Had a small discussion with a good beehaw community member in one community, it got contentious but otherwise civil, and they have now taken to taking that discussion out in response to comments I’ve made in other posts and communities.
I would consider this a form of harassment, following me around Lemmy and having a argument seems to hurt the overall discussion in other posts and communities with anger and abuse.
How do I get help in this matter?
This won’t help your situation, but as a general rule, I don’t engage in debate on Lemmy or anywhere else. In part to avoid these kinds of problems but also because I find that responders are rarely interested in considering my opinion in good faith, and are rather usually looking for a place to dump their own opinion. I admit to doing this myself. I think it’s an inherent part of not-face-to-face communication. Similar phenomenon as with how the faceless ness of cars so easily induces road rage.
That’s a really good point. You need a relationship to have empathy, anonymous empathy is really difficult to develop and maintain
I don’t know about that, I’ve had many good arguments online and few face to face. In person people are generally going to put too much effort into avoiding conflict to fully or accurately express their possibly controversial thoughts. I think the tendency to talk past someone and take a very combative stance is mostly a culture issue rather than an anonymity one; bad arguments get praise and attention because people agree with it for tribalistic reasons, and treating the ‘enemy’ like people provokes criticism. People end up seeing argument as a vice, something you do purely as a way to vent, and not as a way of working through ideas and seeing new perspectives.