A Little Less Personal (Cooked)

The number of users who are active on this website has significantly gone down after the contest ended, but I'm so inspired right now I don't mind lecturing to a wall.

Several times already I've come across a post that says something like, "I know what you mean! The other day I was personally attacked by [you-know-who]! I can't believe it! On a progressive site like this?"

Well, I don't mean to be rude, but you people had it coming. See, when I think of "personal attacks," I don't think of words like "stupid," "narrow-minded," or "immature." I don't consider those words personal attacks because they can be thrown at anyone. They don't usually mean anything, and unless you're well-aware that you're stupid, narrow-minded, or immature, you shouldn't take those personally.

Instead, when I think of "personal attacks," I think of people attacking you on the basis of your background info, which they in no way can do if you weren't the first to volunteer your personal background information.

For the life me, I don't know why anyone would write something like this in a gay marriage debate:

"My best friend is gay and she's the nicest person I've ever known."

Now, there are two problems with this argument. First, since this gay person is your best friend, this statement is an invalid argument due to your personal bias. Maybe we'd reconsider if you said your enemy is gay and she's the nicest person you know, but then that would raise the question as to why she's your enemy if she's so nice. Are you a masochist who likes to be friends with people who are not so nice? Or do you just have inadequate social skills that you can't get along with the nicest person you know? Should we bother with your opinion knowing you have these possible defects?

Second, it is not impossible that someone may ridicule your friend or your relationship with your best friend or something along the line. Do know that when you come up with a personal statement about your gay friend, you make it part of the debate. People can legally to use it for or against you for whatever reason. You're giving them the opportunity to launch the personal attacks you so loathe.

Caution: ProgressiveU is a fantastic place to get heart problems. To avoid such unfortunate health problems and the hospital bills that come with them, you gotta make your arguments less personal. Instead of letting the virtual public know that your best friend is gay, why not turn it into something like:

"I know some people who are gay and are nice."

See? This is a little less personal. You're not implying that these people you know are your friends. You sound a little less biased this way and people may take your statement a little more seriously. Better yet, why not turn the statement into something concrete?

"There is no correlation between sexual orientation and social skills[, you moron]."

If you stick to this kind of arguments, in no way can you get personal attacks. Sure, people will still call you stupid and such and such, but that's the beauty of virtual fights, right? Real-life fight over such petty issues can't last longer than ten minutes without someone with sense interfering, but on ProgressiveU, it'll just go on... and on...

One more thing: Emotions are such terrible things. Before you join a debate, please kill all of your sensitive nerves. Why can't people adopt a little sense of humor? Poking fun at other people is so easy and nice, but make sure you also can poke fun at yourself.