Jeremy Stangroom

A few days ago I received an email commenting on my writing ability. It contained phrases like: "you’d better pull your socks up"; "very, very disappointing"; and "you indulge in appalling syntax". So it wasn’t exactly fan mail! But no big deal, if you put stuff out in the public domain, then you expect to get shot at.

Here’s another one, this time about one of the activities which are featured at TPM Online (www.philosophers.co.uk): "I find your questions biased, short-sighted and bigoted; and I find your test without merit or foundation… which makes you bass and without spiritual wisdom. Sad." Okay, so this one’s a little odd, especially the bit about the freshwater fish, but there’s not much harm here.

However, what about this little missive: "your litany of frauds and charlatans does not include a noble exception, the one modern philosopher who was neither a fraud nor a charlatan, but who exposed your own pretentious, social-climbing bullshit – Ayn Rand. So wallow in your pseudo-respectability and slash your wrists accordingly … You’re a pathetic wanker who deserves to perish from a surfeit of self-indulgent whim-worship. Do it, with my blessing, and that of any half-decent human thinker who miraculously remains alive on this earth in spite of your demeaning of philosophy and life."

This email was sent to me by the editor of an online journal promoting "freedom", who was upset, as far as I can tell, by the failure of TPM to include any of the works of Ayn Rand in its shortlist of the greatest writings of Western philosophy. What makes it interesting is that it is indicative of a certain disregard for those we interact with on the internet. It is the disregard, evident to varying degrees in all the emails cited above, of treating people as though they don’t automatically warrant the respect which would nearly always be forthcoming in a non-virtual context. Consider, for example, that it is almost impossible to imagine saying the kinds of things contained in these emails to a stranger in a face-to-face situation. Yet probably many of us will be able to imagine including at least some of them in an email.

Part of the explanation for this difference has to do with some fairly obvious stuff about email communication.

First, email is pretty much instantaneous. Therefore, it is just more likely with email that things will be said in haste which would not have been said had more time been taken for reflection.

Second, the internet facilitates relatively anonymous communication. Consequently, in our virtual lives, we’re more likely to be interacting with people we’ve never met, we’re never going to meet, and whom we don’t know anything about. In such a situation, there is more chance that we will treat them as though they are not quite fully human subjects.

Third, internet communication involves geographical distance, which removes many of the barriers to aggressive behaviour which exist in the non-virtual world. Not least, you’re not likely to get hit for sending someone an abusive email, whereas this is certainly a possible response to abuse in a face-to-face situation.

However, though these factors are all significant, they are only part of the story. What is also important is that the conventions which have grown up around email usage are much more loose than is the case with other forms of written communication. For example, when writing an email, many people think nothing of dispensing with: a salutation; capital letters; complete sentences; complimentary closing phrase; and even – though it is generally considered to be bad netiquette (see www.4qd.org/philos/Netiquette.html) – correct spelling. The advantage of this informality is primarily speed, but it is an advantage often bought at the expense of a concern for the person who has to read the email.

The conventions of email are based on an assumption that what is important in communication is overwhelmingly the content of the message, not the perceptions and feelings of the person who receives it. This is very different from letter writing, for example, where many of the traditional stylistic conventions, some of which are still in common usage, are employed precisely to communicate a certain kind of, albeit ritualistic, regard for the recipient of the letter. To fail to include a salutation in a letter, for example, will, more often than not, be taken to indicate a lack of respect.

The claim here is not that people never show concern for each other when they exchange emails because clearly they do. It is rather that there is no requirement that they should show such concern; that day to day, in many of the short and perfunctory emails which people send, they do not show such concern; and that as a result there is a tendency for them to pay insufficient regard to how their emails are likely to be received when the content of their message suggests that such regard is required (as, for example, when they send a rude or abusive email). Or to put this another way, the informality and speed of email communication will in certain circumstances subvert what is arguably a moral requirement to treat those with whom we interact as fully human subjects.

Are philosophers immune to this tendency? Unfortunately not. Check out some of the emails about the Israel/Palestine conflict in the archive of philos-l (http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/philos-l.html), the premier mailing list for UK philosophers. You won’t learn anything much about the Middle East, but you’ll find plenty of evidence of philosophers behaving badly in their virtual lives.

Jeremy Stangroom is new media editor of The Philosophers’ Magazine (www.philosophers.co.uk) and co-editor of What Philosophers Think (Continuum).