Posted on 07/03/2018 7:51:50 PM PDT by huckfillary
With all the division and dissension today, most will agree on one thing: Civility is breaking down in our society.
Maybe not so much in day-to-day life, for most of us. But certainly in the realm of business, academia, entertainment and especially government. It seems reasonable to ask: How long before this filters down into the rest of society, even more than it already has?
What’s the cause of civil breakdown? It depends whom you ask.
One person will say it’s social media. But that’s blaming the medium. It would be kind of like blaming the telephone for a fight during a phone conversation. It’s not the telephone – it’s the people! Social media is no different.
Another person will say it’s the breakdown of religion. But religion has been challenged for a long time, going back to the 1960s or before. Thomas Paine, one of America’s most influential founders, was an atheist. Thomas Jefferson was a deist, someone who believes in a God but also believes God’s role in human life is very limited or nonexistent. The current breakdown in civility is much more recent than the questioning of religion.
Another will say it’s all Donald Trump’s fault. But another will say it started because of Obama. But we have to look deeper. Whether it’s Obama or Trump causing the breakdown in civility, what makes people vulnerable to this manipulation and exploitation in the first place?
My answer: The decline of reason.
Think about what “reason” actually is.
When you’re reasonable, you refrain from certain things.
One is the use of force. The other is the threat of force.
On that point, the conservatives and Trump supporters have the high ground, like it or not. There is no Antifa of the right. There are no conservatives shouting down and threatening violence against speakers on campus who have differing views on taxes, environmentalism or Islam.
I’m not aware of any conservative proposals to launch a government takeover of the Internet, giving it the Orwellian name, “Net Neutrality”. Imagine the hue and cry if Republicans tried such a thing.
Generally, conservatives and right wingers want less government, not more. So for conservatives, by and large, it’s not about coercion. For leftists and “liberals”, it’s always about a new mandate, and political correctness is, in itself, the ultimate form of coercion.
It’s just a fact. Leftists like force more than conservatives, and force is the opposite of reason and civility.
Another thing a reasonable person refrains from is the use of personal attacks and emotion as a substitute for rational points.
While both sides can be guilty of this on social media and elsewhere, I hear a lot more of it from the left than the right.
While there are people who oppose Trump or conservatism while practicing reasonableness themselves, I honestly find that to be a rarer and rarer exception. I can’t blame this on Trump. These anti-Trumpers are free to challenge the President in reasonable ways. There are NO restrictions on free speech under his watch, to date. And criticizing the media for its slander and dishonesty is NOT a restriction on free speech.
I’m very vocal about my own views, on social media and elsewhere. When Obama was in office, and I opposed virtually everything he did and stood for, I did not personally attack or even “unfriend” people who thought differently, although many personally attacked me. I remained friends with most of them, although most of them will not speak to me since Trump’s election.
I almost constantly encounter people who support Trump or oppose Democrats that are scared – for their business or other personal reasons – to say so anywhere, even on social media. I have not yet once heard of anyone on the anti-Trump side facing any such fear. The difference is so startling and skewed, it seems reasonable to ask at some point, “What is it about leftism that’s so intimidating and emotional that causes non-leftists to go into the closet as they so often do?”
I know of many who would take issue with what I’m asserting. But I don’t know how you can deny my most fundamental point: Intimidation, emotion and the use of force are the opposite of reason.
If you feel a need to personally attack or coerce, whatever your views, then it’s a red flag you better start doing some introspection, for your own self most of all. If you’re right, then start acting like it. Point to the facts and logic that support your points. And if you can’t find any … well, maybe you’ve got to start rethinking one or two of your positions.
Why on earth is this so difficult for so many to accept?
Civility is based on reason. And only with a renewed and firm commitment to REASON will we ever get out of this mess.
If it is true that swing voters decide every election, then we really are ruled by the dumbest who somehow still manage to vote based on who can sway them that political cycle. The ones that vote that can’t articulately express a rational political philosophy that guides them, but who vote on things like appearance or who the media said was a better debater. Supposedly they are around 10% of eligible voters that deign to vote.
Freegards
And the Toxic Masculinity!
Yes, but you could look at them and ask “Who raised you, wolves?”
Some of us still love America.
Some of us don’t.
Add in 30 million fraudulently documented foreigners invited in against the will of the citizens and this is what you get.
After 30 years of corruption and control in every direction, I’d guess the country is not in a garden party mood yet. Etiquette and decorum will be taking the back seat for a few years. The cleanup has barely started.
Hmmm. “Civility breaking down” only seems to be a problem now that the Right is fighting back - see the lates Antifa KOs on LiveLeak for fun!
Social media is VERY different and the author completely misses why. The anonymity of social media using Twitter as one example permits people to say things that they'd never say in person. They can act out however they wish without fear of consequence. That is, for those who use Twitter and don't use their real names which is what, about 90% of the "twitterverse?"
Those who do speak out such as some idiot hollywood celebrity like, oh say Roseanne Barr then get attacked by millions of other idiots relentlessly (who are primarily anonymous of course) until they lose their jobs, incomes, etc..
Then there's Facebook. Need I say more there?
Those who infest (and I use that word deliberately) "social media" have gotten so used to expressing themselves via their bad behavior on those platforms that it's spread to everyday life.
So yes, I can absolutely assign blame to "social media" and specifically twitter and facebook for providing the very platforms for people to normalize their bad behavior on which enabled them to also do it in "real life."
We didn't have the non-stop public displays of uncivil animal-like behavior behavior until these "social media" platforms came along. Now it's just one uncivil asshole after another, after another seemingly in a contest to see "how uncivil can I be and get away with it?"
But I like wolves, they serve a purpose.
True, but the also talk incessantly about sex, religion and politics
Well, I just got suspended from a non-political site for pointing out that transwomen are not actually women. Such language was deemed “abusive” - so the Left is now stating that mentioning inconvenient facts in public is uncivil.
No they don't, they talk incessantly about which deer in the herd they're following they're gonna take down for their next meal.
All they talk about is food and I wish they'd talk about something else.
Actually, I do blame the telephone for many an unkind word and misunderstanding!
Telephone calls often interrupt other activities at the home of the receiving party - a fact which the caller doesn't always immediately recognize.
The receiving party might be in the midst of a domestic dispute of his own - dealing with unruly children or an angry spouse - and then the call comes.
Or, contrariwise, the call comes during an "intimate" moment in the bathroom or the bedroom.
In both scenarios, the receiving party is already feeling "put upon."
Then, with telephone calls (as opposed to personal visits), the participants can't see each other's faces. Thus, a casual joke may be misinterpreted as a cutting remark, a helpful suggestion as an intrusive criticism.
Of course, compared with the Internet, there is less chance of the altercation then spreading like wildfire.
Regards,
It’s interesting to see its limited correlation to “religion” — perhaps, even to faith. I believe “religion” does build many of the houses in which “civility” lives. It did in Canada. It brings in and makes respectable concepts that barbarian societies would scoff at. Even the atheists of the founding times found the bible to be built around wisdom, which is a different breed from the modern kind who see their missions as to mock everything that Christianity caused to be built.
But keeping these houses is a different story from building these houses. Sans faith, they are nice for a while, but will become decrepit and eventually collapse.
That’s only if outsiders are around. At home in their caves the talk ALWAYS turns to Politics, Religion and Sex. Everyone knows that.
Are you sure you're not confusing incivility with political correctness?
You were likely suspended more for being politically incorrect than uncivil.
This reminds me of something I was pondering earlier today: what happens when the politically correct idiots finally start clashing with the uncivil idiots?
Right now they appear to be on the same side however I can see the left and way-out-left clashing in the near future. That'll be a true "pass the popcorn" kinda thing.
That’s kind of quibbly, if one has an answering machine or voicemail....
I'm sad now, you uncivil jerk!
Does this need a /humor tag?
“We didn’t have the non-stop public displays of uncivil animal-like behavior behavior until these “social media” platforms came along.”
I agree, but of course evil the wound in our society is spiritual, at least in my opinion. It seemed to happen around the same time as the rise of social media.
Many social media platforms require that you express yourself as your real name and identity. People still say wild crap they would never say even though everyone knows who the other is. It isn’t all anonymous. I think the greater problem comes from social media where you reveal who you actually are.
The other thing I can think of that the downgrade in society corresponds to the rise of technology is the availability of internet porn.
Freegards
I wonder how many of the noob's here on FR don't even know what that is.......
It’s the thing that made attending to phone messages at one’s convenience in a land line age, possible. And there were people who did just ignore the phone when they wanted to.
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