Dealing With Negative Social Interaction

Recently, an online acquaintance asked me how I went from what's called a "freethinker" background (what it designates is "religion-free") to born-again Christian. I answered the question here.

Some freethinkers showed up, and some bombast ensued. It was an interesting study in human behaviour, in particular two things: something for which I'll coin the phrase "intellectual colonialism," and dominance behaviours, which are often used in internet pseudo-debate (particularly if you get a pack of males grouping around a chosen target, the leader will flagrantly display his alpha mentality for the sake of his followers) in place of a correct debate mechanism of rebutting another's framework of propositions.

As always, my instruction method is to gently allow my children along for the ride. They found it very interesting.

Intellectual Colonialism
As unschoolers, we want to teach our kids to view the world not just from the preconceptions they inherit and what their people-of-influence tell them about it. For that, kids can go to public school.

When we force another person into our idea of "why" they are the way they are, we deny them the opportunity to explain themselves and to exercise self-determination. Intellectual colonialism interprets another person's existence, motivations and behaviour through one's own cultural assumptions--or in this case, assumptions of what is "truthiness." It's a form of invalidation intended to subjugate and demand submission from the party who is perceived as weaker or less worthy.

Since this happened in copious detail, I have an excellent record to analyze with my kids, and a sort of real-time moral to the story to pass on to them.

My method of addressing this was to acknowledge the individual's right to be respected and his contribution to the discussion, and restate my position without bothering to engage in argument. The tactic being used was called "straw man" in debate terms, but I have a longstanding personal policy that I will only light people's straw men on fire if they actually want them burned down.

Dominance Behaviours
Last night, we had a fascinating discussion around the dinner table about how to identify and deal with unhealthy dominance behaviours in social situations. It's something everyone will have to face at some point.

In social situations, these behaviours are displayed by some of the following characteristics:

Taking command of another's environment, as if an individual has an assumed right to ownership of the space. This may include physical space, such as one's office or home, or personal space, in spite of stated boundaries.

Online, this includes things like: taking excessive space or control of conversation in another's comment thread or in a text chat; deliberately acting in violation of defined group etiquette, whether ignoring a particular location's policies or general internet etiquette in order to take control of who defines the rules for the group.

Condescension and oblique ridicule.

Deliberately ignoring input of those who are supposed to be getting dominated, rather than answering points in a back-and-forth of equals, in favour of presenting one's own agenda to the "pack" and thus reasserting control over them and newcomers.

Baiting on a personal level of dialogue, rather than in the context of the group discussion, in order to draw an emotional reaction and increase vulnerability in, or decrease group respect for, the other party. Baiting has its place as a form of dialogue in some forums--with kids it will most often be jokes--which makes this a blurry line that can be exploited in negative ways.

Refusal to acknowledge behaviour, or an adjustment of behaviour only in order to bolster one's own position, rather than acknowledgement of human impact. This is a fairly easy one to flush out, particularly if combined with baiting. All one has to do is make some indication of human impact felt, and see whether an apology is offered, or further baiting.

Attempts to make boundaries that are enforced appear ridiculous, petty, or naive. This is usually accompanied by an attempt to substitute the dominator's rules of play in order to take psychological control of the situation and reinforce his status to his followers.

My solution in this case was to (A) issue one warning and remove a comment; (B) engage individually and out of the public eye to determine whether the behaviour continued out of the "pack's" presence (some males will engage in teenageish behaviour without serious intent, and smarten up when outside their social group--those with actual latent hostility issues will continue regardless); (C) set clear rules for discussion to move forward; (D) remove a second comment attempting to hijack and minimize my stated boundaries, without warning; (E) make it clear that I am fully capable of engaging the group, but will not deign to unless they engage respectfully and in a spirit of serious inquiry.

Tools used:

Monitoring stats such as hits on the About page of the blog, and the "Spam and Dead Parrots" page, which gives my general guidelines for comments.

Email (not my home address, obviously) in order to separate the unhealthy presence from the pack.

Contacting my acquaintance as a sounding board, as he is more familiar with these types of people-groups and was involved in the discussion--then realizing I didn't really need to, I have good instincts and can read "through" people's text very easily, no matter how high-vocabulary. But it's good practice--particularly for kids online--never to travel alone.

Unschooling as a Debate Point
We did have another person engage respectfully, and he brought up the question of "feral" children, societal influence and universal morality.

Heh heh heh. :~)

My response to him is in the comments here.