elements? That is an awful lot of power to have in any community.

There is a big difference between ignoring someone and silencing someone. There is nothing to stop any individual from simply deciding not to engage with a person or a position. That isn't what you seem to be talking about here. In any online pissing contest, there are at least two willing participants.

We are talking about building gated communities where people can literally be expelled when they don't meet certain criteria. And I strongly suspect that political ideology will be a big part of this. Gated communities function to strengthen your previously held beliefs, not to challenge them. The idea that you can learn more by silencing people who disagree with you seems counter-intuitive.

Maybe it is a matter of degree. Instead of let Bert being challenged to support same-sex marriage, we can put him in a silo where no one believes in same sex marriage. There is a chance that there will be people in his silo who have slightly weaker beliefs and rather than his beliefs being challenged directly maybe he somehow move organically with people who think much the same as he does.

Excuse me if I am skeptical that this will take place.

I suspect I know where the walls will be drawn. And, I suspect this will lead to strengthening of previously held beliefs rather than any learning.

Maybe that is what people want. Maybe my call for respectful discussion with people of different perspectives in a place where it is safe to challenge ideas is foolish.

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@maxdancona,

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Maybe that is what people want. Maybe my call for respectful discussion with people of different perspectives in a place where it is safe to challenge ideas is foolish.

Not in the least foolish. The question/problem is how you get to such a community. Unfettered and un-policed online discussion in politics does not work adequately anywhere I've ever been in such groups over 25 years. Vitriol is not difficult to recognize. Patterns of behavior such as frequent personal insults become evident quickly. People who wish to merely or mainly or frequently cause emotional turmoil in another stand out unless everyone is doing the same. Etc.

Humans being humans, there will inevitably be confirmation bias in the mix but we get that anyway no matter how we might decide to run things.

Who defines the fringe elements? Moderators and site owners. They have this power anyway so it seems to me the proper (or best) use of that power might well be through removing outliers.

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We are talking about building gated communities where people can literally be expelled when they don't meet certain criteria.

I can't think of any community that doesn't operate in this manner though surely the degree of "extremity" varies and can become oppressive and counter-productive.

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The idea that you can learn more by silencing people who disagree with you seems counter-intuitive.

My degree is in education. I hope you'll trust me when I tell you that some students in some classes act in a manner which curtails efforts to promote learning. But I'm sure your own experience verifies that. Or some person or group at a townhall meeting or speech who chant or shout over everyone else is another such example. I'm personally very content to removes such elements - for the sake of promoting civility and learning.

It's not that what you are worried about isn't valid. It is. We all understand enough history to get that. It is, as you said, a matter of balance. And it is guaranteed we are not all going to agree on the optimum balance. But I don't see that inevitable disagreement as prohibitive to making a better, more civil, community.

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@blatham,

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My degree is in education. I hope you'll trust me when I tell you that some students in some classes act in a manner which curtails efforts to promote learning. But I'm sure your own experience verifies that. Or some person or group at a townhall meeting or speech who chant or shout over everyone else is another such example. I'm personally very content to removes such elements - for the sake of promoting civility and learning.

Thank you Blatham, I appreciate your thoughtful response.

The simple answer is that you should curtail behavior without curtailing points of view. I am realizing that this is often a little muddy; especially around the true extremes, or in cases where there are strong emotions. However, my point is that one can ignore someone (choosing not to engage yourself) without silencing them (choosing to prevent them from engaging with others).

I think I have made opinion clear on this point-- often it is the core (strongly left of center) group who does much of the name-calling and tries to silence dissenting opinion. Often their uncivil behavior is ignored, or even cheered, because they share the prevalent views. This doesn't help learning.

I appreciate the moderators willingness here to allow conversation to take place with little censorship. I sometimes wish that they would clamp down on name-calling and personal attacks.

My concern is that differing opinions, even provocative opinions, will be silenced. Gated communities don't interest me (in real life or online).

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@maxdancona,

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There is a big difference between ignoring someone and silencing someone.

There's a big difference between imposing certain standards of behavior and silencing someone.

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And I strongly suspect that political ideology will be a big part of this.

Why? Do you really think that name-calling and trolling only originate from one side of the political spectrum? Anyone who repeatedly engages in obnoxious patterns of behavior should be at risk of censure or suspension. I strongly suspect that how people act, not how they think, would determine whether suspension or expulsion is carried out.

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The idea that you can learn more by silencing people who disagree with you seems counter-intuitive.

I have no interest in silencing people who disagree with me. I'd just like to see certain types of online behavior — bullying, threatening, trolling, name-calling — discouraged in order that civil conversation might more easily ensue.

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Maybe my call for respectful discussion with people of different perspectives in a place where it is safe to challenge ideas is foolish.

"Respectful" is the operative word here.

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@blatham,

blatham wrote:

Patterns of behavior

it's definitely about behaviour for me

definitely not about politics

timberlandko is always my primary example - we were pretty far apart politically. he was always gracious in presenting his arguments. I learned a lot from him. Still use sites he recommended as references.

It was a joy and an honour to meet him, spend time with him, and to spend hours in a diner listening to him and Set debate in real life.

I miss him and his approach to discussion/debate greatly.

A discussion that included timber, set, roger and dys? Bliss.

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@hightor,

hightor wrote:

I have no interest in silencing people who disagree with me.

this !

I learn the most in debates with people I disagree with. I've learned to organize argument, to present evidence, to defend positions, when to use silence. What I learned at Abuzz and A2k in the early days helped me professionally.

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@ehBeth,

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timberlandko is always my primary example - we were pretty far apart politically. he was always gracious in presenting his arguments. I learned a lot from him. Still use sites he recommended as references.

I am skeptical that it has anything to do with behavior. Setanta makes personal insults in at least half of his posts here calling people "moron" or idiot rather than engaging on the topic. It is certainly true that bad behavior is accepted by the core left of center group here as long as the person has the "correct" opinions. I have never seen anyone in the in-crowd challenge Setanta, Edgar or Izzy when they clearly cross the line into incivil behavior.

I don't remember Timberlandko representing a unique political viewpoint (I may just not remember). I do remember him as being respectful and intelligent.

There are third rails here, there are certain positions that aren't fringe in acedema that aren't allowed here by the dominent crowd. Someone who takes one of these positions is personally attacked in an attempt to discredit and silence them as a person.

The dominant group here is the one that is complaining. It seems to me that this group has the most leverage in determining the culture here. If they would step attacking and silencing dissent... and instead either ignore people or engage them civilly... it would go a long way to making Able2Know a more civil place. From where I sit it seems awfully hypocritical to ignore bad behavior from people because they hold the right opinions.

I think gated communities are the wrong way to go. Civility from everyone, including the "cool" kids, would be a much better solution.

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@ehBeth,

I would love to hear your response to this thread, should you be so inclined.

https://able2know.org/topic/439132-1

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@maxdancona,

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The simple answer is that you should curtail behavior without curtailing points of view.

Of course.

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I am realizing that this is often a little muddy; especially around the true extremes, or in cases where there are strong emotions. However, my point is that one can ignore someone (choosing not to engage yourself) without silencing them (choosing to prevent them from engaging with others).

Oh yes. I have quite a few people on ignore. The point isn't ideology, it's some disruptive pattern of behavior. For example, five or six years ago, there was a guy who would write a line followed by 40 lines of no text, then he type in another line, then 40 more empty lines (their software no longer permits this). You might have to spend 10 seconds scrolling to get past him. Until his next post. It made the whole site a far more disagreeable experience, certainly not welcoming to new-comers. That's why he was doing it. He didn't like the leftist tone of the WP blog. Or over at NRO, you can witness leftwing trolls in any of the discussions that follow articles or opinion pieces seeking not just to disagree in a civil manner, laying out arguments carefully, but seeking to interrupt the on-going discussions. Absolutely fine with me if NRO boots out such people.

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I appreciate the moderators willingness here to allow conversation to take place with little censorship. I sometimes wish that they would clamp down on name-calling and personal attacks.

Me too. But clamp down how? What might work as a solution to change such behavior?

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@ehBeth,

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timberlandko is always my primary example - we were pretty far apart politically. he was always gracious in presenting his arguments. I learned a lot from him. Still use sites he recommended as references.

It was a joy and an honour to meet him, spend time with him, and to spend hours in a diner listening to him and Set debate in real life.

Me too. I loved that guy. As with Dys, when they were gone nothing felt quite the same. We, as a community, were diminished without them. I think about them both very often.

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@blatham,

Obviously, someone has started the "free speech" hare, and I suspect it's this site's new Whiner-in-Chief. I will not abandon my resolve not to waste my time reading his drivel--but I will point some things out.

Hawkeye used to come up with this crap all the time. First and foremost, free speech only applies in public places, and discussion boards and comments sections of news sites are not public places. Nevertheless, as I used to point out to the old Whiner-in-Chief, you can say pretty much what you want to say here, and you won't get shut down.

Freedom of speech doesn't mean that anyone has to listen to you. It does not mean that anyone has to take you seriously, it doesn't mean anyone has to respect you or your lame-brained opinions. It doesn't mean that others can't say your ideas are idiotic, it doesn't mean that others can't laugh at you.

As for civility, the gun nuts around here routinely refer to people who want to see gun control as freedom-haters. Is that civil? Oralloy does that all the time. That old clown David used to bang on about guns and civility, yet shortly after he arrived here, he was making snide remarks about gun control advocates on their knees begging for their lives. He also thought he had the right to insist that his bullsh*t not be ignored. Jesus wept, grow up--hall monitors in their sixties or seventies?

How civil is it for Max to stomp into any thread about women and try to shut-down the thread? How civil is it for Gunga Dim to attempt to shut down any discussion of the Palestinians? How civil is it for Olive Tree to go into just about any thread on just about any topic and attempt to pick a fight, just because that's what he likes to do?

As EB often observes, lots of good, thoughtful people have abandoned this site forever because they have found the venue to have become toxic. I don't blame them, but my response is to return toxic remarks with toxic remarks. Recently, one of the god botherers was whining about name-calling. Saying that something someone has said is idiotic is not name calling. This same joker turned around and referred to me as a close-minded bigot because I refused to entertain one of his failed analogies for a lack of evidence--so much for civility at this site.

Get over it, everybody. Just look how far astray this thread has gone. What does all of this angst, all of this sturm und drang, all of this phony melodrama have to do with Centrox's question--which was answered, and answered accurately?

(This is not a reflection on Mr. Latham, and no Canadians were harmed in the promulgation of this post.)

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@Setanta,

I am curious Setanta.

What percentage of your posts contain direct personal attacks? I bet you are at about 50% now (you were calling everyone who questioned you a moron for a little while). I love how you are whining about whining (I do love irony).

In the other thread, poor EhBeth couldn't decide whether to defend your behavior or not. She demurred. She does have class.

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@Setanta,

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Centrox's question--which was answered, and answered accurately?

It was "answered" by you, but not accurately.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

Snowflake is another such effort at a sneer against alleged liberals, and it's just as lame as cheese-eating.

I totally agree. But there's quite a definitional gulf between "a sneer against [people with opposing viewpoints]" and "hate speech". And it definitely matters to site moderation to identify such a clear distinction.

For one, hate speech would have to involve smearing people on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion or equivalent categories.

Nationality might count, and I suppose the etymology of "cheese eaters" could plausibly be traced back to the Bush remarks... It's a bit of a stretch though, and this particular phrase seems to mostly be Layman's personal invention. Moreover, he's not actually using it against the French in particular. So, much like "snowflakes", "cheese eaters" and the like is certainly childish and detrimental to discourse, but not really any "sort of hate speech".

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@hightor,

hightor wrote:

oralloy and I once discussed the possibility of having heavily-moderated threads where name-calling is forbidden. If layman wanted to refer generally to "cheese-eaters" or if hightor wanted to call some Trump supporters "opioid-eaters", fine. But specifically addressing a member this way would not be allowed.

That seems pretty similar to how this site is moderated, actually. Generic insults of people or users at large aren't removed, targeted insults of individual users are. Even pretty milquetoast plays on usernames (eg "blather") seem to get removed if they catch the moderators' eyes. The only exception I can think of is "cheese eater" and even there Layman mostly uses it generically rather than at a specific individual user.

hightor wrote:

I think it's possible that the election of Trump has a lot to do with the forum climate in that he and the alt-right have really reveled in that "gloves off, take no prisoners" type of discourse. Conversation has been coarsened throughout the whole society, not just on A2K. I don't believe we'd be seeing this level of vitriol with someone like Romney or Jeb! in the White House.

I'm skeptical about this, and about other claims in this thread about how things have gotten so much worse. Don't you guys remember Giujohn, who insulted other users more often than any currently active member I can think of other than Layman? Frugal, H2OMan and whatever their alts have been over time, who was/were worse? Gungasnake has been here forever and was a lot more active before... That 9/11 conspiracy guy (I forget his name)... et cetera. All pre-Trump. Frankly, just like many good users have left over time, many of the worst have disappeared (voluntarily or otherwise) over time too -- as you'd expect with a site that's over x years old. I can't even think of any currently active users beyond Layman who would fall in the same category.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

I have never seen anyone in the in-crowd challenge Setanta, Edgar or Izzy when they clearly cross the line into incivil behavior.

Each of those users has received vocal criticisms from other regular users, including from users on the liberal/progressive side.

I do think most people tend to mind misbehavior from people on "their" side less than when it comes from the other side -- or even notice it, since I think it's partly subconscious -- and that's an annoying human feature which relatively few of us escape. But it still gets called out plenty. Setanta seems a particularly ill-chosen example in this regard, as I'm guessing that, over the years, he's had almost as many critics here from the left as from the right.

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@nimh,

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Don't you guys remember Giujohn...

Oh yeah. I probably should've been banned myself for some of the things I said to him!

I know, though, there have always been online trolls. I just think that trolling seems to have spilled out into what used to be 'polite society' with the level of hatred and discontent aroused by and fulminated by Trump's election. I never saw so many hand-wringing editorials about the loss of comity during previous administrations. But it may just be the natural evolution of culture in the developed world — it's not as if I really believe that the political atmosphere would have been that much more civil with Hillary Clinton in the White House — I just doubt that we'd be having the "shithole vs. shithouse" discussion.

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@nimh,

nimh wrote:

maxdancona wrote:
I have never seen anyone in the in-crowd challenge Setanta, Edgar or Izzy when they clearly cross the line into incivil behavior.

Each of those users has received vocal criticisms from other regular users, including from users on the liberal/progressive side.

I do think most people tend to mind misbehavior from people on "their" side less than when it comes from the other side -- or even notice it, since I think it's partly subconscious -- and that's an annoying human feature which relatively few of us escape. But it still gets called out plenty. Setanta seems a particularly ill-chosen example in this regard, as I'm guessing that, over the years, he's had almost as many critics here from the left as from the right.

In my case, I tend to spend the most time reading comments from people who disagree with me. I tend to mostly gloss over quickly the comments from those in agreement.

I learn the most out of discussion and differing points of view, especially from people who can talk intelligently, with facts and data to support them.

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Thomas Jefferson wrote:

“I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics or in anything else. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.”

Few people share Jefferson's devotion to independent thought.

Indeed, for many the sentiment is quite the opposite: Unless they can go with a party, they will not go at all.

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What does 'cheese-eating' mean?

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