“WHEREFORE, instead of gazing at each other with suspicious or doubtful curiosity, let each of us hold out to his neighbor the hearty hand of friendship, and unite in drawing a line, which, like an act of oblivion, shall bury in forgetfulness every former dissension. Let the names of Whig and Tory be extinct; and let none other be heard among us, than those of a good citizen, an open and resolute friend, and a virtuous supporter of the RIGHTS of MANKIND, and of the FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES OF AMERICA.”
~Thomas Paine, Common Sense, January 10, 1776
When Thomas Paine penned those lines, the United States of America—a phrase first coined by Paine—was in its infancy, a nation struggling toward independence. Today our nation, long past its infancy, is instead indulging infantile tantrums and divisive rants by extremists in both parties. In fact, I don’t believe the divisiveness is any longer the exclusive province of the extremists.
As has been documented ad nauseum, the Internet has spawned a proliferation of commentary, a virtual chorus of strident voices raising a cacophony, and producing… nothing. Wait, check that… they may be producing some hard feelings, resentment, a few like-minded titters… but precious little which is either positive or productive. The ease of it makes extremism vogue, and the anonymity makes it safe.
Carl Jung spoke of a psychological archetype he termed “the shadow.” Jung wrote:
Unfortunately there can be no doubt that man is, on the whole, less good than he imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.
~Carl Jung, Psychology and Religion, 1938
The nature of the Internet permits us all to indulge our shadows. Some absolutely revel in what they perceive to be a safe, anonymous environment to (paraphrasing Whitman) sound their barbaric yawp across the screens of the world. While one might argue, as many do, for the cathartic benefits of such an environment, few seem willing to investigate the negative ramifications. Does this freedom to express ourselves—without the restraining social influence of face-to-face communication—contribute to the broadening fragmentation of socio-political opinion, and to a lowered threshold of tolerance for adverse perspectives?
Take this example, from a popular site hosting online discussion forums:
bush will go down in history as one of the worse [sic] tyrants ever.
he will put the likes of hitler, stalin, saddam, etc. to shame.
Can this sort of hyperbole be taken seriously? In today’s Internet culture, yes, it can, by a generation untutored in the practices of research and critical thinking. I have no great love for Bush, but any objective student of history has to see the inanity of such a remark. That it passed, in this particular forum, without comment is astounding. Especially so when considered in the context of remarks to which people do respond.
At one time I believed that much of this caterwauling was disingenuous, that it was primarily the work of trolls whose only motivation was to provoke a response. Having participated in online discussions for almost ten years now, I no longer believe this is the case. There are trolls out there, to be sure, but the general intemperance of socio-political discussions can’t be blamed solely, or even primarily, on them.
From the venom of Daily Kos, to the bile of Ann Coulter, nothing entertains like the under-informed, slanted rants of political iconoclasts. And due in part, I believe, to the popularity of these and others (Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, Michael Moore, Al Franken…, an entire industry of Broadcast Bombasts), some segments of society have begun to value titillation over truth, provocation over education, profanity over profundity, and debasement over debate.
But those mentioned above at least have some gift for discourse, even if it is often distasteful. Not so the rabble who incoherently blog at length, under the misguided belief that they have something useful to contribute to the public debate. They never delve below the superficial, populist rants that substitute for intelligent political observation and commentary. What’s more disappointing than their invective is their lack of insight. It’s clear from their blogs, and subsequent comments, that they earnestly believe what they’re saying is useful, original, and maybe even important. It is none of these. What is even more disappointing is the number of mindless sheep who subscribe to and laud their mentality, while ironically insisting any who disagree with their perspective are mindless sheep.
At the risk of being trite, wouldn’t it be more useful to pursue what unites us, rather than what divides us? Why the emphasis on malice and invective? The USA has problems, no doubt, but no problem has ever been solved by mean-spirited bickering, name-calling and finger-pointing. Until we revive a moderate, centrist movement in this country, we’re doomed to continue pulling in opposite directions, thus effectively impeding any progress.
In the interest of full disclosure, I’m a registered Republican. These days, however, I self-identify simply as a conservative, because I don’t like the direction the party has taken under the leadership of G. W. Bush, and the cumbersome influence of extremists in the Christian Right. I’m a fiscal conservative and a social moderate. What Washington does with our money is exponentially more important to me than what consenting adults do in their bedrooms.
Unless, of course, those consenting adults are elected officials, in bedrooms in Washington, in expensive hotels, with influential lobbyists and expensive “professional escorts” or Congressional pages, devising irresponsible schemes for spending our money.
