{"id":1597,"date":"2007-07-19T06:44:42","date_gmt":"2007-07-19T06:44:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2007\/07\/19\/internet-laws-and-framing\/"},"modified":"2007-07-19T06:44:42","modified_gmt":"2007-07-19T06:44:42","slug":"internet-laws-and-framing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2007\/07\/19\/internet-laws-and-framing\/","title":{"rendered":"Internet Laws and Framing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite efforts to avoid such foolishness, Kevin Beck inadvertently drew my attention<\/a> to what people are calling “Blake’s Law,” which apparently briefly had its own Wikipedia page<\/a>, but now appears to redirect to the Pharyngula page<\/a>. Blogdom really needs a killfile.<\/p>\n

Anyway, the Internet “Law” in question is stated as:<\/p>\n

\n

In any discussion of atheism (skepticism, etc.), the probability that someone will compare a vocal atheist to religious fundamentalists increases to one.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is notable mostly for being a really beautiful piece of– wait for it– framing.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The “Law” is consciously formulated to echo “Godwin’s Law<\/a>,” which is properly stated as:<\/p>\n

\n

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Of course, the popular conception of Godwin’s “Law” is subtly different than the reality, as is seen from the Wikipedia comment on the new “Law”:<\/p>\n

\n

As with Godwin’s Law, the person who compares the atheist to a religious fundamentalist is considered to have lost the argument.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Putting it into this form is a really clever attempt to claim high moral standing, in a slightly more subtle way than the “civil rights”\/ “suffragist” analogies of a previous kerfuffle. By creating an internet “Law” parallel to Godwin’s, and invoking it whenever necessary, they can implicitly equate accusations of “fundamentalist” behavior on the part of millitant atheists with Nazi comparisons in other contexts, and thus have them presumptively declared illegitimate.<\/p>\n

Of course, this skips nicely over an important point that applies to both “Laws”: the fact that such an accusation is often frivolous or illegitimate does not mean that all such accusations<\/strong> are frivolous or illegitimate. Even Nazi references are sometimes appropriate, and even necessary (as xkcd reminds us<\/a>).<\/p>\n

But if you’re clever about framing your “Laws,” you can undercut even the legitmate arguments, with spiffy Internet rhetoric. It’s a nice piece of work.<\/p>\n

Sadly, it’s another example of one of the least attractive qualities of millitant atheists on the Internet, namely their skill at using spin and “framing” and the connotative meaning of words when it works to their advantage, while working themselves into a froth of high dudgeon at any suggestion that these same principles might be applied in ways that they find inconvenient.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite efforts to avoid such foolishness, Kevin Beck inadvertently drew my attention to what people are calling “Blake’s Law,” which apparently briefly had its own Wikipedia page, but now appears to redirect to the Pharyngula page. Blogdom really needs a killfile. Anyway, the Internet “Law” in question is stated as: In any discussion of atheism… Continue reading Internet Laws and Framing<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1597\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}