Loquaciousness & the Career Poaster

In Unseen Warfare: The Spiritual Combat and Path to Paradise of Lorenzo Scupoli, the topic of loquaciousness is addressed: 

Good feelings are silent. The feelings which seek expression in words are mostly egotistical, since they seek to express what flatters our self-love and can show us, as we imagine, in the best light. Loquacity mostly comes from a certain vainglory, which makes us think that we know a great deal and imagine our opinion on the subject of conversation to be the most satisfactory of all. So we experience an irresistable urge to speak out in a stream of words, with many repetitions, to impress the same opinion in the hearts of others, thus foisting ourselves upon them as unbidden teachers and sometimes even dreaming of making pupils of men who understand the subject much better than the teacher. This refers, however, to cases when the subject of conversation are more or less worthy of attention. 

On first reading, his attack on loquaciousness seems to be quite broad, but his words are actually quite careful. For instance, at the end he states that this seems to happen when the subject of conversation is more or less worthy of attention, which I believe states quite frankly that internet discussions are often worth our time. He is by no means discouraging good conversation that seeks the truth necessarily, though in other parts of the section he certainly takes on the character of the monastic and speaks about the perfection of silence. 

I do not want to detract from that, but it is also not within the breadth of this post and is far further down the path of spiritual development than most any layman is. 

Rather, I was impressed with how succinctly he pointed out that sharing opinions is often highly egotistical and seeks to win people to oneself. We may say that we are trying to win people to the truth, but this is often a facade for something darker... 

I also think this is a reminder not just of potentially our own shortcomings in this, but it also surely has to do with many of the characters that we meet on the internet. Let me state first & foremost, I share the exact same vice as them, and I am not condemning anybody but myself. However, it probably is useful to understand that a lot of the people we are even preaching to may not even be there for the truth, but also there to exercise their own ego and to grow it by "winning" arguments and followers. 

Before we write anything, we should resolve that we are trying to communicate honestly and assert something for discussion that is beneficial for others by somehow stating an opinion or fact that is relevant. Moreover, we should not be obsessed with "winning," and we should respect other opinions that are presented in a manner not so unlike our own. 

Otherwise, we may be guilty of idle talk, even egotistical and prideful talk.