How Do You Handle Assaults on the World Wide Web?

Turns out the world wide web didn’t become the sharing-of-ideas paradise we all once hoped it would be. This comparatively new way to communicate to a wide audience has created a comparatively new way for us to insult and belittle each other. Nevertheless I offer up a few rules I aspire to live by to both avoid and deal with this reality.

1. Just because someone disagrees with me doesn’t mean I am right. Even if the opposing “argument” is mere insult or ad hominem, it could be accurate. It’s a good thing to take a moment and at least consider the possibility that I might be wrong.

2. When I agree with my accuser that I am in the wrong, it’s a good thing to own it and repent. My critics may well not be in a forgiving mood, but my goal is not their forgiveness but my obedience. This doesn’t mean, however, repenting for everything I’ve ever said or done. I try not to let my shame in what I got wrong lead me to apologize for what I got right.

3. Pay zero attention to the anons. If they are not willing to tell you who they are while telling you you are wrong, I am not willing to respond. No one has ever or will ever lose their job if it is known they criticized me, so I’m not buying “Muh food on the table” arguments in this context.

4. Look for good faith disagreements and engage, peacefully. Sometimes people have genuine questions, and if we’re wound a little too tight, we hear them as accusations. I try to at least begin a conversation to see if we can find common ground.

5. On the other hand, I try to know when it is time to back out of the rabbit hole. Some people, even genuine good faith people, suffer from a fanaticism Winston Churchill (not, I’m sorry to report, GK Chesterton) described this way, “A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.” I pay no attention to what often follows, the accusation that I have left the debate because I am losing.

6. Ignore the worst form of ad hominem, when my actual past sins are provided as proof that I’m no good. It is true enough that my actual past sins prove I was no good. It’s my current sins that prove that I am now no good. Raising old ones is just a tired stratagem from the devil.

7. Remember that I am loved. The moment I allow the internet to determine my value is the moment I devalue Jesus and His work for me. My treasure is in heaven, not in mentions. Jesus has blessed me with a wife and children who love me. He loves me. Our Father loves me. Everything I’ve ever lost on the internet, or anywhere else for that matter, are the very things any wise man would gladly sell to buy the Pearl of Great Price.

If you see me on the internet failing at these goals, by all means, let me know. Hopefully I’ll follow the first one enough to actually look to see if you are right, and I am wrong. Now, let’s be careful out there.