Some JBloggers Call For Other JBloggers To Be Less Mean. Isn't That Just So Spunky Of Them?
AnnieGetYour at Jewbiquitous is doing some pre-chatima tikkun-ha-blogosphere by going all preachy on the Jewish side of the blogosphere. She says that JBloggers should try to be less mean, and she furthermore ropes in a not particularly short quote from Jewschool's even more preachy Jewish Bloggers Campaign for Responsible Speech Online:
Ask yourself before posting, 'Is what I’ve written a kiddush Hashem (a santification of God’s name) or a chilul Hashem (a desecration of God’s name)?' If it’s the latter, consider revising your remarks to preserve your point, while minimizing whatever harm you may do to your fellow. In other words, attack the idea, not the person, and do so tactfully and respectfully.
That seemed reasonable to us for about 10 seconds, during which all we could think about was how happy our professors are going to be and how much we're going to miss blogging. Then we realized that this is totally backwards. There's nothing wrong with us pointing out, sometimes at length, that Jewish hipsters in New York are douchebags and that Jewish Hasidim in Jerusalem are insane. Why should we change? They're the ones who suck.
But just to show that we're in the sprit of the season, we're willing to make this one-time concession to fellow tribespeople: we're not going to write a post discussing the various answers that come to mind in response to the title of newly-minted Blogger blog How Orthodox Jews should Vote. How's that for avoiding lashon ha-ra? And we're going to go even further: we're going to partially agree with these self-appointed schoolyard monitors (don't say we never did anything for you).
They're not only more or less right about the potential harms of incivility - if anything, they're underestimating how rhetorical ugliness seems to consistently accompany genuine analytical and social pathologies. It's not coincidental that disgusting sexist, heterosexist, and bigoted insults appear in direct proportion to the degree to which the netroots are incensed by some real or imagined slight. And it was inevitable that excusing or celebrating those insults as 'telling it like it is' would mainstream the kind of vulgar sexism that Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter are now being subjected to - literally on a daily basis.
Luckily, we have two ways to distinguish our charming wit from nutroots vulgarity: (1) we are fighting the good fight, while they are smug, condescending, shrill, and often not very bright terrorist apologists (hint: if you're a leftist inclined to indignantly point out that this begs the question, you should know that your unreflexive indignation is actually proof of our point... it'll take you a while to figure out why, but we're confident you'll get there if you apply yourself) (2) they're heavy-handed and not at all funny, while we are objectively sparkling (hint: ditto).
Besides, Jewbiquitous and Jewschool don't have MR blogrolled. So screw em, ya know (kidding, kidding... we 100 percent take that back. Until after Yom Kippur).
UPDATE: Yeah, yeah, we know. There was no way we were going to get away with that "How Orthodox Jews should Vote" crack. It took SoccerDad David Gertsman like fifteen seconds to ding us:
How Orthodox Jews should vote seems to take both sides. For example, they asked both the Strickland and Blackwell campaigns for information on what elements of each candidate's views would appeal to Orthodox voters.
Fair. But come on - like fairness would have stopped us from writing a post that goes something like: "... sure, some people will point out that 'How Orthodox Jews presents both sides'. But whatever, we've got some ideas about how they should vote..." But we're not going to write that post - because we're thinking about chilul Hashem. Obviously.
Ask yourself before posting, 'Is what I’ve written a kiddush Hashem (a santification of God’s name) or a chilul Hashem (a desecration of God’s name)?' If it’s the latter, consider revising your remarks to preserve your point, while minimizing whatever harm you may do to your fellow. In other words, attack the idea, not the person, and do so tactfully and respectfully.
That seemed reasonable to us for about 10 seconds, during which all we could think about was how happy our professors are going to be and how much we're going to miss blogging. Then we realized that this is totally backwards. There's nothing wrong with us pointing out, sometimes at length, that Jewish hipsters in New York are douchebags and that Jewish Hasidim in Jerusalem are insane. Why should we change? They're the ones who suck.
But just to show that we're in the sprit of the season, we're willing to make this one-time concession to fellow tribespeople: we're not going to write a post discussing the various answers that come to mind in response to the title of newly-minted Blogger blog How Orthodox Jews should Vote. How's that for avoiding lashon ha-ra? And we're going to go even further: we're going to partially agree with these self-appointed schoolyard monitors (don't say we never did anything for you).
They're not only more or less right about the potential harms of incivility - if anything, they're underestimating how rhetorical ugliness seems to consistently accompany genuine analytical and social pathologies. It's not coincidental that disgusting sexist, heterosexist, and bigoted insults appear in direct proportion to the degree to which the netroots are incensed by some real or imagined slight. And it was inevitable that excusing or celebrating those insults as 'telling it like it is' would mainstream the kind of vulgar sexism that Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter are now being subjected to - literally on a daily basis.
Luckily, we have two ways to distinguish our charming wit from nutroots vulgarity: (1) we are fighting the good fight, while they are smug, condescending, shrill, and often not very bright terrorist apologists (hint: if you're a leftist inclined to indignantly point out that this begs the question, you should know that your unreflexive indignation is actually proof of our point... it'll take you a while to figure out why, but we're confident you'll get there if you apply yourself) (2) they're heavy-handed and not at all funny, while we are objectively sparkling (hint: ditto).
Besides, Jewbiquitous and Jewschool don't have MR blogrolled. So screw em, ya know (kidding, kidding... we 100 percent take that back. Until after Yom Kippur).
UPDATE: Yeah, yeah, we know. There was no way we were going to get away with that "How Orthodox Jews should Vote" crack. It took SoccerDad David Gertsman like fifteen seconds to ding us:
How Orthodox Jews should vote seems to take both sides. For example, they asked both the Strickland and Blackwell campaigns for information on what elements of each candidate's views would appeal to Orthodox voters.
Fair. But come on - like fairness would have stopped us from writing a post that goes something like: "... sure, some people will point out that 'How Orthodox Jews presents both sides'. But whatever, we've got some ideas about how they should vote..." But we're not going to write that post - because we're thinking about chilul Hashem. Obviously.
