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.
"The demographic most opposed to President Trump is not a racial minority, but a cultural elite." Daniel Greenberg
"Failure to adequately denounce Islamic extremism, not only denies the existence of an absolute moral wrong but inherently diminishes our chances of defeating it." Tulsi Gabbard
"It’s a movement comprised of Americans from all races, religions, backgrounds and beliefs, who want and expect our government to serve the people, and serve the people it will." Donald Trump's Victory Speech 11/9/16
INSIDE EVERY LIBERAL IS A TOTALITARIAN SCREAMING TO GET OUT -- Frontpage mag
ZitatCivility is based on reason. And only with a renewed and firm commitment to REASON will we ever get out of this mess.
The problem with getting a firm commitment to reason is the success of the march through institutions by political correctness and its successor post modernism.
There is at least a generation or more in which the majority have been brainwashed into believing that reason, math, the scientific method, logic are all constructs of the toxic white male hierarchy and therefore are not only not valid but the cause of all the evils in the world. For these people the only valid lens through which one can look at the world is that of identity politics. Any deviance in word or idea is the equivalent of a physical assault.
" . . . in reality, the main emphasis of the KGB is not in the area of intelligence at all. According to my opinion and [the] opinion of many defectors of my caliber, only about 15% of time, money, and manpower [are] spent on espionage as such. The other 85% is a slow process, which we call either ‘ideological subversion,’ or ‘active measures’—‘[?]’ in the language of the KGB—or ‘psychological warfare.’ What it basically means is, to change the perception of reality, of every American, to such an extent that despite of the abundance of information, no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interests of defending themselves, their families, their community and their country . . ."
" . . . They are contaminated; they are programmed to think and react to certain stimuli in a certain pattern. You cannot change their mind[s], even if you expose them to authentic information, even if you prove that white is white and black is black, you still cannot change the basic perception and the logic of behavior. In other words, these people... the process of demoralization is complete and irreversible . . ." Yuri Bezmenov 1984
Illegitimi non Carborundum
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.- Orwell
The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it - Orwell