Civility has become a cult.
Mods on modern websites (including Reddit and Lemmy.world) are forced to maintain courtly behavior instead of deciding who’s the asshole. They will protect any cautious troll who can politely phrase ‘you’re subhuman and also secretly agree with me’ but jump on the obvious reasonable response: “Fuck off.” Even when that curt dismissal is followed by an explanation of how a comment was dishonest and manipulative, you said the no-no word, so only you get the boot.
And that boot will tend to be as heavy as possible, sometimes instantly permanent, because god forbid anyone learn anything. You keep permanently banning these trolls, when they can get a new account in minutes, and they keep coming back within minutes? Wow, it’s almost like you’ve given them no reason whatsoever to stick out their ban and keep that username. Spritzing them in the face with a three-day time-out works better. This is basic Skinnerian conditioning - immediate reliable feedback is internalized and shapes future behavior.
“Calling out the asshole,” is a self-righteous way of saying, “flipping the bozo bit.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bozo_bit#Dismissing_a_person_as_not_worth_listening_to
It does not add anything to be uncivil when calling out someone who might be a problem. That person is not the only audience. It still reflects poorly on one to act poorly, even if one convinces oneself that they have a “really good reason” to be an asshole to an asshole. And it assumes one’s own infallibility.
Some people might like to see it and upvote it, but that isn’t helping the interlocutor’s implied intention of improving discourse. It’s just creating a dunk culture.
When you see someone acting poorly, it’s not at all clear calling them an asshole is a better strategy (even for one’s own wellness, let alone that of the community) than assuming, hey, this person is in a shitty mood, and probably having a bad day; a compassionate person would offer them some help or at least attempt to be understanding.
It’s hard, I know.
An asshole isn’t someone who disagrees with you in this case. Maybe I should have pointed out that I’m talking about the trolls that exist here who are just assholes. It’s someone who is intentionally and knowingly spreading out misinformation or cherry picked quotes and events to further an agenda. Someone who dismisses what they don’t like to hear so they can stand some “authoritative moral high-ground” that they’ve made up. I’ll edit my comment to better reflect what I was trying to say.
Ridiculous absolutism.
Nevermind the cases where gentle understanding was offered, and deeper clarification attempted, and yeah no it turns out some rando sounds like an asshole because they are in fact an asshole. You’re treating any judgement as intolerable egotism. You expect perfection before anyone’s allowed to reach a conclusion. In illustration of the original point: fuck that.
Difficulty doesn’t matter. Blunt callouts serve a distinct purpose. When ideal discourse has already broken down, because someone’s comments are not just factually wrong but morally wrong, the continued appearance of polite debate grants legitimacy to dangerous nonsense. ‘It assumes one’s own infallibility’ is on the near end of that failure mode. You don’t have to be flawless, to be right about something. Even if you’re wrong in this case - oh well! Learn! Be better next time! You don’t have to imagine yourself incapable of making a mistake, to spot and name some really clear cases of trolling and bigotry. Or any number of things people will deny and squirm away from and clutch their pearls over, no matter how gently it’s made clear that they did it and you saw it.
This is one step short of ‘just because you disagree.’ The universal effortless dismissal of criticism.
And on the receiving end - getting called an asshole doesn’t stop you from making your point, if you’ve got an actual point. I should know. This attitude comes from entirely too much bickering against unreasonable people in their own boltholes. A pile of downvotes and harsh language won’t turn the Earth flat. If you would like to offer endless patience and comforting words in the face of such pluripotent denialism, by all means, go ahead - but it doesn’t fucking work. Denying them respect is half the battle toward deplatforming their disinformation.