Hater or Hater-Ed

On youtube someone who disagrees with you is a 'hater.'

Granted, a lot of the people who make comments about vid-blogs are unabashedly hateful. After really putting yourself out there to be communicate with other human beings and someone responds to you with "What's the deal with your complexion-ever considered Clearasil?" or "That of mole of yours is seconds away from taking over the world!" they are intending little other than deliberately hurt or shame.

That's unfortunate. And in the anonymous environment of internet debate (road rage with a keyboard), such behavior is becoming more and more common. But in condemning this type of response it is not fair or helpful to lump anyone offering any type of criticism into the 'hater' category. Online discussion including video blogging is a great opportunity to educate ourselves and revise our opinions and beliefs by responses from people in pockets of the world we don't even know exist much less ever get to visit.

But rather than embracing this opportunity for learning and refinement of our own views, many of those people who post videos (not something for shrinking violets) don't seem to want genuine response. Even though honest criticism may be a response in the spirit with which the conversation was generated, often that response is viewed with the worst possible motive--hate.

Would a poster who equates different views as hatefulness have others believe, in watning only to be stroked and complimented, that only obligation of a listener is to agree 100%? In our personal lives we may have the wish only to be validated, but in the spirit of internet dialogue, honest debate of issues is obviously preferable to just fishing for pats on the back from strangers who really only matter to us for that very potential of objectivity that the forum creates.

But the temptation is strong to distract the issue away any weakness of one's views and rather accuse those who point out those weaknesses as simply being mean. A common debate technique called the 'red herring' but in this new format doing so has developed this new parlance.

An extreme example could illustrate the benefits of divert an argument rather than confronting it head on. Say Hitler posted one of his political speaches online. A coalition nation might then log on to tell him he was sounding anti-Semitic, maybe helpfully suggest he should think about moderating at least his tone in the interest of not being misunderstood, etc. Rather than respond to the serious charge of anti-Semitism (a difficult task in his case) Hitler might accuse that coalition nation of being a 'hater.' One of his axix allies might further encourage neutral nations to not get involved, because even getting involved (especially when there is truth to any critical assertion) could be considered hateful.

Those who would use such red-herring techniques try to paint the bigger obligation of a listener, not to actually respond with their actual opinion, but to avoid at all costs saying anything like:

"Given X (that you have stated), I believe NOT X."

What this does is confuse disagreement with hateful intention, either deliberately or because of the wounded feelings of those who feel criticized.

But the video blogger is rarely the random topic for hatred by those who actually take the time to substantively evaluate their arguments. In fact they are the ones who have introduced often passionate, controversial issues in an an arena that seems to have the purpose of encouraging response in kind. Sometimes their statement is ironically prompted by ways in which they disagree with common views. Thus they seem to wish to tempt others into entering such a discussion with them, and should welcome responses in any form they come.

What is often frustrating, though, is that while many bloggers seem to want to use a form of logic, they deny the power of that logic. Meaning, they claim to have thought through an issue for the purposes of drawing a conclusion about it, but what often intend to do is less a logical statement than a performative. (If you don't know what the difference between arguments vs. persformatives, Google it, because it is a fascinating distinction in betweem linguistic functions.)

Conversations of all types might include statements like "If I won the lottery I would definitely retire from my job and work for a non-profit organization." Such statements give the impression of logical thought and choice among alternatives. But it is likely that offering opinions is what people are doing when they post a video on youtube containing positions like this, even though they often claim that such a purpose. Instead what people mean by what they say in such a position is something like this "I want you all to think I am a good person because I would retire and work for a nonprofit if I won the lottery." Again, their statement is not argumentative, it is performative.

So in turn, if others respond to such an argument in good faith, assuming that someone wouldn't want to remain inadvertently unaware of the other side of an argument like it so very much often seems, offer their opinions in response. But they don't get the benefit of the doubt of the first person thinking they are just responding in good faith to their argument.

They think that the second person is responding to the INTENTION, which was to say in return 'No, I don't think you are a good person.' Even though they are not intending to say that, they are just intending to respond to the argument that was raised. If those who would call everyone with any level of criticism 'haters' cared to, they could try to use intention to determine whether someone is really responding to them in a hateful way.

If you-tube uesers really want no criticism of any stripe, then that is a different matter, but it would seem that posting personal information in such a public place would be a strange way to avoid it.