Smarm vs Snark: What do CNN, Malcolm Gladwell, and the Republican Congress share?

For the few of you not following the recent thread on sexism, this article came up.

http://gawker.com/on-smarm-1476594977

It's by far one of the best articles I've read and it applies very strongly to the culture in this forum, but more so, to politics at large. I can't decide what to quote from it, so feel free to help out.

From what I've read (admittedly not the whole thing, it was a bit long), it seems to suggest that calls for civility are all attempts to divert the issue or to assert your superiority, and that snark is better. The author really seems to dislike anyone who tries to discourage nastiness, and assumes they must be arrogant and controlling.

I take issue with that. It's entirely possible to be irritated by how often discussions devolve into pointless, vicious bickering without being arrogant or simple-minded. Likewise, it's possible to state your negative opinion of something without resorting to rudeness. People sometimes mistake being a prick for being straightforward and honest, when it's usually just an attempt to publicly assert your superiority by mocking and humiliating your opponent. Or, more charitably, nastiness results from anger getting the better of reason. There are rarely good reasons for being vicious to other people. What's the point? It'll make it harder to persuade people, since upon being yelled at they'd rather yell back than roll over and lick your boots. It won't make you friends; if anything, it can cost you friends. And it will make you enemies. Moreover, it just leads to an atmosphere of bitterness, rivalries, hatred, and anger, and that's not very pleasant. I'm sick of it. It's inefficient, self-defeating, and stupid. Why bother with it?

It's also telling that such bitterness is most common in online, anonymous places full of angry young males. CFC is definitely one of those places. People are nicer in person, and even on Facebook, where they may know each other and where there may be real-life, offline consequences. In an online, anonymous setting, you can be a prick all you want and you'll only face minor consequences on that one website. It also seems to me that young males, like the kind that dominates CFC, tend to be angrier and more confrontational than other kinds of people.

And before I get accused of being arrogant for some reason, I'll have you know that I act mean and snarky, too. I was mean to begin with, CFC-OT (and WH) encourages an atmosphere of nastiness, I act nastier, and it strengthens that atmosphere of nastiness even more. I make CFC a worse place by being a jerk and playing the rudeness game, and it makes me worse by encouraging me to be nasty.

Now, I'm not suggesting that we all sit around gently talking over tea. But maybe, just maybe, we should ask ourselves what sarcasm and rudeness will accomplish, and instead use more efficient techniques of debating.

My policy is be civil until someone gets pretentious or obnoxiously ignorant. If that happens I don't hold much back (on the Net, IRL people like that are generally best avoided altogether unless they are actively harassing me/friends/family).

I think CFC has come a long way in the last couple of years in terms of civility of discussions. I very much appreciate posters who can remain civil & thoughtful even if there's a disagreement. I tend to learn from such people. I'm not so cool headed myself (though I always start off that way) though I rarely actually get pissed IRL over someone online (perhaps meditation has helped & the fact that I've dealt with so many RL problems over the past few years that I can't really justify getting heated over some nonsense online).

Phrossack said:

From what I've read (admittedly not the whole thing, it was a bit long), it seems to suggest that calls for civility are all attempts to divert the issue or to assert your superiority, and that snark is better. The author really seems to dislike anyone who tries to discourage nastiness, and assumes they must be arrogant and controlling.

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I couldn't quite put my thoughts about the article into words, and you, sir, put it better than I could have.

Honestly, he (and his legions of adoring supporters in the comments, which sounds pretty smarmy to me) try to paint the opponents - the smarmers - as arrogant and condescending, yet to me, the tone of the article seems pretty condescending.

So apparently, smarm is ALWAYS bad. But just to be on the safe side, he throws in a one-sentence note that snark can also be bad if used improperly (without deigning to mention what these improper uses of snark might be).

Smarm, snark... I just like learning things. Barring that, watching people argue provides some entertainment.

This author makes me happier than words can fully express.

There isn't really the segregation of smarminess and snarkiness as proposed. The degree to which either and occasionally both is/are employed depends in part on the position of the person using them.

Phrossack said:

Why bother with it?

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Presumably at least one of the parties in a debate wants to convince the other parties of the relative correctness of the former's position. They have the biases and beliefs of the other parties they must work with, but bridging the gap between them to a common position seems to be an unproductive effort.

Rhetoric ( as smarminess and snarkiness often are) can be employed as a "force" to jump the gap instead.

Edit:I would personally consider the reversal of the decision to separate the OT forums into Tavern and "RD" sections to be a response like the author has in regard to smarminess.

He took his point too far. You can criticize what he defines as smarm without attempting to excuse snark to the extent he does. Basically, he just winds up being an a-hole claiming people being a-holes is great for everyone, drink it up. Oh, you don't like people being mean to you on the internets? You're an even bigger a-hole than the people being mean! He's sort of like an apologist for online bullying, rephrased.

Farm Boy said:

He took his point too far. You can criticize what he defines as smarm without attempting to excuse snark to the extent he does. Basically, he just winds up being an a-hole claiming people being a-holes is great for everyone, drink it up. Oh, you don't like people being mean to you on the internets? You're an even bigger a-hole than the people being mean! He's sort of like an apologist for online bullying, rephrased.

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Have to agree.

Farm Boy said:

He took his point too far. You can criticize what he defines as smarm without attempting to excuse snark to the extent he does. Basically, he just winds up being an a-hole claiming people being a-holes is great for everyone, drink it up. Oh, you don't like people being mean to you on the internets? You're an even bigger a-hole than the people being mean! He's sort of like an apologist for online bullying, rephrased.

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Agreed totally. He's a cheerleader for jerkishness. In his perfect world, all discussions would be sarcastic, hostile squabbles.

That's a very longwinded way to write about how much you like to be a jerk.

Yup...

"We want to be mean on the internet to people who are wrong, because they are wrong, because we say so."

I wonder how Saint Sarkeesian factors into this.

If someone feels tempted to snarksplain to me the difference in quantity or quality, that someone is very much missing the point.

A very good article, I enjoyed reading it a lot. A long article, yes, but that's because nuance points require development. Hopefully it's clear to most people, if not everyone, that the very length indicates that the author is saying rather more than "I like to be a jerk".

And, I don't think that they're actually saying that at all. They're not defending trite or insubstantial cynicism, but the right to make contentious arguments and to use a contentious tone when doing so. That either are automatically interpreted by so many readers as "being a jerk" would seem to support Scocca's case that smarm is a pervasive ideology.

A lot of people seem to react to this by claiming that snark is merely the impolite version of smarm, but I don't think that's the case. Smarm, as Scocca defines it, works to shut down criticism by denying the possible legitimacy of contentious arguments. Snark, on the other hand, is openly critical, so it implicitly acknowledges the possibility that the snarker may be the target of criticism in turn. One of the comments points out that some snarkers retreat behind layer after layer of irony in order to deflect any possible criticism, but that's an individual manoeuvring to exempt themselves specifically from criticism, rather than to deny the legitimate of critical or contentious discourse outright. The smarmer simply precludes this possibility by accepting as a premise that all contention is self-invalidating. Including, of course, this one.


There's a section I highlighted in the other thread, which I'll repeat here, that rings very true for me:

Snark is often conflated with cynicism, which is a troublesome misreading. Snark may speak in cynical terms about a cynical world, but it is not cynicism itself. It is a theory of cynicism.

The practice of cynicism is smarm.

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This hits it right on the nose, I think.

Yet contention itself is not snark.

Traitorfish said:

Snark, on the other hand, is openly critical, so it implicitly acknowledges the possibility that the snarker may be the target of criticism in turn.

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That's the point where theory and reality part.
In reality snark in contemporary public dialogue comes with either a fallacy or some ridiculous double standard about 99% of all times.
The snarked at can a) take it (or smarm) b) snark back c) dissect the fallacy, which inevitably looks somewhat stuffy, offering the snarker the often siezed upon oportunity to shift into smarm mode themselves.
B) Is probably the most commonly chosen option.

The "fair" snark the author is droning on and on about does exist, but in the grand scheme of things it's fairly uncommon.

metatron said:

That's the point where theory and reality part.
In reality snark in contemporary public dialogue comes with either a fallacy or some ridiculous double standard about 99% of all times.

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True (well, ish), but that's an argument about the substance of the dialogue, not its tone. The fallacious snark is not wrong because it is snarky, but because it is fallacious. But protests against "incivility" take explicit issue with the tone of argument, not its content.

By all means, lament the prevalence of fallacy, but be ready to condemn the polite and impolite fallacy equal- and, by the same token, recognise the polite and impolite truth for what they are.

Farm Boy said:

Yet contention itself is not snark.

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Which makes the ideological hostility towards contention all the more ridiculous.

Traitorfish said:

Which makes the ideological hostility towards contention all the more ridiculous.

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Towards contention(1. heated disagreement. 2. an assertion, especially one maintained in argument.) itself? Definitely. Contention still does not equal snark. Snark is a type of interaction, a type that can be an emotional weapon. Despite the fact that tone can be misconstrued, despite the fact that manners can be as well, and despite the fact that some people shrug them off as unnecessary, superfluous, and cumbersome, they or their lack can and do cause hurt. Not the cognitive dissonance kind of hurt that comes from a particularly telling rhetorical blow, but hurt of the emotional bullying variety. People are people, not adding machines. The emotional and social aspects of conversations matter a lot.

Traitorfish said:

True (well, ish), but that's an argument about the substance of the dialogue, not its tone. The fallacious snark is not wrong because it is snarky, but because it is fallacious. But protests against "incivility" take explicit issue with the tone of argument, not its content.

By all means, lament the prevalence of fallacy, but be ready to condemn the polite and impolite fallacy equal- and, by the same token, recognise the polite and impolite truth for what they are.

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I think most of us are not disagreeing with "smarm is (overwhelmingly often) bad".
We're disagreeign with the supposed good of snark and with the contention that smarm outclasses bad snark as a problem.

My problem in particular is that, like, nothing in the article makes sense.
Like, the mindset of the post 9/11 era was not sold by Maureen Dowd. It was sold by Rumsfeld, one of the snarkiest persons alive on this planet.
And "class warfare" is not thwarted by smarm, it's averted, distracted by - among other things - all that Coulter and O'Reilly say about "inner city folks" - things that are usually not the least bit smarmy.

The left the auther appears to be preaching to should learn to hit better with the rapier, not be even more self-satisfied with their pretentious commentary on each of their own thrusts.
And yes, that particularly applies to debates on gender issues.

Speaking of which, the disaster zones that are CFC's Ukraine and feminism threads are living proof of what happens when everyone's rude to each other and acting in bad faith. But according to Scocca, I'm a smarmy arrogant scumbag for wishing that the posters there would take their knives away from each others' throats.

Do any of you have particular moments in the essay that you take issue with? It'd be easier to work from something the author actually said, rather than an impression of what the author says, impressions being rather by definition impressionistic.