Many people on social media put their efforts into pointing out ridiculous or nasty statements. Sometimes denunciation is necessary, but it shouldn’t be anyone’s main focus. It gives publicity to bad ideas. When a lot of people do it, it makes them part of the dominant dialogue. It draws attention away from people with more reasonable and better argued positions. Some people will find the nonsense interesting and even convincing.

Focusing on people with good things to say and solid arguments behind them draws attention to them, and usually that’s helpful. People can learn something from them, which is more than they can do from the words of fools.

I’m not saying that “Any publicity is good publicity” is literally true. There have been plenty of cases where people have said unpopular things and suffered a loss of business and reputation. But repeatedly hearing an idea can make it seem more acceptable. Anyone who already felt sympathy for it might feel less marginalized.

People need to rally around good ideas more than they need to denounce bad ones. If they only hear that bad ideas are bad, they’ll become discouraged or cynical. Without good ones, you don’t even have a standard that lets you reject the bad ones. Tyranny is bad because freedom is good. Socialism is bad because individual autonomy is good. Murder is bad because human life is good. Bad ideas can be worth dissecting, but you need a framework to do it.

As George Washington may or may not have said, let’s raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair.

Note: I accidentally published a fragmentary draft on freedom of expression in Bow, NH. I immediately deleted it, so probably only the people who get email notifications saw it. Sorry.