Uncivil Discourse
One definition of “conversation” is “the discussion of great and small topics by people who practice mutual tolerance for opposing viewpoints”. The key phrase is “mutual tolerance”.
Recently, blogger Kathy Sierra had to cancel a speaking engagement due to death threats she had received at her website and other blogs. I haven’t looked into just why her comments riled the hateful to such vile action, but for the purposes of my post, that is not especially important.
What is important, however, is to point out that our nation is facing a situation similar to that just experienced by two Texas fathers and their sons. They managed somehow to avoid death when their boat went over a dam. Our nation is drifting toward the edge of a precipice, and those of us who attempt to point this out to the rest get doused with abuse and calumny.
I guess it’s considered gauche to point out
that the party needs to come to an end
when the End is why there’s a Garishly Opulent Party occurring.
To defend their “right” to drag us all over the edge with them, the Partiers resort to deception, manipulation of the truth, offering misleading red herrings of “logic” and negating reasoned effort through the presentation of demonstrable fact with bald assertions of “No, it isn’t!” with no supporting evidence. Such a Peewee Herman arena will accomplish nothing tangible, but that is why the tactic of resorting to such verbiage is used. It enables those who wish to avoid exploring their own contribution to our current tense situation to lay the blame elsewhere (”It’s all Bill Clinton’s fault!”)
Aristotle’s Rhetoric proposed that in a democracy all citizens had a right and duty to participate in their own government, and each citizen must understand what can or cannot be done in public discourse and politics. When a society faces the kinds of troubles we in America now do, all points of view must be offered for consideration by the whole. No one point is any more valid than another until all of the aspects have been discussed pro and con and all participating in the discussion have reached an agreeable understanding on a solution.
But we Americans seem to have forgotten all of this, as Kathy Sierra’s experience demonstrates. One of the best examples to prove my point is the Internet. Blogs such as this one attract too many of those who only seek to be difficult and obtrusive. As the Chicago Tribune posted, “The incorrigibly bad-humored, for example, find they can thrive on the Internet with no consequence and gather whole audiences of other bad-humored folks around them.” Regular readers of our own comments know of several examples which prove the Trib’s point.
Why is this so? WebProNews writer David Utter offered this assessment:
It wasn’t bloggers, but commenters, who anonymously created the attacks. Civility and courtesy tend to break down behind the anonymity of the Internet. People who would never dream of cursing or threatening another person face to face lose that mental barrier when there is a keyboard and monitor involved.
The Guardian supports Utter’s contention by reminding us that, while bloggers have an identity to protect, “The problems are generated by anonymous commenters who are either jerks who get a kick out of being abusive or just inadequately socialised, either because they are young or because they never grew up.”
Has the Internet become a real-life version of Lord of the Flies? A recent New York Times article wonders “Is it too late to bring civility to the Web?”
Web pioneer Tim O’Reilly doesn’t think so. Fed up with the crap that is considered conversation, he decided to face the abuse storm by proposing a set of guidelines intended to protect civil discourse from being smothered by pointless roughhouse banter. O’Reilly complained, “We have a lot of people who wrap themselves in the mantle of free speech when they’re really just being childish.”
The analogy of this desire to define what constitutes free blog speech and what is to be deemed harmful subject to “parental control” is represented by the conundrum presented in Schenck v. United States in the sense that abusive and divisive commentary represents a “clear and present danger” to civil discourse, which is supposed to be the reason that topical blogs such as this one exist. Instead, it is blatantly obvious that violent, inflammatory, reckless, or malicious speech is intended to produce the polar opposite, and prevent any meaningful conversation from occurring.
The conumdrum presented by Schenck is repeated by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, who asks, “How do we make distinctions between a vibrant, healthy but rational debate versus hate speech and lunatics?” I would point out that a good place to start would be to examine the response generated when Wales’ Wikipedia announced that it was going to use O’Reilly’s guidelines in an attempt to limit the crap that the troublemakers can introduce. As South Africa’s Mail & Guardian reported, “When two leading Internet pioneers came together this week to propose a set of guidelines that would filter out offensive and abusive comments from blogs, they were met by a torrent of offensive and abusive comments.”
That is the key. Instead of discussing the reasons for utilizing O’Reilly’s code of blog conduct - or not - the objectors attacked them for daring to interfere with the verbal food fight that is today’s Internet. The San Francisco Chronicle delicately defined the situation as “Bloggers disinclined toward suggestion of Net civility” while Tim Gray of TechNewsWorld openly defied any attempt to rein-in the anything-goes attack atmosphere by declaring, “We Don’t Need No Stinking Rules!”.
The Times went further and answered their own question:
Yes, it is [too late for the Internet]. However, it’s not too late to bring civility to any blog that wants to have a code of conduct and is willing to take the time to enforce it.
Therein lies the rub. On personal blogs, one could spend all of one’s time just cutting the crap. Few blogs can afford the time or the expense of riding herd on the hateful, which is why there is a problem to begin with. On this blog, the webmasters prevent me from allowing comment.
The only viable solution for most blogs boils down to this. One can only hope that the serious commenters who are visiting to engage in real conversation (and not be a party to the “I know you are, but what am I?” sort of time-consumption and bandwidth-wasting that too often goes on instead) will practice personal responsibility and remember the basic measurement for avoiding the distasteful and disruptive:
Ignore trolls making nasty comments of abuse or libel.
“Never wrestle with a pig,” is the advice.
“You both get dirty, but the pig likes it.”
More bacon?