I have to say, it pains me greatly to think of the Saloon going by the boards (no pun intended). But BT is absolutely correct in what he says. I haven't been as active as I once was because of being a lot more busy, but it is really astounding to have the exchange that UP and I had held up as an example of good debate. Frankly, while both UP and I made good points, most of it was deutero-debate and some of it was rude, arrogant and anything but civil. UP and I are capable of far better.
The problem is that we have a dichotomy. Civil debate requires certain ground rules, because political debate is, by nature, conflict and that often becomes personal. I choose to avoid religious doctrinal debate for just that reason. If we are to keep an atmosphere conducive to intelligent debate and a good social hang out in the bargain, we have to discipline ourselves. Yet there are many who consider limiting the use of foul language and personal attacks to be censorship. Some will leave if the atmosphere continues to be poisoned by the kinds of foul-mouthed rants and personal attacks that fills so many of these posts. Some will leave if we limit those. Frankly, part of me wouldn't miss most of the latter, but part of me would. I sure miss terra, even though she was often prone to flaming. I enjoy reading Brass's posts, even when he gets going full-tilt on how deluded we "Xians" are. I would even miss MT, even though his anti-American rants are damned offensive to me. We recently had a pretty good indication of how the members are willing to tolerate what would normally be considered inappropriate social behavior when the majority of us voted not to ban Rich for his comments to terra. Most of us come here for more than debate. We come here for the friends we have come to know and respect on the site. We are willing to take a certain amount of brawling because we know that none of us are perfect.
There is, however, another point. Several of us have taken leaves of absence for a breather, because sometimes this place just gets way too personal - and it brings out the worst in us. I used to slam Knute for fun. I had no substantive point to make against his arguments, because I didn't find them substantive in the first place. So I wasted a lot of psychic energy and cognitive power dreaming up really nasty insults. It was self-indulgence of the most petty kind, and I am sorry that I did it. As Rich has quite correctly pointed out, I should have just ignored him and gotten on with my cyber-life. I'm pretty sure this is true of a lot of other excellent debaters on this site. Sometimes you just indulge yourself in a flame session because the person on the other end of the network has given you some flimsy excuse. Flame ups are bound to happen in a forum like this, but given the talent and intelligence we have here, they should be few (or at least feweR) and far between.
I have in my mind the idea that perhaps we should consider having the opposite of the cesspool. There should be a forum on this site that DOES have ground rules. AMong those rules might be a prohibition on foul language and personal attacks. But there could also be an understanding that substantive debate is required. Every post need not be brilliant, but we can make points without resorting to phrases like "commie bastard" "wingnuts" "bedwetters" "baby killers" "Child murderers" and such. We should strive to rise above the Rush Limbaugh.Al Franken kind of argument, which relys heavily on stigmatizing the other side and only occasionally considers the merits of the argument.
We could, of course, do this right here. But one almost wonders if it is too late. It may be that, like an email account that is overrun with spam, we should just leave the saloon for the drunks and those of us who prefer a more refined brew should move it upstairs. I like the saloon, a lot. I am not actually making the suggestion that we start another forum (in fact, IIRC we tried that a few times and few showed up). I think there may even be some who would view such a forum as a bit too lofty for them to feel comfortable. (Not everyone on this site is blessed/cursed with the disproportionate ego I have.) So maybe that's not such a great idea. But I think we SHOULD limit posts to those which at the very least refrain from the use of foul language (and yes, you CAN make a point about those rotten liberals/commies/Americans/Christians/Muslims/Kiwanis without foul language). We should at least acknowledge that someone without the capacity to criticize an element of society in polite terms instead of resorting to silly terms like "Repugs" and "DemocRATS" - or childish ridcule of that nature really cannot claim to be intelligent or mature. We should learn to consider and acknowledge the merits of another side's arguments, even when we can't agree with them. In short, we should act like rational, intelligent adults instead of combatants and spectators at a WWF wrestling match.
I do not come here (in spite of the song lyrics I wrote several years ago) to solve the world's problems. I come here to learn, to teach where appropriate, to sharpen my cognitve and writing skills, to understand complex problems and to enjoy the companionship of people with good minds and interesting opinions. I don't want to see that end. I do want to see it move to a higher level, and I think to do so would require adherence to something like those ground rules I have suggested. But I wouldn't want to lose the atmosphere either. Yeah, it is a dichotomy.
