Friday, August 19, 2011

Do trolls know that they are trolls?

I don't advertize or promote this blog in any way or do anything else to attract readers. It's just here. As a consequence, I don't get many trolls. I've had exactly two to date.

I had seen them elsewhere of course. At first they read like any other commenter. They give themselves away, though, in the follow up comments they make because, oddly enough, they don't respond to what others write in response to them. They write other comments but they don't actually engage what is written in response. They are always launching some new line of attack; they are always trying to stir up a response.

And they can't quit. When they make a parting shot, it always is a parting shot. There is one last dig, one last provocation, in it.

They remind of guys I knew in high school who would take moral umbrage at the very existence of some other kids. Bullies for lack of a better word. I went to a tough high school in a declining mill town and we had lots of guys like that. We assume we understand their motives but I'm not sure we do and I'm not sure they do.

I wonder sometimes if trolls and bullies (same thing really) don't see themselves as driven by some moral purpose. They only have a vague grasp on it because they have never really thought it through. Not because they couldn't but because, in their eyes, they needn't. The moral purpose that drives them is so reliable that that is all they need. As crazy as it may seem to us, they finish the day with a sense of moral accomplishment for what they do.

You can, as many people advise, stop arguing with them and they will go away but what really makes them go away is when they begin to believe that no one thinks they have any standing to argue this case. That, and only that, goes right to the heart of what drives them by undermining their sense of moral purpose.

No comments:

Post a Comment