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.
"Require" is a pretty loose term. I have numerous fake facebook profiles that I use just to monitor some things on that "platform."
Anyone who uses their real identity on social media and provides the information "required" on it is a fool IMO.
There might be something wrong with any medium that allows us to perceive beyond what we developed with. Maybe if we don’t have 100,000 years to ease into it like cave paintings it just isn’t going to be something our brains are going to handle.
Text messages are the worst for misinterpreting meaning and missing nuance. How long have we had the recordable written word? But somehow internet texting to another person becomes this hard thing to parse.
Freegards
Awww, now I’ve gone and hurt your feeling. What was I, raised by wolves?
Most people of yesteryear still had what we called imagination, and could turn, or yield to spirits that turned, an innocent street scene into dirty things in their minds. That’s also possible on internet — one doesn’t have to peruse nudes to get that evil buzz.
The oft-sarcastic LOL and other expectations have polluted the text world as well. Yes, even FR has its cynically styled side.
FR , e-mail and texting is as far as I have went. I’m glad all this crap passed me by. By the time I could figure out how to do it I knew not to, luckily.
Freegards
We're getting a little peek now. Auntie Maxine is mad at Chuck Schumer, and the establishment Democrats are unhappy with the defeat of Crowley. Maybe these are just blips.
I'm talking about the telephone as it was for most of its existence (i.e., till the end of the 20th Century).
Regards,
Some people disregarded any idea that telephone = super urgent, and either ignored it or shut its bell off when they didn’t want to be bothered.
There was always “Call the police station and send a cop.”
Oh, sure: We're communicating with something maybe thousands of miles away (i.e., beyond our normal sensory range) - but we can't see their faces, interpret their gestures, fully grasp their situation (sitting on the can, standing at the kitchen sink, etc.).
All those visual clues provide loads of valuable info.
Regards,
The passive entertainment today is astounding. You don’t have to do anything but click a button anywhere anytime to see anything. Screens are looked at more than the faces of family and friends. It was bad with TV and home computers, now we just take it anywhere. If you don’t take a picture of some event and share it just didn’t happen I guess, ha.
Freegards
The ability to actively entertain ourselves without technology seems to be diminishing. It does seem to lead further into unwholesomeness generally, at least that I have observed.
Freegards
“No, the problem is quite the reverse! Such media (the telephone, instant messaging) actually restrict our perceptions.”
They do and they don’t. The scope of these interactions far exceed the capabilities we developed with. We couldn’t friend 20,000 people or whatever. But you are right that we don’t get all the sensory cues and it is a huge part of the problem. You can’t smell through texts or see someone’s eyes narrow or whatever.
Freegards
Lord knows I hope you’re right.
“the laughter of demons and democrats”
...but you’re repeating yourself. Something Mark Twain said, can’t remember the exact quote at the moment.
“Social media. That’s what happened.”
Yes, I think that was a major influence in the downgrading and of reasoned, public discourse. It gave millions of people an opening to blurt emotional, juvenile crap at each other from a distance, and created voids in normal human interaction. It killed actual conversation. A room full of people will all be staring at thier phones. That’s a massive disconnect in what used to be community. Kids play video games. They’re not outside working through social issues in what used to be normal play or social activities. This has to be affecting human relations in a radical way.
Aw, and I do so love Mark Twain quotes.
Barack Hussein Obama happened.
Where is Obama today? I guess that hindsight proves once again that Obama's civility speech was just another convenient crisis moment of opportunity for Obama to say things he doesn't truly mean.
If the civility Obama spoke of was really a deeply held belief, he'd be speaking against it just as much today as he did seven years ago.
-PJ
All the world’s knowledge instantly available at our fingertips and ignorance flourishes.
Ignorance breeds Incivility.
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