In social gatherings with live human beings interacting in close physical proximity, it matters whether or not the participants have turned into a mob. Where there is a mob there is a threat of physical violence. And it is also impossible to conduct a civilized debate in the presence of a loud and unruly mob, because the mob’s behavior interferes with the aims of the other participants. So if the point of the gathering was discussion or debate, the gathering is ruined by the mob.

But in a blog comments section it barely matters at all whether most of the participants are conducting themselves decorously, or in a mob-like way. There rarely any real likelihood of physical violence, and the ravings of the incensed lunatics need not have any significant impact on the discussions of the more sensible participants – unless the sensible ones decide to respond, and thereby allow the lunatics to have that impact. If commentator A and commentator B are having an interesting and civilized discussion among themselves, and some commentator C attempts to leap into the action armed with invective and hostility and stupidity, A and B can just ignore C, and go right on talking as if C isn’t there. They can do the same thing if there are a hundred C’s and only one A and one B. It is true that the chaff takes up space, and can slow somewhat the process of scrolling to the stuff you want to read. But this is really only a minor inconvenience.

Let’s remember, then, that in the context of a blog comments section, calling something a “riot” can only be a metaphorical description. So of course whatever happened that day on the Washington Post site wasn’t a real riot. Even if it consisted of 99% hateful, vulgar and personally insulting diatribes it wouldn’t have been a riot. Riots involve human beings in close physical contact who are shouting, pushing, hitting, throwing things and trampling each other. A “riot” of comments involves a bunch of individuals, scattered around the country or even the world, sitting quietly in chairs and typing.

I understand that bloggers have very different attitudes toward their comments sections. That attitude is driven by what they want that comments section to be. I had a blog once, for about four months, and had a completely non-interventionist attitude toward my own comments section. The only things I deleted were (a) spam and (b) attempts to interfere physically with the performance of the blog, such as by posting a long repeated string of the same word just to take up space in the comments section. Other than that, I let anything go. People were free to be as hateful, ignorant, illiterate, ugly, genocidal or vulgar as they wished to be. “Trolls?” Fine. I would keep my eye on them to make sure there were no comments of the “I know where you live and I’m coming to get you!” variety. But other than that, whatever floated their boat was OK.

But I know that on other sites, like this one, the blog’s authors strive to maintain the comments section as a serious discussion group, where people can come and find interesting comments quickly without having to wade through a bunch of garbage. That’s a perfectly understandable practice.

It may be that a journalist’s natural inclination is to treat the comments in a blog as something they themselves have published, just like letters to the editor. They may thus think that the only things allowed should be “fit to print”. Personally, I think it would be healthier for them if they did not think of the comments in that way, and instead thought of them as a public space where other people publish whatever they want. But it’s their call. It should be noted, though, that the desire to keep comments pure is not entirely a difference between “old” conventional journalistic standards and “new” blog standards. Some bloggers are very controlling with regard to their comments.

On travels around the blogosphere, one encounters from time to time instances of the blogger deciding to shut down a comments section because it passes some line they wish to enforce. It’s their blog, so it’s their prerogative. But certainly it is clear that on at least some of these occasions that what prompted to shut-down is their dislike of the content of what is said, not its tome or absence of civility. I say this is clear, because on some such occasions the tone is no lower that it has been on other comments sections on the same blog that have been allowed to proceed without censorship.

Many of us have probably also experienced instances in which a comments section that has evolved into a rather stable and self-contained discussion group among a regular group of contributors is suddenly invaded by a group of interlopers who have been directed there from another site. I recall being part of a discussion in which a bunch or readers from one of the right-wing blogs, perhaps it was PowerLine, suddenly appeared to indulge their wonted behavior, and call us all a bunch of un-American traitors, and issue vague threats about how following some great right-wing judgment day, we would all be rounded up and hustled off to a terrorist-torturing gulag. These tactics sometimes seem to disturb the mental equilibrium of the other commentators. But the longer one visits blogs, the easier it is just to ignore this stuff, and proceed as usual. One knows that the wignuts are out there, thinking their vengeful thoughts and masturbating to their sadistic fantasies. It doesn’t much matter whether they are posting things where you can read them, or hiding in their own little corners.

I tend to agree with the negative comments about the Daily Kos. In my opinion, most of what one finds in the comments there is an lowbrow and illogical political foodfight. But what of it? I don’t go there. I prefer to read the things I prefer to read. Why are so many people seeminly threatened by the very existence of such sites?

So says BigMacAttack. And, after spending a half hour or so wading through the bile at Daily Kos et al, I’d have to say he has a point. Look, to claim that you are a moderate, and then refer to the other party as evil, demonic, etc. just isn’t exactly reasoned, thoughtful comment. Some of the posters at Kos seem to be willing to be thoughtful. One noted that an irate call to poison political opponents was unacceptable, even as a joke, given the heated rhetoric. But most posts at Kos are much more in line with the not-so-smart remarks. Look, if it was poor form for the folks on the right to name-call, then it seems particularly wrong for the left to do so. Especially when one might argue, after a few minutes at both Kos and LGF that neither is particularly long on thoughtful comment, but Kos is certainly ahead on insults.

Do you really think that “fucktard” and “fascist” , or talk of going out with pointed sticks to settle scores with Democratic senators who voted in a way that displeased the poster add much to the intellectual content?

Questions for all those who think this is just the normal heated exchange – How would you feel if the subject of some of the heated rhetoric at Kos were members of minorities, or women? It is still just political give and take, or is it hate speech?

sfb

ellen1910 – I believed Howell because she was quite frank about having made a mistake, and seemed convincing. That’s all. I may be wrong – I didn’t say that she was right – I said that I believed her. That’s all.

Matt – I got 100% the first time I did the quiz

Seth – you’re right that I’m appealing to the blogs as conversation vs non-interactive media idea. Perhaps a bit too much. But I think there is something there – and the specific additional claim I’m trying to make here is that there are different kinds of authority structures in conversations and in conventional journalism. I’ve been thinking about this a lot in the context of the relationship between blogging and academic peer reviewed publishing – where there are perhaps even more glaring disparities.

mq – read the dialogue with Brad above in the early comments – the two of us are pretty well in agreement as best as I can tell.

bigmacattack – what I meant to say in that post was not that Goldsmith was honest despite being a conservative, but rather that while I recognize that he’s a conservative and don’t agree with his ideas, I believe he deserves kudos for doing the right thing. I think that some of Goldsmith’s arguments are interesting, but lead in some pretty unfortunate objections. But I didn’t want to get into a discussion of Goldsmith’s academic work which would have been a distraction. I can see how you very easily would have interpreted what I was saying as you did – but that wasn’t what I was trying to say, for what it’s worth. As for John Q. – he has specifically noted in an earlier post href=”http://crookedtimber.org/2004/02/15/milloy-again/” rel=”nofollow”>http://crookedtimber.org/2004/02/15/milloy-again/ that.

As with John Lott and the American Enterprise Institute, the link between Cato and Milloy raises the question of how an institution that has some pretensions to respectability and employs some decent people can justify supporting such unethical and intellectually bankrupt charlatans.

I don’t think that he can fairly be accused of saying that all Cato people, or all AEI people, are cynical corrupt shills.

But I’ve seen a large handful of honest conservatives who believe what they say and attempt to think it out. They of course are as disgusted with the Bush administration as any liberal. There might be a lot of conservatives like that who don’t travel in the same crowds I do. It would be wrong to say there are very few people like that.

But how many honest conservative think tank employees have we experienced? I’m at zero at this point but I haven’t watched all of them. If you’d like to suggest a candidate for an honest conservative think-tanker, I’ll be glad to pay some attention to him. It isn’t a gross generalisation. It’s an observation of grossness.

Anyway, I repeat, give us an example and you can show that it isn’t universal. That would be a good start for you to make a substantive point, as opposed to just more bloviating.

Certainly, though it must be increasingly difficult for an honest person working at, say, AEI to maintain their self-respect given that the organisation happily promotes someone like John Lott.