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What's wrong with temperance, anyway? [1]

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Date: 2023-07-12  

Like “civility,” or “humanism,” it’s hard to argue against “temperance” as a virtue. Voluntary self restraint is essential among citizens for a society to thrive, no?

But you’re way ahead of me. Because you associate “temperance” with The Temperance Movement, which you associate with Prohibition, a short-lived amendment to the US Constitution, and because you are a modern person you likely believe Prohibition was a massive misstep with a bevy of unintended consequences.

But hang on. Let’s not minimize the damage that alcohol (writ large) was inflicting on society by the end of the 19th Century. Especially before women were enfranchised, and had little recourse from drunkenly abusive husbands who toiled in the mines or the new-fangled factories before drowning themselves in liquor at the neighborhood bars that were spreading like a social contagion at the time.

In other words, shit was actually really serious. Temperance wasn’t a whimsical utopian misfire; it was a desperate response to some ugly times.

There are many voices here at DKos riled up against the civility movement, as it seeks to stomp out all comparisons of human beings to vermin or insects. It’s a rowdy bunch, and I certainly don’t speak for everyone. What I can say with some confidence, however, is that the two sides are talking at cross purposes. Civilized folk here cannot wrap their heads around how anyone could possibly defend incivility! The vaunted Rules of Road are an expression of this dumbfoundedness. As written, the community is instructed to assume, by default, that anyone using a charged metaphor that might dehumanize our political opponents must have no other motive except hatred. Claims of humor, satire, snark, or any other literary devices, then, are just an “excuse” for expressing their underlying, totally uncivil, hatred. This is what the Rules tell us.

The entire argument has gotten bogged down for two main reasons, IMO. The pro-civility folk continue arguing, often with breezy self-righteousness, about why civility is good, why it’s a good strategy, why we shouldn’t turn into “them” — and they feel quite confident their arguments are absolutely correct. And they may be right. But you have to travel up a couple of Russian nesting dolls to start asking the question: what are the trade-offs?

Yes, we all know about “free speech,” its limitations, and how DKos is a privately operated community that can determine its own rules. That’s not what I’m referring to, although it shouldn’t be dismissed too casually. I’m talking about the attack on diversity of thought and expression that the trade-off inflicts in the name of a virtue.

Again, this trade-off can and should be debated. You may feel strongly that “dehumanization” is the root of all societal problems, and that the optimal place to address this in a political forum. Fine, but be aware of the unintended consequences. It’s easy to jump on the civility bandwagon because, well, why not? Who doesn’t prefer a civil community? In fact, many people here, it seems to me, consider it their civic duty to educated the uncouth and the rowdy the virtues of temperance, spreading peace and love with a sword.

Whoa, wait. With a sword? Yes, and this brings me to my second point. Debates about humanism should be massive, philosophical, sociological, religious, psychological — yet many here seem to think the topic can be reduced to flagging campaigns and bannings.

Community moderation, as expressed today, using the Rules as a sword, is capricious, arbitrary, cliquish, and quite frequently hypocritical. Insiders are allowed to be careless with their metaphors, while outsiders receive stern lectures, flags, which can lead to frayed tempers, raised voices — and of course the insiders never lose these battles. They are already chatting with each other, behind the scenes, parsing language, alerting other moderators, choosing the one word that might lead to the day’s victory: another BOJO! Their mission is righteous, and righteousness leads invariably to corruption.

This is a fact: if you get on the wrong side of some of these flag warriors they will stalk you for infractions. You could write an entirely satirical piece (with no dehumanizing language whatsoever), and you could clearly label it satire, and they could still flag it on the grounds that you had violated the Rule “Don’t be a jerk.” If you point them to the satire label, they will then refer you to the Rule that says “Humor is no excuse.” When you tell them they are being unreasonable, they will tell you to contact the Help Desk, which hardly ever responds and is staffed with their allies.

Believe it or not, while I have certainly had my run-ins with the flag warriors, my concern here is not self-defense. My intention is not nihilistic disruption. I am pro-healthy-community. I even prefer civility for the most part. My main concern is how often I have witnessed befuddled newcomers (or fed-up ancients like me) with a lot to offer, but they just drift away in amazement that they were piled on so relentlessly because they suggested De Santis needed an enema or whatever (something “promoting violence”). People communicate in all sorts of ways. Diversity of expression is a virtue in a community. Within reason. Free speech, most of us agree, is not limitless. But where is the line demarking “within reason”?

It’s another fantastic topic for debate, writ large. As written currently, the rules sound like they were written by one guy who had his own set of pet peeves, grievances, and ideas about how to make society better — so why not turn them into The Rules for everyone? The problems I note here have been getting cancerous only in recent years (to my eyes), so perhaps the Rules were not so exploited by flag warriors until recently. It doesn’t matter. They are failing now.

I have been told repeatedly I should suggest my own set of rules if I think I can do better. This is beyond my level of possible involvement. I know very little about the Dkos administrative structure and its capabilities. I know little about the mechanics of community moderation or how its structures could be tweaked. My perspective will remain as an outsider — more than a lurker, but ill-equipped to become an insider. From this perspective I think a good start would be to professionalize the current rules. If they are going to be treated as biblical commandments by the flag patrol, they should not be filled with so much subjectivity. When you really parse them you can see how capricious they are. “Don’t be a jerk” is most obvious, but even phrases like “legitimizing harm” on someone are wildly interpretable. Can you hope someone loses their career? That’s a harm. What about if they have children to feed? I mean this is the sort of parsing you see out there in the wee hours of a sleepy diary. And it can get really disgusting. “Do you realize you’d be literally torturing someone if you forced them to take an enema?? Their insides would literally explode!” It reminds me of all those senators in the 60s who spent all those hours parsing porn films, so they could legislate against it, confident they could “recognize it when they see it.”

Yep, this is in the language of our 21st-Century Rules of the Road: “We all know it when we see it.” Well, such is the opinion of the author of these rules, not mine. I hope others will have more creative ideas, but I think a great first step would be to clean up and simplify the rules, so for instance replace this patronizing language:

[Do Not] Endorse or call for violence against anyone, public figure or private, not even in jest. DO NOT fantasize violence or harm against anyone. Claiming hyperbole, humor, poetic license/justice, or karma is no excuse. DO NOT dehumanize others with language that triggers fear and revulsion (e.g., “rats,” “cockroaches,” “maggots,” “vermin,” “germs,” “contagion,” “aliens,” “subhuman,” etc.) to legitimize harm or violence.

Just say: “Do not endorse or call for violence against anyone.” To the extent that this requires moderation (so the site isn’t taken over by trolls, etc), the culture of moderation should be nudged strongly toward erring on the side of expression rather than on the side of prohibition. They should try to discern the author’s intent, instead of vilifying them for every loose word. Each of the current Rule’s attempts to itemize intolerable behavior is seized on as a sword by the flag warriors.

I don’t want to get bogged down in arguments about why one word crosses a line while another is okay. That’s the kind of parsing I’m trying to move away from. Like “porn,” much depends on context. Suffice it to say that it’s quite likely you have blind spots to your own forms of dehumanizing expressions, while to me, the Rules themselves are dehumanizing. Such is the nature of diversity.

If I could leave you with one thought it would be: the real argument is not about whether we should champion civility. It’s about the extent of our commitment to diversity of expression, and it’s about the power dynamics here that enable the zealous framing of the entire argument through a limited set of eyes. Prohibition comes with a real cost.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/7/12/2180741/-What-s-wrong-with-temperance-anyway

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