I can remember some conversations with my friends just before report card time where we’d talk about how our parents would handle our grades. Without exception, we’d all agree that being yelled at was terrible but tolerable. What we couldn’t handle was the parent who would look at the grades quietly and tell us what a disappointment they were. That criticism stuck and was much more of a motivator toward doing better than being on the receiving end of a rant.
In our house, I’m the “yeller”. I tend to vent and move on. My kids have learned to simply ignore me. But if their father, the quiet and more measured one, looks up and says he’s disappointed or angry or rebukes them in some way, they hear it. And they act on it.
In society I think reactions are much the same. If someone starts yelling and name-calling, I just ignore them. As a kid my dad would yell, rant, rave, throw things and name-call. I learned to ignore him, too. But if my mom got angry with me I was devastated.
This weekend I’ve been engaged in conversations around controversy. You know what the topic is so I’m not going to rehash, because I really mean for this post to be about how controversies are discussed more than the specific controversy at hand.
When someone writes a post that says “ADHD is a myth and anyone who believes it exists is a fool and a moron,” I take that personally, but I don’t change my behavior or choices because they said so. Why? Because it’s a rant. The Internet equivalent of yelling and berating me. I ignore it.
When someone writes a post and says everyone who chooses to be a part of something I’m doing is acting without morals and ethics, I take it personally. When it becomes a gang-bash, I take it even more personally, but I don’t listen to what is being said as much as I desire to push back and set the record straight. That’s something I was powerless to do as a kid but I’m not powerless to do it here.
When someone writes a post and says “I have some problems with this and here’s why, and I really don’t want to have problems with it”, and that person writes in a measured and open way, I listen. Not only do I listen, I test what I believe against their disagreement. I respect it. That’s because they are not coming at me personally, not calling names, and not expressing their view as a hammer.
In the past day, I have read comments and posts that contain phrases like this:
“…let the massive backlash from A-list bloggers be their feedback…”
“…covert and deceptive marketing…”
that (almost) every single post is a lie…
…despicable…callous and covert
Technorati should ban the PPP advertisers and bloggers…
..in fact, evil…
Just an observation here: In the long run, the vendettas (which is what I see happening this weekend) are most destructive to people hit by the fallout, not the intended target.
Here’s the one negative post that grabbed my attention right away:
There is only one blog listed in my sidebar that is experimenting with this and one that has been removed because the quality went down, down, down once they started vying for traffic and posting for dollars.
If what I’m doing here is considered ‘quality’ by anyone’s standards, then I certainly don’t want that to diminish. I heard that loud and clear and that one sticks with me and influences my choices and decisions.
The rest of it is mostly just blogosphere swaggering and bullying. Besides Kmilyun, Jay Allen also disagreed rather vehemently, but still engaged in a thoughtful and reasonable discussion of the issues. We have agreed to disagree, but I have a ton of respect for him — much more than I had when I read his initial post, because he took the time to engage and consider what I had to say, and actually talk, rather than scream.
Whether it’s parenting, politics or community, the ones who get my attention are not the yellers. The ones who get my attention are those who engage with respect.
Technorati Tags: Jay Allen, Kmilyun, conversation, community, social+media
