Are the attempts at Civility a lost cause?

Last year a friend of mine emailed me and asked me why Republicans were so mean. And I had meant to get back to her, and then told her I'd be addressing it in an upcoming blog post, and that never happened. I got sidetracked with other things, and it just ended up passing me by.

I have come back to it because I think I perhaps have an answer. Republicans are no more "mean" than Democrats or Independents. They're no more "Mean" than anyone else who has a team that they pull for, so to speak.

I think in the last ten years, it's gotten worse than it ever has, as far as the lack of civility in public discourse, and I think it ties in with the fact that we're discussing (or antagonizing) over subjects that we hold near and dear to our hearts. Subjects that we use to define who we are as people. Whether it's religion, politics or race, or any other slew of subjects, the fact is we self-identify with these topics, and thus it brings out the inner asshole, so to speak.

People get riled up and perhaps rightly so, when certain topics are broached. The problem comes in when you get so riled up that you end up lashing out and ridiculing others for their beliefs, because they don't square up with what you believe.

And we all do that. I try not to, but I get carried away. I haven't really identified myself as a "Liberal" or a "Conservative" for awhile now, because both disgust me. There are conservative beliefs that I hold, and there are liberal beliefs that I hold, however neither label defines who I am.

I look across the internet landscape, at a political movement that has been started on both sides of the political spectrum. The internet has allowed anyone with a computer and an internet connection to have a voice. Whether that person has nothing much to say, or has lots to say and many people who want to hear it, they seemingly have equal opportunities to put their message out.

Many people use that voice wisely, and are thoughtful and rational and are even handed. However the VAST majority of political "debate" out there isn't really debate. It's uneven, one sided slanted "journalism" that is only serving the purpose of "preaching to the choir". That goes for those on the left and the right.

Newshounds is one of the worst offenders of this. They are set up to report on Fox News' bias. That's a fantastic idea, and something that is needed. However, everyone who knows who they are knows a couple things here.

1. They're liberal, and they make no bones about that. Their entire purpose is to highlight the bias in Fox News' supposed "fair and balanced" reporting. So anyone who's going to read them and be even slightly moved by what they read, are already on their side. They're preaching to the choir. I'm sure their endgame is to hopefully find people who normally watch Fox and have them see clips of them lying or whatever, and have an epiphany, but it's not going to happen. At least not in numbers that would signify success. Everyone who's reading that site, agrees with them already.

It's called Cognitive Dissonance. People flock to like-minded websites that tell them what they already believe to be true. If you go to the site regularly, you already believe that Fox is lying through their asses about many things. So at the end of the day, I'm not sure what the point of the site is. Yes, it's to "expose" Fox New's bias however I'd say anyone that goes to that site and buys into their mantra, already feels that way, and aren't learning anything they don't know.

How is it supposed to branch out from that if your audience is already defined. There's really no growth there.

2. And this is the thing that irritates me. Even though I find that site annoying, I tend to read it anyway, just out of habit. The thing that bothers me is that they will make a "mountain out of a molehill" all the time. They'll often post up something about a Fox host and either misrepresent things they said, or they will flat out lie and make things up. Then when they are caught on that, there's either a deletion of the original post and a "oops we made a mistake" with no further elaboration, or the post will just disappear.

And it's not just them, because another site, Crooks and Liars sometimes do the same damn thing.

It's almost like the Ann Coulter accusation of liberals being "professional victims", and anyone who knows me knows I can't stand Coulter, and think that she, along with Michelle Malkin, Nancy Grace and Dick Cheney, are four of the most vile evil creatures on this earth.

That said, there's so many posts that I've seen on those sites where I just roll my eyes and am like "are you kidding me? You're getting upset over THIS?"

A prime example of this is when the Democratic Primaries were going on, and it was Barack Obama against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Nomination. There had been talk of an "October Surprise" that would knock Obama out, and Hillary would take over. However at this moment, Hillary was being talked about dropping out, and there was a video of someone talking along the lines of "God forbid if something should happen between now and November" referring obviously to a scandal or whatever.

Of course Nicole Bell jumps in with both feet proclaiming that the man was wishing for an assassination or something bad to happen to Obama. To their credit virtually everyone who commented correctly pointed out that's not what he meant. And the video disappeared, as I can't find it in their archives to post up here, however that could simply be me not being able to find it.

That's not to say that Nicole always does this, or that Crooks and Liars (a site I like) isn't a reputable site or that they're all full of hystrionics.

More to the point that this is a case of being what you hate. Often you see on Liberal sites like Media Matters, Huffington Post, Crooks & Liars, Raw Story, Newshounds, etc, about hateful comments on sites like Free Republic (which I've posted on here), and Fox Nation wishing death on the Obama's or just various Democratic Politicians.

And yet, on virtually every single one of those sites, I've seen death wishes and hateful vile comments about Republicans and the such. I posted recently about the Tim Tebow commercial, and how on Huffington Post, people were attacking Tebow's mother, because they were affiliated with Focus on the Family.

On Raw Story, a site I go to often and have as my home page, some of the comments about the late Oral Roberts (who I have NO love for) were sickening and full of anti-Christian venomous comments.

And yet, anytime a Democratic politician passes away, you're guaranteed a post about somewhere in the right wing world, there's people celebrating and dancing in the streets. And I'm not saying those people should not be spotlighted. They absolutely should.

The problem comes in when you do what you profess to hate. Now is the level of hatred on Newshounds, or Raw Story or HuffPo or whatever anything remotely approaching that of the Freepers or the Fox Nation members? Of course not, that would be stupid and ridiculous to even suggest that.

However that doesn't excuse you from doing what you criticize your "enemy" for. If you want to criticize them for doing that type of thing, that's fine, great and well needed. Just don't do it with an air of superiority as if you would never allow that to happen on YOUR site, because it does happen on YOUR site. ALL OF YOUR SITES.

Which brings me back to my topic of this. The lack of civility. We get carried away sometimes when defending our views, especially those such as politics and religion, in which we use those to identify who we are as a person.

And it's easy to get carried away and lash out in anger and with venom at those who we oppose. I think many people have in their head that just because this other person is a Republican, and I'm not, that means we're supposed to be mortal enemies or something. Politics or religion is simply one of many aspects of ourselves that we use to identify who we are.

Being friends and civil with others, doesn't mean that we are violating our core principles. In fact, one of our core principles SHOULD be to get along with each other, and work to overcome our differences.

Some people are able to do that. Some people are not. If you find yourself dealing with those who can't, perhaps it's best to just make plans not to be around those people. That's not always possible, if those people happen to be family members, or spouses even.

All I can say is try to make it work. And if it won't work, just perhaps come to an agreement that certain things will not be discussed when you're around each other. As I said, those things that divide you are only a small portion of what you represent and what you are about.

Don't let that define who you are, and allow yourself to get dragged down into the gutter of partisan and personal attacks.

We should strive to be who we are, not what we dislike in others. Print this post