On Disrespectful Disagreement
I had all kinds of thoughts driving home from Nashville yesterday of things to blog about today. Discussing Dave Winer was not among them. Unfortunately, Winer has written about me, Glenn has blogged that the session was contentious, and the only video is a short clip of Winer criticizing me. I feel like I need to make the point that the contentiousness that Glenn mentioned had nothing to do with me, there were a whole series of moments far angrier than my encounter with Winer, and the few accounts already on the web don't fully capture how ridiculous the whole session was.
Les Jones gives a pretty good flavor. Paul Chaney does a good job describing how we were all wondering what exactly Winer was trying to do.
This should have been a really easy discussion to lead. The room was full of opinionated bloggers who had direct experience with a lack of civility on the web. A moderator needed only to get the discussion started (Winer's stated goal of discovering shared values would have been fine) and then focus on the typical moderator responsibilities: make sure everyone gets a chance to speak up, keep the discussion from getting too far off on a tangent, and step in if things get heated between participants.
Unfortunately, we got a confused, disjointed mess that quickly ran off the track. As others have noted, he got into a ridiculous exchange with John Cox that got really heated and went on and on and on to the point that people in the room began to get really uncomfortable. At that point, someone wondered if Dave was trying to conduct some kind of encounter group. As others have noted, his treatment of Robin Burk was totally out of line. He was rude quite often. About a third of the way through, he took a deep breath, slowed everything down and mentioned we still had another hour to go. I was actually feeling sympathy for him at this point. It occurred to me that perhaps he was taking medications that he had forgotten to bring with him on this trip.
At some point, John Jay Hooker came in and made a few points. When Winer interrupted and cut him off the way he had others, Hooker (a lawyer in his 70s dressed in a 3 piece suit) was really offended. Hooker got red in the face, raised his voice and angrily demanded that he be allowed to finish his point.
Even Glenn Reynolds found it necessary to make a point (nicely) of how rude Winer was. I had been cut off by Winer in the middle of making a point about how much of an effort some of the most successful bloggers (e.g. Glenn, Power Line, etc.) make to keep things civil. After bouncing off a couple of other people, Winer turned to Reynolds and asked him what he was interested in. Glenn replied that he was interested in hearing me have a chance to make the rest of my point.
It wasn't too long after that Winer got in a snit over something and declared that he was going to sit down. The discussion continued without him and improved considerably. Glenn left shortly after Dave's "take my ball and go home" routine.
Finally, as the session wound down, Dave got back up and took over. He was speaking about the common ground we all share and decided to use, as an example, the fact that we all agree that the economy is bad. Talk about clueless! I just wanted to roll my eyes, throw up my hands in surrender and have this "train wreck" come to a quick and merciful end. Or call BS on him. Perhaps I should have just walked out. Instead, I controlled the urge and simply chuckled silently to myself while thinking that this poor fool was beyond help. After an hour and a half of childish immaturity, constant rudeness and general incompetence in leading the discussion, he capped it all off by asserting that on the economy, one of the key hot botton issues of the recent election, everyone agreed with his liberal view. It was just too much.
Winer reacted to me as if I had laughed aloud or ridiculed him or somehow made a point of making my disagreement obvious to others. That simply isn't true.
After it was over, I was amazed at how many people came up to me over the rest of the afternoon to tell me that Winer's rant was really uncalled for. One of the better known bloggers said not to worry if I had been laughing because he was laughing, too!
Les Jones gives a pretty good flavor. Paul Chaney does a good job describing how we were all wondering what exactly Winer was trying to do.
This should have been a really easy discussion to lead. The room was full of opinionated bloggers who had direct experience with a lack of civility on the web. A moderator needed only to get the discussion started (Winer's stated goal of discovering shared values would have been fine) and then focus on the typical moderator responsibilities: make sure everyone gets a chance to speak up, keep the discussion from getting too far off on a tangent, and step in if things get heated between participants.
Unfortunately, we got a confused, disjointed mess that quickly ran off the track. As others have noted, he got into a ridiculous exchange with John Cox that got really heated and went on and on and on to the point that people in the room began to get really uncomfortable. At that point, someone wondered if Dave was trying to conduct some kind of encounter group. As others have noted, his treatment of Robin Burk was totally out of line. He was rude quite often. About a third of the way through, he took a deep breath, slowed everything down and mentioned we still had another hour to go. I was actually feeling sympathy for him at this point. It occurred to me that perhaps he was taking medications that he had forgotten to bring with him on this trip.
At some point, John Jay Hooker came in and made a few points. When Winer interrupted and cut him off the way he had others, Hooker (a lawyer in his 70s dressed in a 3 piece suit) was really offended. Hooker got red in the face, raised his voice and angrily demanded that he be allowed to finish his point.
Even Glenn Reynolds found it necessary to make a point (nicely) of how rude Winer was. I had been cut off by Winer in the middle of making a point about how much of an effort some of the most successful bloggers (e.g. Glenn, Power Line, etc.) make to keep things civil. After bouncing off a couple of other people, Winer turned to Reynolds and asked him what he was interested in. Glenn replied that he was interested in hearing me have a chance to make the rest of my point.
It wasn't too long after that Winer got in a snit over something and declared that he was going to sit down. The discussion continued without him and improved considerably. Glenn left shortly after Dave's "take my ball and go home" routine.
Finally, as the session wound down, Dave got back up and took over. He was speaking about the common ground we all share and decided to use, as an example, the fact that we all agree that the economy is bad. Talk about clueless! I just wanted to roll my eyes, throw up my hands in surrender and have this "train wreck" come to a quick and merciful end. Or call BS on him. Perhaps I should have just walked out. Instead, I controlled the urge and simply chuckled silently to myself while thinking that this poor fool was beyond help. After an hour and a half of childish immaturity, constant rudeness and general incompetence in leading the discussion, he capped it all off by asserting that on the economy, one of the key hot botton issues of the recent election, everyone agreed with his liberal view. It was just too much.
Winer reacted to me as if I had laughed aloud or ridiculed him or somehow made a point of making my disagreement obvious to others. That simply isn't true.
After it was over, I was amazed at how many people came up to me over the rest of the afternoon to tell me that Winer's rant was really uncalled for. One of the better known bloggers said not to worry if I had been laughing because he was laughing, too!
posted by Stan at 10:05 AM
4 Comments:
This is just another example of the present state in which we exist. Conservatives tend to propose things. You may agree or disagree with all or part of the proposals. Liberals tend to whine and disagree with anything proposed by a conservative (or moderate for that matter) even if their side had proposed it earlier. The liberals seem to be starved for ideas and are trying to sustain themselves by crying "no" louder and louder.
Actually Stan, there were lots of looks of utter amazement that you could use the words "Fantastic shape" about this economy. For every economist who says anything remotely like that, there's 10 who flatly refute that. Deficit? Dollar? Not even "accounting" in the budget for Iraq expenses foreseen? I whispered to somebody next to me, "I wanted to laugh at that but didn't" and they nodded in agreement. Your own post here perhaps indicates that Dave might have read your non-verbal communication correctly (even though I wish he had just let it go....but on the other hand, it was relevant to that conversation: how we condescend, on both sides of the aisle -- not that this was Dave's intent. He just got VERY pissed, and yeah, over the line as well. Maybe you let his view of the economy block you from wanting to pursue any kind of "cooling the jets" from both sides of that encounter: maybe explaining to Dave that you meant no disrespect --- but I even have a hint here that you did; and expressed in your "certainty" that this is an obvious fact" so that anyone who says otherwsie is "Clueless"). Correctly not in his own response, but what he sensed coming from you. And on that score, you failed there , too. I enjoyed a lot of what you had to say in other sessions, Stan. I wish both of you had handled that differently.
YOu're right , other things got even more heated, and I couldn't really hear what the other guy was saying, but it looks like both sides kind of veered off the chosen path there, too. I could see the red face. I could feel embarassment for both Dave and the other guy.
But I just can't help but wonder about the things you expressed here (apparently to your own audience, since you stated it as if everybody would assume that "Dave was clueless" about the economy. Very rarrely do things head in a positive direction after that; after we conclude that the other person is "beyond help" and a "poor fool".
I do quite badly quite often when I am confronted, and so I found that even in the places where Dave maybe didn't control himself the way he himself might well have preferred, I found it instructive and felt I learned from it (not that I'm giving Dave credit for that--- I do in part, but the group gets most of that credit)
Actually, I should not have started out with "Actually" in my previous comment, sinjce that smacks of the same kind of "predisposition" to "knowing the facts" as I hold under criticism in that comment. So, just wanted you to know this was not meant to be "No, you're wrong and here's the way it was". It's kind of like when Dave said, I need to preface what I say with "in my humble opinion". Maybe that's a good rule of thumb (even when we KNOW we're right :)
Stan -
Sounds like I missed a good time in Nashville...
Cheers,
Rob
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