On a Few Ills of Online Debate

There is a great deal of discussion online, and that is a good thing. People care about society and are willing to voice their opinions; it could be a way to exchange ideas and tell right from wrong. Yet some discussions show a strange phenomenon: the matter is not yet clear, but the conclusion is already drawn; the facts are not yet investigated, but the attitude is perfectly firm. The argument goes on and on, the voices are loud, and the problem remains unsolved.

Some people’s standards for judging a question can change at any time. Say a few bad things happen at a university: then everyone at that university is like that. When the university achieves something, it is the individual’s own ability and has nothing to do with the school. The bad can stand for the whole, while the good can only be credited to individuals — what kind of reasoning is that? What relation an individual’s conduct bears to the group should be judged by the facts. If the standard shifts with one’s own likes and dislikes, the conclusions naturally cannot be relied on.

Then there is another kind of person, supremely confident. Having read a few articles and watched a few videos, they believe they understand most of the truths in the world. Whatever agrees with them is truth; whatever opposes them is error. Faced with counter-evidence, they either ignore it or find another excuse; and when they truly cannot argue their way out, they swap the original question for a different one. This saves face, but gets in the way of knowing the facts. If one’s understanding is wrong, why not correct it?

Changing the question is a common ill, too. Someone asks why the canteen’s porridge got burnt, and the reply is “If you don’t like it, don’t eat it.” It sounds crisp, but it answers something that was not asked. The question was about the quality of the porridge; the answer is about a personal choice. Why the porridge got burnt is still unexplained. Arguing like this, even a hundred times over, cannot solve a single real problem.

Worse still, once reasoning fails, out come abuse and mockery, and all kinds of labels are pinned on people. Sometimes even people who have nothing to do with the argument get dragged in — as if the harsher the abuse, the stronger the case. If this tendency grows, those who speak to the facts will find it hard to speak at all, and those willing to discuss things seriously will gradually lose interest.

Following the crowd deserves even more attention. When a piece of news arrives, some people first look at how many agree, and then decide what they agree with. Where the news came from, and what the original actually says, are seldom looked into. Some have read no more than a headline before rushing to post a long commentary. Investigation takes effort; going with the wind takes very little. Over time, hearsay can pass for fact, and numbers come to be taken as the measure of truth.

These ills look different, but their roots have something in common: they make light of investigation, put blind faith in one’s own prejudices, and treat winning the argument as more important than the truth of the matter. They can occur in others, and they can occur in ourselves. If we only criticize others while forgiving all our own mistakes, we commit the very same ill.

The way to change this lies in seeking truth from facts. When something happens, investigate first and judge afterwards; say as much as the evidence supports. Toward differing opinions, study their grounds; toward one’s own mistakes, have the courage to correct them.

We discuss in order to understand a problem, and we understand a problem in order to deal with it better. Cut off from the facts, argument loses its foundation. The principle is not complicated; truly living by it takes real effort.