You will see the sentiment expressed on any Internet message board you care to frequent. The pattern is this: some deadbeat hack scribes an ill-advised “opinion” piece of more-than-usually-hateful rhetoric. Noble readers of taste and distinction post their thoughtful, intelligent, well-observed and often grammatical responses. This criticism is, in its turn, besmirched, slandered, and sullied by a flood of numb-brained dunces and ne’er-do-wells, and somewhere in this inevitable hosing of bilge-water comes floating the invariable turd: “if you don’t like it, don’t read it.”
By this point in the proceedings, of course, sensible discourse has become entirely impossible, and so the assertion sits and festers, a plump, proud plop that goes unchallenged, when it should be plated up and served to its author to eat in big stinking spoonfuls.
In seriousness, the problem of “if you don’t like it don’t read it” (IYDLIDRI) has become so pervasive that I would like to suggest a helpful and hardy all-weather response: “If you don’t like the comments, don’t read them.”
I don’t mean to be perverse, nor trivial. There is a serious intention here: to turn the weapons of one’s foes against them. IYDLIDRI has a kind of superficial sense to it that seemingly rends it impervious to assault, but the truth is that it contains the seeds of its own rhetorical destruction. Only a slight alteration of the formula is required to demonstrate this.
To understand why, we need to examine why it is difficult to respond to “if you don’t like it don’t read it” in the first place. But first, let’s see an example from the ZOO / Danny Dyer story, which first got me thinking about this, from “leedsunted1”:
Most of you that have posted comments really need to get yourselves a life and stop getting involved in things that dont really concern you i mean do you actually but the magazine the majority of you will answer NO and have had to physically go search oout the actual article just like all those who sit at home watching a film that they know involves sex/bad language and violence then complain when it happens because you have nothing better to do. IN OTHER WORDS IF YOU DONT LIKE IT DONT WATCH, READ OR LISTEN SIMPLE.
How does one respond to it? After all, if you don’t like IYDLIDRI — then don’t read it! You don’t have to read it, no-one’s making you read it, if you don’t like it that’s your problem, just don’t read it, etc. etc. etc. As you see, it is this curious and self-referential quality that seems to pre-empt and parry any response.
One could point out that it is impossible to know in advance whether or not one “likes it”—and that in order to ascertain that, one has no choice but to “read it”—and that if one finds that one doesn’t “like it”, one may find oneself left with no choice but to attempt a rebuttal—yes, one could point this out, and that is, indeed, a robust and reasonable way to proceed, but oh! how tedious! How depressingly pedestrian. And there is still every chance that once this dismal trudge through the dustbowls of logical consequence has been concluded, the drooling recipient will bark out some further point-missingly insolent rejoinder to leave one standing, slack-jawed and supplicant, in continued admiration of humankind’s inexhaustible capacity for imbecility.
Or, one could point out that IYDLIDRI is an encomium to ignorance, and that by following its advice, even if one were able to, one would remain unaware of all the viewpoints in all the world with which one did not accord. Once again this seems unnecessarily painstaking, but also there’s no reason to suppose that, in the mind of IYDLIDRI’s author, such ignorance is anything other than bliss.
Or, one could suggest that the real message of IYDLIDRI is in fact nothing to do with whether you “read it” or not, but that if you disagree or find it hateful, you have no right to respond. “If you don’t like it, I don’t want to hear about it.” Essentially, if you don’t like it, you have no right to say so. If you don’t like it, you have to suffer in silence. If you don’t like it - tough luck, sit still and shut up. The real message is an insidious threat, made laughable by the fact that on the Internet, there is no possible way to enforce it.
One could even make the point that IYDLIDRI is a cowardly non-response, tantamount to an admittance that whatever “it” happens to be, it is morally and intellectually indefensible.
These responses are all very well and good, but they all share two significant flaws. First: they are red herrings. They distract attention from the issue under discussion; they are meta-games: discussion of the discussion, rather than part of the discussion itself. Second, and worse: they all engage the author of IYDLIDRI in their trolling games. IYDLIDRI does not deserve to be so honoured.
Instead of any of them, I suggest “if you don’t like the comments, don’t read them” as the de facto standard response to IYDLIDRI. It is intended to dismantle the thought processes behind IYDLIDRI by reflecting them in a mirror. It is better than the above suggestions because:
- It’s much shorter.
- It is a refusal to engage with ignorance (“do not feed the trolls”)
- It’s a trap.
Shorter is better, because the shorter it is, the better the chance that the intended recipient will see it, read it, and comprehend it: and regardless of what happens next, if that occurs then success is guaranteed.
You see, for them to read it and agree, does not require that they change their position on IYDLIDRI, but it does require that they agree to ignore the comments they don’t like. (And if they agree to do that, then they will have no reason to post “IYDLIDRI” ever again, because that would be a response to precisely the kind of dissent of which they would be ignorant.) This is an unlikely path, but that’s somewhat the point — they’re not expected to agree, but the only disagreement they can have is with themselves.
So perhaps they read it and disagree, which is much more likely, and much more better, as it forces them to change their position on IYDLIDRI. If they do not, then they show themselves to be hypocrites, and their stated position to be internally inconsistent. The same logic which enables them to engage in the discussion must also allow their opponents to engage with them as well.
Or, perhaps they read it and ignore it: in which case they have shown themselves to be intellectual cowards who can go and be wrong on the Internet some place else — which seems a perfectly acceptable outcome. The next time they try IYDLIDRI, though, they will of course meet with exactly the same response.
Finally, and ideally, they will read it and realise the error of their ways, and this is of course the superior conclusion: in which the intellectual capacity of humanity is extended, enlightenment is attained, ignorance is eliminated, bunnies are exalted, and journalists are herded into a cell and individually tried for offences against human decency.
However it may go, it is an easy win that deals quickly and elegantly with a common modern sophism that is used to justify all sorts of abhorrent and ugly opinions. I hope that the solution hereby proposed proves to be a useful and practical one, and that armed with this tool, effective Internet dialogues may be better maintained in future.
In conclusion, I hope that you enjoyed this humble blog posting. If you didn’t, then please: don’t read it.
