by William Skink
In a school setting, mockery is a form of bullying that no teacher would ever promote. From the link:
“Mocking” is usually perceived to be a form of verbal abuse that takes place in a face-to-face encounter. However, this is not necessarily the case. In fact, what makes peer mockery so dangerous to your child’s growth is its multi-faceted nature.
It is crucial for you to familiarize yourself with the role that mocking plays in schoolyard aggression, and how this mockery impacts your child’s life. You should also learn about the different types of bullying, the signs of bullying that your child may manifest, and the ways in which you can prevent bullying from occurring.
While politics isn’t a schoolyard where we are trying to mold kids into becoming responsible, well-rounded adults, it might be important to ask the following question: do certain groups of people deserve to be made fun of?
Today in Helena a morally righteous partisan is making the argument that, yes, some people do deserve to made fun of, and today is the day to do it with the Freedom From Idiocy Rally:
There are times for righteous, passionate protest and there are times when people simply deserve our disdain. Try to find a way Monday to sneak over and offer some well-deserved mockery of people who believe still that hate and xenophobia are messages that resonate outside of their compounds.
Is there a good reasons to encourage this mockery? Other than making oneself feel morally superior, mockery isn’t very effective in changing someone’s mind that their opinion is wrong:
The problem with mockery is that it is not rhetorically effective. It doesn’t actually persuade anybody of anything. Nobody has ever been mocked out of a belief or humiliated into accepting another. When we mock others, we communicate the view that we do not respect them or take them seriously. This invariably deepens their commitment to the positions that they hold and decreases—usually to zero—our ability to exercise any influence with them. Mockery makes us feel good and look smart to to our friends. This is its function; it has virtually no value as a form of persuasion.
I guess some partisans have abandoned the notion that they have persuasive arguments to make in regards to accepting Syrian refugees in Montana.