by Temitope Atiba

…if we fail in our nuclear unit on twitter to engender the best arguments/debates on policy etc, we will fail eventually in the larger society to achieve the aim of democracy.

“It is not he who gains the exact point in dispute who scores most in controversy — but he who has shown the better temper.” – Samuel Butler

I love to argue, I was never the best debater at any organized fora growing up, but amongst my friends I must have been a king. As a kid and even now, more often than not in our coven a place we have re-christened ‘Aristocrat’ in a suburb of Ikeja, myself and my comrades typify ‘beer palour’ activism and champion various revolutionary postulations subject to various standards of proof and where fact could be UN stats or pure tantamount to hearsay at its best, I still love to argue, I long for it, my friendships thrive on it. I can be a local champion there but we don’t insult each other as different and divergent as our ideologies are.

In more serious parlance, the concept of democracy is predicated on debates. The foundation of this form of government is the argument brought to the fore by different political schools of thought that believe theirs is the best direction in which the society should be led.

For a people long deprived their voices, gagged by the fear of the dark dungeons of various repressive regimes, to have found a voice and a forum/fora through which same can be heard is a novelty that comes with much adrenaline, and the euphoria of power. This is where we are at the moment, the Nigerian ‘twitterati’, and the children of anger (never mind the ages of the twitter leaders of thought).

However, a certain tendency has become prevalent which I find very distracting to wit:

“Either accept my view or I insult (voltron) you to submission.”

We are here to keep a discussion going, you will find on various time lines various fine particles of the whole matter, the big discussion (Nigeria). In the midst of the tweets we will also find various brilliant lines of reason, everybody has something important to say.

It is pertinent to point out that if we fail in our nuclear unit on twitter to engender the best arguments/debates on policy etc, we will fail eventually in the larger society to achieve the aim of democracy. This is, to be led by the party with the best and most sellable argument.

I believe these few points will enable us have better discussions:

Argue the facts and not the sentiments: Case in point, aunty Obyzeks Vs Labaran Maku. I wonder why so many people went all out to defend facts that were not properly available to them. Cursing and insulting each other. Obyzeks triggered valid points, Maku also challenged her with their (the executive or wherever he got his figures from) own figures… the ‘children of anger’??? Oh we were bickering back and forth, ‘Voltroning’ this and that, a more mature Obyzeks simply challenged Maku to a debate.

Don’t always follow (voltron) the celebrities follow your mind. After all a tweet is only an opinion, why not form yours.

Read the links and not the caption, it allows you give more informed opinions on issues.

Build reputation capital, social media is the world and yes its watching you, one tweet could stand against you in future.

Insults are the lowest level of communication, argue with respect and civility.

Reason over passion and temperance over both. Another case in point el-Rufai’s Jesus tweet, did we really have to burn ourselves out over that? Or take it out of context?

To cap it all I’d refer us all to a quote by Daniel J. Boorstin that I have found quite instructive on the matter:

“Disagreement produces debate but dissent produces dissension. Dissent (which comes from the Latin, dis and sentire) means originally to feel apart from others. People who disagree have an argument, but people who dissent have a quarrel. People may disagree and both may count themselves in the majority. But a person who dissents is by definition in a minority. A liberal society thrives on disagreement but is killed by dissension. Disagreement is the life blood of democracy, dissension is its cancer.”

————————-

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija