Burnt by the moronic inferno

A new guide to civilised debate can’t work in the age of social media, says James Marriott.

‘Productive disagreement,’’ the journalist Ian Leslie writes in Conflicted ,is something ‘‘we have never been more in need of.’’ I agree – fervently. I nodded and underlined my way through the book’s nearly 300 pages of eloquent, thoughtful advice about how ‘‘productive disagreement’’ might be achieved; how in arguments we should strive for emotional connection, how we should actually listen to what our opponents have to say, how we should be intellectually curious, humorous, aware of our cultural biases, ready to acknowledge our mistakes. I disagree with Leslie in one matter only: his optimism. I fear his project is doomed. I fear Conflicted is a water pistol aimed at the moronic inferno of the internet.

For the internet is the unavoidable subject of this book, whether Leslie likes it or not. And you sometimes suspect he doesn’t like it – presumably because the book’s tentative hope that we may all achieve ‘‘productive disagreement’’ is almost impossible to sustain in the face of an unillusioned appreciation of what the internet is doing to society. I think it’s hard to overstate this: in the course of the past 20 years, the internet has transformed the way society talks to itself. It represents the most important revolution of this kind since Gutenberg. And it is not going well.

In his first chapter Leslie describes how, in the early days of the internet, a theory arose that ‘‘the more people are able to communicate with others, the more friendly and understanding they will become’’. Human nature, we now know, isn’t like that. Networked at vast scale, humans tend towards fury – towards mob justice, conspiracy theories, political polarisation, public shaming, and trolling.

In this they are egged on by companies such as Twitter and Facebook, who understand that public discourse can be

monetised and is ruled by a simple equation: the angrier we are, the more we engage. The more we engage, the more ads we see. The more ads we see, the more money flows into Silicon Valley. Leslie reports a study by scientists at New York University that found that using moral and emotional words increased the diffusion of tweets through Twitter’s networks by 20 per cent for each extra emotive word.

While Leslie acknowledges social media may be making society more polarised, he writes that ‘‘social media is not real life and there is little evidence people are replicating these angry disagreements in person’’. I don’t believe this is the case. The storming of the Capitol last month showed just how thin the veil between the ‘‘real’’ and ‘‘virtual’’ worlds has grown. Everyone in the mob was there because of a reality constructed on the internet and many of them even acted as if they were in a video game, personalising themselves as ‘‘characters’’ with outlandish costumes, shouting excitedly about medics and flash bangs, and expressing stupefaction when police fought back with real bullets and real tear gas.

I’m not convinced that many people make the distinction between the ‘‘real world’’ and the ‘‘virtual world’’, especially those who have grown up online. Look up the video that went viral in 2015 of Yale students screaming at the academic Nicholas Christakis after his wife, also a lecturer, sent an email innocently suggesting they shouldn’t take the idea of culturally offensive Halloween costumes too seriously. In the context of the real world this behaviour seems mad and terrifying. But in the context of the internet it’s unexceptional.

I think it’s plausible the students were responding in a way that was familiar and even normal to them from their lives online.

Meanwhile many of the institutions Western societies have created to foster and channel productive argument are being twisted out of shape by the internet. Thanks to a social-media culture that visits fierce reprisals on those who deviate from the accepted groupthink, universities are becoming increasingly ideologically homogeneous. Some newspapers suffer in the same manner. The New York Times columnist Bari Weiss quit the paper, claiming that Twitter had become its ‘‘ultimate editor’’. It sometimes seems to me that the ‘‘no platforming’’ of speakers is so attractive to some because it is a real-world substitute for the ‘‘block’’ function, which so easily silences enemies online. Meanwhile, in the world’s parliaments, democratic lawmakers are under pressure from their parties’ internet-radicalised fringes (the reason 147 Republican members of Congress voted to overturn a democratic election).

From another perspective, the kind of reasoned, polite debate promoted by Conflicted may seem the product of another age – one in which public discourse was carried by the tiny minority of wealthy metropolitan pundits who had access to opinion columns, radio airtime and seats on political TV panels. Civility was possible because most of these people had little at stake. Thanks to Twitter and Facebook, the public square has been flooded by the poor and the marginalised. They have little interest in polite and patient debate – the arguments are simply too urgent. Neither the #MeToo nor Black Lives Matter movements proceeded according to Leslie’s ideal of civilised debate, but both have won important victories. Neither cause, of course, is imaginable without social media.

Nonetheless, the overwhelming story of social media is chaos. Victories for social justice causes, however important, will turn out to be futile if democracy is lost or violent conspiracy theories destroy the truth. The unreasoning fury of the internet is in nobody’s interests, and is most detrimental to those who rage most incessantly. However seductive their feelings of moral superiority, Leslie’s book shows their rage all too often leads only to failure and futility.

I’m unconvinced that there is much hope for society. But, on the personal level, those of us who are able to argue well have much to gain from this increasingly rare skill. If you want to argue better, Leslie’s manual will be invaluable. As Leslie shows with examples from science, technology and the arts, productive disagreement spurs on creativity and discovery and new thinking: Orville and Wilbur Wright argued almost constantly, so did the Rolling Stones, so did Watson and Crick (the rival team working on DNA, Wilkins and Franklin, kept a cool distance from each other after Wilkins mistook Franklin for a lab assistant on their first meeting). If it seems I have spent too long disagreeing with this wise and useful book, perhaps Leslie will agree it is at least in the spirit of his cause.

Why Arguments Are Tearing Us Apart and How They Can Bring Us Together, by Ian Leslie (Faber)

AThe second time I met Gina, she arrived late for a training session – she’s pretty good at being late – and threw her handbag on the table. Two Gladwrapped sausages fell out which was odd because I can’t imagine too many women carrying sausages in their handbags. It made me laugh and think, you look like an interesting woman.

I’d just spent 10 years in the army, including stints in Afghanistan and Antarctica, and was labouring but looking for my next career. I’ve always loved animals and started volunteering at the SPCA before training as an ambulance driver. Two years ago I became an animal welfare inspector. I also volunteer for the National Rescue Unit which Gina heads up so, when we’re doing rescues, she’s technically my boss. But I don’t have a problem with that.

On one of our first dates, I was on call and had just picked up a stray kitten. I don’t think Gina appreciated me setting the alarm every two hours so I could get up and feed it.

What attracted me to Gina? She’s super hot! But she’s not one of those Barbie dolls who spends hours putting on her makeup, she’s naturally beautiful and authentic. Gina is incredibly gregarious, everyone loves her. And she’s super smart. She also has the kind of laugh you hear and want to laugh too. She’s the total package.

Living and working together is great because we understand the stress that other person is under. We read an article about ‘‘sliming’’, where you don’t unload about your day as soon as you walk in the door. We have a policy of trying not to slime each other. Obviously if something terrible has happened and one of us needs to urgently talk about it, then we’re allowed to slime.

We see our relationship in terms of a Venn diagram – we’re very different but also have that area of commonality, especially our love of animals. I’m an introvert so would happily stay at home, but Gina needs to be out there meeting people and burning though life like a hurricane. But she helps take me out of my comfort zone and most of the time I’m glad I listened to her.

Gina is horse crazy but fell off her horse, Mr Fox, and broke her shoulder so for three months I had to feed and look after Mr Fox. At the end I realised I liked horses, so I got Roxy, my horse. Initially, the two didn’t get on and Roxy ran away. I got a call from the SPCA saying a horse was running down the road, and I’m like, ‘‘That’s my horse!’’ Thankfully they’ve bonded now.

GI was born in Yorkshire but moved to Auckland when I was 11. I was a horsey girl growing up so studied vet nursing and worked at the SPCA while I was a student and never really left. When I moved to Wellington seven years ago to become an inspector, I’d been single for a while. I’d had a few Tinder dates but was exhausted by it so thought I’d give dating a rest.

Adam was an SPCA volunteer who had to do a ridealong with an inspector. My friend said, he can go with you because I think you’ll really like him. So of course I was adamant I wouldn’t like him because she expected me to.

But it was hard not to like Adam. He’s tall and at the time was working as a labourer and boxing so he was super fit. He has lovely dark, curly hair and is good-looking, so I’m definitely punching above my weight.

Adam had been in the military and was this big strong guy but on the ridealong he started singing along to Disney’s Moana soundtrack. When I was training him I got so flustered I backed my ute into the historic SPCA building with everyone watching. But Adam friended me on Facebook and our first date was supposed to be to a Moana singalong but it was booked out so he came to my flat and we had our own singalong.

We work so well together because we’re polar opposites. He’s introverted and I’m out there doing stuff at 100 miles an hour. But there’s room for only one Beyonce in this group and Adam doesn’t get in my way. Instead, he’s the calm, supportive person letting me be me. He’s also incredibly kind to people, animals and even plants. He’s been known to wander around the neighbourhood spraying dying plants with worm poo from his worm farm.

I’d like to get married, if only for my mother. My older sister [Auckland interior designer Evie Kemp] eloped and my other three siblings aren’t married so Mum would like to be the mother of the bride sometime.

At work, Adam and I do have a bit of crossover. At one job, an aggressive dog broke its chain and ran at us. I legged it but Adam stood his ground and the dog backed off.

It helps to have someone who understands what I’m going through because we see some horrific things in this job. Like the horse I found tied to a tree for a month without food and water. The poor thing had to be euthanised and when I got home, Adam gave me a hug and let me cry.

The SPCA annual appeal runs from March 1-7.