The reality is, how people and groups define terms like racism, bigotry, and misogyny is often very politicized.
The problem with this latter/original assertion is that you are at once acknowledging that there are "sides" and, therefore, a debate to be had but at once shutting it down as not worth having. Obviously, with this comment, it's clear you don't actually believe that, though.
> They are looking to spread hate.
Here's where I think you get closest to the root of what I think is the real origin of online toxicity. For lack of a better term, I think it's trolling for emotion.
I'm not convinced that even what you're saying, that they're looking to spread "hate", is strictly true, but I do agree that they're looking to invoke a strong emotional response, whatever that may be.
I'm pretty sure that some trolls don't even believe in the "side" they claim to support. The message doesn't even have to stand up to rational scrutiny, so it need not even have a true side.
> Hate is not a political opinion. Hate is not worth tolerating.
To the extent that such strong emotional response serves to shut down conversation, it's toxic, and I agree it's not worth tolerating.
However, I think it's dangerous to apply such broad labels, especially if it's focused on the opinions (e.g. racism) rather than the behavior (e.g. appeal to emotion).
> Trolls generate emotions in others while not investing any on their own side. In real life you could not escape from the emotions of your peers — if they are angry you would be physically insecure so there is a BalancingForce, but in CyberSpace you can feel safe. Additionally electronic communication is known to amplify emotions. Those two features collaborate to make trolling so demolishing. When you analyze this phenomenon you need also take into account that very angry people have their thinking under an AngryCloud — so the troll with cool mind always has the advantage over the angry community members.
There's also a passage from Anti-Semite and Jew by Sartre. Page 13 touches on this:
> Never believe that anti‐ Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti‐Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.
ofc there is. But you can't deny that the people who often pop up in reddit discussions about race issues have no interest in actually debating, they just want to spread their hateful worldviews.
It has gotten better lately imo. /r/uncensorednews got banned a couple of months ago for example and that was a >100,000 subscriber sub run by an actual neo-nazi (/u/RamblinRambo3). It featured neo-nazi imagery such as the black sun and whatnot in its banner. Those people had no intentions of ever having a civic debate about affirmative action.
When people talk about racism on reddit, it's rarely about people who have informed opinions about affirmative action, but rather about people throwing around "WE WUZ KANGZ" comments and triple parentheses.
Let me guess: they're mostly white, and mostly male, and mostly of average- to below-average intelligence.
You're doing a really good impression of the average toxic Reddit user.
> Racism, bigotry, and misogyny are not political topics.
Is there gray to any of those?
Hmmm...
The meaning of those terms are constantly changing.
Issue don't have a right or wrong side unless you have adopted a position.
Lets take slavery as an example. Did you know that federal and state prisioners are forced to work for 30 cents or less an hour. If they refuse they get put in solitary. The average time someone is in solitary in the California prison system is 7.5 years. That is a form of torture. Slavery still exists lawfully so does torture.
Are you aware/against those forms of slavery/torture? Is everyone who is against slavery against this form? I think there is still some room for conversations around this issue and all of the other general topics.
I mean murder can be seen as a net benefit if someone murdered hilter before he took power.
Conflating legality with morality is silly.
Are you aware/against those forms of slavery/torture?
Yes, because there are some moral absolutes, which is why you retreated from a moral argument into a legal one.
While we only hear about Russia's and China's cyber ops on western news outlets, whenever I look into Reddit it feels quite the opposite. It feels like the perfect place to foment war, jingoism and xenophobia. Just look at /r/worldnews.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2018/05/29/rosean...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/arts/television/twitter-p...
Just a list of mad shit from her: https://www.buzzfeed.com/marcusjones/roseanne-barr-tweets-th...