Andrew Sullivan Says a Smart Thing About Dealing with the Feedback Firehose

Andrew Sullivan:

The Feedback Firehose: Julian Sanchez notes that any "commenter on politics or public affairs whose audience reaches a certain size gets a level of feedback—via email, Twitter, blog posts and comments—that would have been unthinkable for any but the few most prominent public intellectuals a generation ago." Er, yes. You should check out our in-tray. His worry about this development:

If the type and volume of criticism we find online were experienced in person, we’d probably think we were witnessing some kind of EST/Maoist reeducation session designed to break down the psyche so it could be rebuilt from scratch. The only way not to find this overwhelming and demoralized over any protracted period of time is to adopt a reflexive attitude that these are not real people whose opinions matter in any way. Which, indeed, seems to be a pretty widespread attitude. Scan the comments at one of the more partisan political blogs and you get a clear sense that the “other side” consists not so much of people with different ideas, but an inscrutable alien species. I think it’s self-evident that this is an unhealthy development in a democracy, but it may be a coping strategy that our media ecosystem is forcing on us—at least until we find a better one.

I have a better one. Scrap comments sections, and add serious editors to filter the smartest emails both in favor of the blogger's view and against. Yes, you need to develop the thickest of skins. But a thick skin isn't the same as epistemic closure. Or it doesn't need to be.

I would put it differently. Most of the trolls who show up in my comments section aren't trying to bring information to the party or to understand what I am saying. They are engaged in a different task--a troop-rallying anti-discursive project. Most of time, if you want to (and have the time), you can shock them back into reality by asking the Hilzoy question: "I am a person. Why are you saying this to me?" But time is limited.