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Code of Conduct
In light of the article and the very good discussion about Catholics and the Culture of Hate, I thought I’d post another link from our friend DavidK. It’s a “code of conduct” for commenting from Sojourners, an organization dedicated to articulating “the biblical call to social justice, inspiring hope and building a movement to transform individuals, communities, the church, and the world.”
I will express myself with civility, courtesy, and respect for every member of the Sojourners online community, especially toward those with whom I disagree—even if I feel disrespected by them. (Romans 12:17-21)
I will express my disagreements with other community members’ ideas without insulting, mocking, or slandering them personally. (Matthew 5:22)
I will not exaggerate others’ beliefs nor make unfounded prejudicial assumptions based on labels, categories, or stereotypes. I will always extend the benefit of the doubt. (Ephesians 4:29)
It’s not a bad idea to include a similar “code of conduct” for posting and commenting on A Nun’s Life. Plus I think it would be great if we could get a “federation” of Catholic bloggers who would support and promote such a code. I like the biblically-based approach that Sojourners takes. What are your thoughts on this? What would you add/change? Are there some positive statements that can be added?
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{ 19 comments }
I think such a code of conduct can be quite helpful. As Catholics we have a special responsibility to be the light of Christ, and to allow our behavior to reflect well on the truth of our faith, so that by our behavior as well as by the Truth proclaimed by our faith we may invite all seekers of God to discover Him where alone His Church perfectly subsists, which is to say in the Catholic Church.
I have committed so many sins of viciousness myself in online interactions, the sort of viciousness that is unheard of from me in my face-to-face encounters. There is a real challenge of online interaction, the anonymity of it all, the lack of personal intimacy. Satan seems to have a special presence on the internet and we need to especially combat him there. It would be helpful perhaps if we would especially invoke the intercession of St. Michael and the Blessed Virgin when we find ourselves being riled in an online discussion, so that we may live out the words of St. James: Know this, my beloved brethren. Let every man be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of man does not work the righteousness of God. Therefore put away all filthiness and rank growth of wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls (Jas 1:19-21); and the words of St. Paul: Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil (Eph 4:26-27); and especially the words of St. Peter: Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking some one to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experience of suffering is required of your brotherhood throughout the world (1 Pet 5:8-9).
We are battling against principalities, thrones, powers, and all the many legions of the Evil One who will seek any opportunity to turn us away from Christ and His Church, and even more so, to use us to turn others away. This opportunity, in my own experience with my own great sins, is found especially in our online interactions. For that reason I find this code of conduct to be a wonderful idea. Thank you for bringing it to our attention, Sister!
What a great idea! I am thoroughly for that!
Is this something you are struggling with? (Please forgive ending the sentense with a preposition.) As the moderator, you ultimately have the power to edit or not post something.
Although, your suggesting a code of conduct for posting to a blog is emblematic of the general decay of civility that once was the norm for society as a whole. If people can’t be generally polite in daily interatctions with people on a human level, why would they be polite in the digital world? Perhaps two Quaker axioms that I try to rely upon will help others:
1. Flash your lights. Don’t honk your horn.
2. Don’t pull your self-righteous skirts up too high.
i think the gospel is code enough, but this is your blog. i echo jack’s question: is this something you are struggling with?
i personally believe that a person is or isn’t going to be respectful, regardless of rules or a code of conduct. the general tone of this blog is enough for me. people who cannot respect the tone and attitude now will not do so simply because official rules exist.
Jack and Marla, I agree, “the gospel is code enough.” It happens now and again that I do not publish a comment because it is not charitable. More often than not, it comes from a “one-hit-wonder”, someone passing through whose intention is not to stay and engage in dialog. It would be helpful from my perspective to have a handy guide that explains what’s expected so that when that happens, I can give a link to say, “here, this is how this blog operates.” But by and large, most people commenting get it and don’t need a guide. So maybe it’s more necessary as an email response and not necessarily posted on the blog. I do still like the idea of having a common code as a stance against the so-called “culture of hate.”
i think something in opposition to the “culture of hate” is a good idea. especially if it is identified as such.
i don’t think a code of conduct is a bad idea, sister julie. i just think people see the gist of this blog and realize that this is not a venue for fighting. i’m sorry uncharitable comments have come through. i hope it is not the majority. i wondered if this might be the case, as it seems to be on your mind.
If it helps you Sister Julie and makes your life easier I’m for it. I am newer here. I sometimes need to ber reminded to be careful of my words. I live in a crowded place and the rudeness I encounter sometimes does take a hold in me. I found those scriptures a nice reminder. It may be true that some people will not comply but being able to point to the rules may help. It’s worth a try I think.
David K and Sister Julie: I love Sojourners and its code of conduct. In my experience, that code calls attention not only to how posters speak with each other, but also – and equally important, I believe – how posters speak of *any*one, whether that one is a participant or not. I know that the only two times I have been riled here have been in response to the harsh way people were “spoken of”, rather than “spoken to”. I handled my expression of my distress badly and, for that, I am responsible and sorry. (and there have been only those two incidents). For me, the incivility is equally unpleasant and destructive whether the object of the ugliness is another poster or just someone out there in the universe, and I think that one form of incivility tends to open the door for others and, thus, want to say again that I am sorry for having handled my discomfort as I did when I was distressed with the speech and tone regarding Heather Graham because I participated – through the tone of my objection – in what I object to so strenuously.
A suggestion: the Ithaca NY human services community has a listserv (last time I heard, there were appprox 1400 of on the list) which is moderated by a county staffperson for the Commissioners. It is more an information-sharing tool than this but community is community and interaction happens. Once a month or so, on some kind of automatic schedule, the moderator reposts the “community guidelines”. No fracas is required to precipitate the reminder. A “fracas” of any sort will prompt an additional posting, though not in any way that exposes the participants in the fracas (which seems to result in fracas-ing members – who, in truth, can be and has been anyone since communication is a human endeavor). That way of handling it seems to result in any and all fracas-ing members to make their own apologies for their part as either precipitator or respondent, which I think furthers the nature and purposes of community and communcation *and* civility.
Re: Sojourners – I think Sojourners as a magazine and as a community is a model in another way. Jim Wallis seems to take exceptional care not to allow his Gospel evangelical mission to be highjacked – in any direction – by left or right, by conservative or progressive, by undamentalist or mainline, by any preference or privileging of voice for any community within the Gospel community (and the community expressed profound respect for other faiths, traditions, peoples). If you are looking for a magazine or community that calls names and villifies- any names about anyone, anywhere, whether insider or outsider – Sojourners is not the magazine for you. Indeed, for Sojourners, there is no outsider anywhere, in its pages or in the give-and-take of its blogs.
I do like the routine reposting of the expectations and, when I owned a list for the alums of my women’s college at a time it was moving toward being co-ed and emotions were high and opinions passionate and personalities (on and off the list) were much under the magnifying lenses, it worked for us to remind each other through routine postings of our agreements about how we spoke to each other and of others not present. Jean
Having a code can’t hurt. dee
oh, man. it never occurred to me that my comments might have been the uncharitable ones… except i know i upset jean with my heather graham comment.
apologies……
hey marla – there was much written on that subject that was distressing to me and i did not handle that distress well and at least one person was distressed with me for what i said. Again, I am sorry for that.
i think Sister Julie would be fine with me saying this: she and I spent several days engaged in earnest but difficult and ultimately very fruitful and friendly dialogue about dialogue online and these general issues of civility and how to respond (from position of moderator and responder).
marla, i really really appreciated and admired that you were willing to hear and engage with my concern. i did not care whether you agreed with me about my assessment of that exchange. I cared that you cared that our “interaction” had distressed me and that you engaged and, in that way, you helped me “come back in from the cold” – - – - – the cold being the sense of alienation I experienced after reading the exchange about HG and also my awareness that my own provocative behavior in response to it had contributed to rather than intervened in what distressed me.
Maybe our exchange (that “our” many more than just and me) prompted this. That is only for Sister Julie to say. If it is the case that we prompted this, then our mistakes are moving the community along and, in that, this community is like every other: mistakes and missteps (experiments) as a learning mechanism are an old tool and are to be welcomed as such. Again, if our exchanges prompted this, then Sister Julie is certainly making good on our well-intentioned and “owned” mistakes by moving the community along.
I think you are very, very, very cool, Marla, again, for having cared and engaged with my distress. The positive value of that engagement – as a community building and preserving dynamic – is so much greater than “negative” value of mistakes and missteps. I say that because we will ALWAYS make mistakes as humans; we have no choice about it: sooner or later, no matter where and how we live, each of us will be the one who blows it in some way or another. What we do have choice about, where our will is (and will always remain) active is in how we respond when we blow it, regardless of whether another calls us on it. That is where we show who we are, I believe. Not in our mistakes. But in how we reconcile our mistakes and our relationships. I think you are a peach, Miss Marla. With repsect, friendship and peace, Jean
Sister Julie – One other suggestion, that came to me after rereading the Busted Halo article on the culture of hate. It seems silly to me as I start to write this but I think it is worth considering: as often as possible use “I” statements while working to eliminate as many “you, she, he, they” statements. I think most of us would be slower to write, even anonymously, “I think he’s a jerk” than to write “he is a jerk”. The use of “I”, as often as possible, tends to make us more aware of ourselves as actors. I know that many of us try to avoid using “I”, certainly in academic, professional and most formal “public” writings that are not editorial in intent. But blogs (and responses to them) are inherently editorial and, thus, the use of “I” is not inappropriate and may, in fact, be a necessary check against the kinds of things we are talking about.
Again, writing the statement “I don’t believe so-and-so is a good Catholic” just **feels** different (in an uncomfortable way) than writing “so-and-so is not a good Catholic”.
The “I” places the writer in the “frame of judgment”, too, if that makes sense. It says, “hey this judgment I am about to make contains information about me, too” and, often in relationship, that is enough to make us stop and rethink the value, the tone, the consequences, even the necessity of the judgment we are about to make.
Thanks for the link to Busted Halo. I had discovered them when I was reading about Father Stan Fortuna and then forgot. I like the site. Jean
I like Jean’s suggestion about “I statements.”
The use of “I statements” is a standard “tool” for mediators and counselors.
Its use mitigates accusations and attributing malice to another.
I think there is a ton of difference between saying, for example, “I feel unappreciated when you say that,” and “You don’t appreciate me.”
By the way, what precipitated my sending the links about harmful expression on blogs to Sister Julie, were some of the comments, from both sides, on the NPR (On Point) blog following the broadcast on Wednesday, 8 July.
Best regards, wishes and prayers for many blessings.
I will use the line, “don’t pull your self-righteous skirt up too high”… that is the best quote I have heard in a long time…
Have a policy is a good idea, you can always refer to it when asked ‘why’. On the other hand, I don’t think that any of those things would change what happens here anyway.
Maybe we can have a new “smilie”: one that holds up a sign with the
word “Rudnicking” in a circle with a line through it, thus, signaling
NO RUDNICKING or RUDNICKING NOT ALLOWED. When the lines of respect and dignity are crossed (either between posters or in a post), Sister Julie or a concerned reader could send a message with nothing but the NO RUDNICKING smilie as a reminder.
And maybe we would be creating our own Nun’s Life “meme” if we could figure out how make that NO RUDNICKING smilie into a link back to Sister RP’s wonderful post. I mean, how great would it be to have a nun-version of “rickrolling”?
FROM WIKIPEDIA: The term Internet MEME (pronounced /mɛm/, mème) is a phrase used to describe a catchphrase or concept that spreads quickly from person to person via the Internet, much like an inside joke.[1] The term is a reference to the concept of memes, although this concept refers to a much broader category of cultural information.
Jean
“Rudnicking” is rather catchy — the word itself is quite onomatopoeia-esque! But who knows? Maybe Mr. Rudnick will have a change of heart and if so it’d be a shame to immortalize this one (very bad) instance of writing. However I do like the idea of meme-fying the concept of No Rudnicking.
Sister J – I agree. It would be a shame to pin Rudnick with this (I do find his writing very funny and I love his movies; and, given that he is an important voice in the gay community, may well think better of what amounts to significant overkill on the nun-humor-front; here’s hoping……………..).
And, yet, what a classic example of pushing the line of humor and irony and satire so hard or with such a ham-fist that you cross into derision. I had a professor in college who assigned us Jonathon Swift’s 1729 essay, “A Modest Proposal: For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public”, in which he suggests – in great detail – that poor children be made into gourmet dishes for the wealthy.
Then we had to write our own ironic/satirical essay. My professor was horrified. I “got” the assignment and I “get” Swift’s essay and I “get” satire/irony but I totally blew it in execution. Mercifully, I cannot recall my own proposal (race and class in the States was and remains a theme for me, so I am guessing I wrote something horrifying on those themes). Obviously, I’m “no Paul Rudnick”, who is a superb writer and social critic through his humor (and rarely crosses the line, I think, from sharp humor to destructive humor).
But it reminds me that humor about “Life’s Big Issues” is delicious when we nail it AND ALWAYS DANGEROUS.
Jean
PS
Wikipedia just reminded me that Jonathon Swift’s Proposal “exploit[s] common prejudice against Catholics” and the conflict between Protestants and Catholics, the division of which seemed to all too often fall along the wealthy/poor divide) in the British Empire of 1729 . I did not recall that until I checked Wiki for the exact title of Swift’s piece. These are old battles, both in content and dynamics…
I am reading a another fabulous book (you nuns make great suggestions; you’re like the burgeoning book-lover’s ideal high school lit teacher, opening whole new worlds and life journeys and life’s loves through the pages between book covers…)
St Francis and the Foolishness of God by Marie Dennis, Joseph Nagle OFM, Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Stuart Taylor and published by Maryknoll’s Orbis.
Chapter 5 is “Francis and Nonviolence: Dialogue with the Enemy”.
A profound subheading is “When We Are the Enemy”.
“Our human tendency is to see ourselves as the good guys. Yet we must learn to acknowledge where we are the wrongdoers if we are to correct personal and social justice…
In what areas are being treated respectfully and kindly by people who could choose instead to retaliate against us for the wrong that we have done them?… These are difficult questions. It is hard to ourselves in the position of ‘bad guys’ to whom a person or people is offering the hand of forgiveness – a person or people daring to walk closer to Christ than we are…..Consider many Nicaraguans who, having suffered indescribable angusih at the hand of the United States, are able to welcome US citizens with the words of forgiveness. Or consider many Native Aermicans who, knowing full well the genocide suffered by their people at the hands of the Euro-Americans, still choose to accept the latter as brothers and sisters”.
It made me think of all the ugliness (the overt attacks, the intellectual and emotional appeals re: one’s goodness and the other’s evilness, the subtle but powerful freezing silences) that construct and reify barbed divisions in this, the universal Church; all the “enemy-making” energy that is being expended and renewed through that expense.
“The heart of th[e] third way established by Jesus and followed by Francis is love of enemy, replacing enmity with brotherhood and sisterhood. In loving those called ‘enemy’, we recognize that they are as human as we are; they have hopes, dreams, joys, agonies; they [too] probably believe themselves to be right; and may be as threatened by us as we are by them. We realize that they, too, are children of God: that they are treasured, tenderly loved, and forgiven by God no less than we are. To identify the enemy with absolute evil is to deny that they are as human as we and that they, too, have a part of God within them.”
An element contemporary statement of love for enemies and nonviolent resistance is that of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr:
” To our most bitter opponents we say: ‘Throw us in jail and we will still love you. Bomb our houses and threaten our children and we will still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities at the midnight hour and beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you. But be ye assured that we will wear you down with our capacity to suffer. One day we shall win freedom, but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart abnd conscience that we shall win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory’….
Terrifying and enormously difficult is the challenge represented to contemporary Christians by the examples of Jesus and Francis. Are we to reject violence at all costs?”
This book is leading me to this question: why it is that I am, in general, not drawn to feminist/womanist responses to tensions within the Catholic Church whereas I am powerfully, deeply drawn to African American responses to tensions within the Catholic Church and feel I could give my life to accompanying others as we live the tensions of the African American Catholic Church, whereas I tend to be irritated by the responses from BOTH sides to tensions about gender in the institutional Catholic Church, the same irritation I experience when exposed to the red and to the blue sides in the two-party US politics?
Jean
This all made me think about my visit to Wounded Knee with my mother this summer. As we stood at the memorial to the Native people slaughtered by the US Government, several people from the community travelled up the dirt roads to the memorial (from the village that wraps itself around the memorial, you can see people coming and going). They greeted us as we stood among the graves of their people and, to a one, welcomed us, wished us peace, asked us to share in the beauty of their home. One young Native man saw my crucifix around my neck and very peacefully told me, as he held me hand, that the US government brought a Catholic priest to the people of Wounded Knee the night before the slaughter and the priest gave the People last rites. My mother and I were sick, having just come from a high plains congregation and convent I was checking out.
I have not yet learned whether this is true. And it does not, in the end, matter to me.
What mattered to my mother and me was that a son of the People of Wounded Knee stood within the gated grave of his people and held my hand in genuine welcome and peace as he introduced me to our shared history, our relationship, introduced me to the intimacy of our lives in the story of my government, my Church, my people discussing and preparing the murder of his people.
Jean