What the Internet can be for Liberalism and Rationalism

As I might have mentioned here before, I grew up with a strong old-school liberal base of thinking. That liberal base of thought had its habitus and ways of being. Mainly, there’s an emphasis on the way you make a claim: one should do it calmly, out of an assurance, righteous* and dominate position. To be frank, I don’t think liberalism is the only approach that has this internal wiring, but its just that I hardly saw any approach that puts so much emphasis on the way you make a claim, and not about what that claim is. In other words, it signifies showing emotions as weakness, and the ability to reason as The Only Way to make an argument, to win and lose. In its extremest, it blocks communication that’s not based on cold, calm reasoning. And hell, the bastards even made it looked sexy, and then danced it.

A cold, calm reasoning is an advantage and privilege that not many, mainly while being in the heat of a fight, can have. Being with your back to the wall, and it doesn’t matter if it’s due to political, financial, or other reasons. It doesn’t matter if you’re considered irrational to begin with, in case you’re An Other (a woman/LGBTAQ, a minority, non-white/Ashkenazi).

Enter Internet.

Someone is always wrong on the internet. But I can answer that someone in my own good time, take it to another court, ignore or mock her/him. There are no corners to push me to on this sphere, where I can always create new space and take the fight elsewhere. I can pretend to reason – just as so many of the Wrong People are, even if they’re privileged enough not to sound crazy. I can use the internet as a reasoning buffer. And I am using it as such. I can be emotional, I can be wrong – there are always the people who will think I’m right and back me up, it really doesn’t matter. Nor is the point – the point is that the internet is where I can sort some argument I never had the opportunity to meet before, because they considered to be wrong due to wrong habitus of reasoning. It’s where I can shape my argument, my “irrationality”, my rage into a perfect liberal argument. And what is a win, in these terms?

There are more voices that aren’t being silenced any longer, and with them come new doubts in old system of belief. But somewhere, there’s still that internal wiring going on: how do I know the person in the other end of the information highway isn’t insane/lying? I do so because s/he sounds rational. Because of that damn habitus. And yes, even with the Great Critical Thinking education I pay so much for, I still fall for it every once in a while.

We’ve got a tool here, which can pretty much change the way we see liberalism and free speech. I just wonder if it’ll ever change that fear of irrationality, of The Other. Isn’t that what liberalism supposedly is famous for?

And oh, you know what? I think that one of my favorite books is just about it.

* Not always a bad thing. I love being right.