Apparently, somebody has called someone they didn’t agree with a “libtard” in a comment thread. This hasn’t gone down very well, and there have been (further) requests to close this blog’s comment facility, which are seemingly redolent of ‘Fight Club’ (the Rev’d Kate Harrison goes further: her problem isn’t just the comment threads, but the whole blog):
And so, once again, we come to the consideration of whether it is wrong to judge a blog by the comments it attracts.
If you haven’t read that linked post, please do so.
The thing is..
..these complaints only ever seem to come from self-identifying left-wing / liberal / “rabid inclusivists” who believe, as the Rev’d Kate Harrison appears to, that even all reasoned doctrinal opinion or orthodox theological exposition expressed on this blog is basically ‘far-right’, ‘xenophobic’, ‘homophobic’, ‘fascist’, ‘bigoted’, etc., etc., etc.
Is there really no longer any place in the Church of England for conservatives or traditionalists? Does all moral orthodoxy now just distil to ‘hate’? As Brendan O’Neill observed, just because you disagree with someone, it doesn’t make them a ‘fascist’:
Quite so. It would, however, help a great deal if regular communicants and visiting contributors wouldn’t call each other ‘libtard’ or suchlike. Insults ad hominem don’t persuade, advance argument, or foster fraternal accord, so please don’t. If you persist in doing so, the only solution will be to close the blog comment threads altogether, simply because there aren’t enough hours in the day to sift every comment for what somebody somewhere will deem to be offensive.