Years ago the public was shocked when abortion opponents turned out to picket and demonstrate against abortion providers. Laws and regulations were enacted that allowed those folks the right to express their views but allowed unfettered public access to the clinics. Unpopular though those rules were, protestors abided by them. Words were exchanged, but being present was what counted, on both sides. It was civil.
Then abortion providers began to be murdered, and abortion clinics began to be bombed. Less civility, and the first real step into violence as a solution.
Early on in the health-care debate US Senators and Representatives went home to conduct "town meetings" on the subject. Many were met by constituents (and perhaps some instigators) who believed that name-calling and hurling expletives were appropriate ways to express their views. Far less civility, plus some thinly-veiled threats were issued, bringing us another step closer to violence as a solution.
I have believed that inflammatory, demagogic, declamatory political radio and TV talk shows (Limbaugh, O'Reilly) were to blame for the decline in respect and civility. Now I believe that the Internet should share the blame. As we all know, the Internet allows us to find "people like us" without ever leaving our own homes. That's how I found my knitting blogs. It's how we find Facebook friends.
But what does "people like us" mean? Every member of a virtual community (I include myself) has complete control over how much personal "stuff" the community knows. There's a famous cartoon where one dog says to another, "On the internet, no one knows you're a dog." Unless I disclose it, no one can judge me by my looks or by my age or by the clothes I wear or by where I live or by what I do. The lure of virtual communities is "All over the world there are people just like whoever you say you are, whoever you claim to be."
Internet communities don't have to tolerate the dissenter, or accomodate the "local strange person", or decide how to deal with a community mischief-maker or even wrong-doer. Internet communities can simply cut those people off. No longer do we have to alter our views or our behaviors or our prejudices to find a place in a community. Internet communities never demand that we learn anything about the people who are "not like us", and in so doing the Internet makes real-life communities difficult or even unattractive.
In a real-life community, people who are not like us remind us that the community is bigger than ourselves and our own desires and preferences.When we don’t have to engage with people who are not like us we can easily cease to value them as fellow citizens or even fellow human beings. Instead of doing the hard work of building community for all the community, it's so much easier to say "My way or the highway".
It's a short step from "people like us" to "Us vs. Them".
Now that an inadequate-but-better-than-nothing healthcare bill has been signed by the President, US Senators and Representatives are receiving real death threats. Their local offices are being vandalized. Some of these politicians are concerned, legitimately, that their homes and families are next to be threatened.
We seem to be entering an "Us vs. Them" world, where physical intimidation and violence are actually becoming the solution of choice to disagreement. Not enough Congressional and political voices are saying that violence is unacceptable.
Read this blog about a recent event. Regardless of how your legislators and congresspeople feel about the healthcare bill, insist that they speak out about respect and civility and community.
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