Pulling back from the brink
SOCIAL MEDIA COMMENTARY, PART I
Recently, some of my Facebook friends began a thread expressing their consternation, if not revulsion, at the extent of the hateful and poisonous discourse consuming social media. Admittedly, it’s not just social media that’s fallen to this low – all of media and regrettably, conversation of any kind, has degenerated into an “incivility which dominates all public discourse.” [1]
Recently, some of my Facebook friends began a thread expressing their consternation, if not revulsion, at the extent of the hateful and poisonous discourse consuming social media. Admittedly, it’s not just social media that’s fallen to this low – all of media and regrettably, conversation of any kind, has degenerated into an “incivility which dominates all public discourse.” [1]
And the rancor isn’t confined to politics – it seems that
any topic whatsoever is liable to generate some sneering negative comment.
For many people, the situation has bubbled over into a
growing realization that at some point along the line, if we are to continue to
call ourselves civilized in the original sense of the word (that is, being civil
towards one another), we’ve got to start exercising some restraint.
 |
| Recent Facebook meme calling for a return to civility |
When looking over the wreckage of normal relationships –
“normal” relationships, that is, whatever that term implies in the new virtual
worlds of social media – people are wondering if the arguments, the
hostility, the unresolved back-and-forth sniping, and ultimately the
un-friending, is worth it.
I think people are not only ashamed of themselves, they are
also getting frightened at what they see themselves turning into.
(By no means do I exclude myself from such behavior. Like many others, it is only in half-jest that I regard my ripostes as the epitome of derisive and sarcastic wit, indicative of a brilliance far superior to the dunderheads who posted the meme or post I attack with such savagery. Ha.)
(By no means do I exclude myself from such behavior. Like many others, it is only in half-jest that I regard my ripostes as the epitome of derisive and sarcastic wit, indicative of a brilliance far superior to the dunderheads who posted the meme or post I attack with such savagery. Ha.)
One of the most fundamental questions I see arising
here, is that deep down inside, have we always been this way, i.e., mean as
hell, with social media simply the catalyst that has now brought it to the fore?
Or, is social media, through its machinations and its
carrot-and-stick prods and incentives to respond to this and like that, somehow
bringing out the worst in us – a “worst” that we indeed are capable of, but which is
not intrinsically a part of our better nature. (A better nature, moreover, we instinctively realize what truly makes us human in distinction from the rest of the animal world.)
Early in 2016, (See "Trump and the politics of new media" post on this site) I predicted a Trump electoral victory solely
on the basis of his mastering the core foundations of social media activity.
Trump’s bombastic tweets show this mastery, and reveal social media’s ability
to bypass normal discursive practice and immediately tap into primal instincts
and their communication channels through memes and over-heated rhetoric.
Social media relies on the “boom!” The meme’s combination of
text and imagery has an instantaneous message that bypasses the frontal lobe,
so to speak. The 140-character limit on tweets forces them to be pithy, and
directly to the point. Facebook’s “like” system provides an affective reinforcement of one’s thoughts.
Like the drug addict who needs an increasing amount of drug to get a satisfying
fix, social media users have to find additional ways to amplify their voices in
order to generate more and more affective response.
Typing in caps doesn’t work, even though it’s perceived as “shouting” in virtual reality – that’s why lower case was developed centuries ago, when printers realized that all upper case tended to be unreadable as individual words on a page disappeared into a blur of uniformity. Boldface is not part of the Facebook font, and only very recently has Facebook given users the option of a colored background for personal commentary.
Typing in caps doesn’t work, even though it’s perceived as “shouting” in virtual reality – that’s why lower case was developed centuries ago, when printers realized that all upper case tended to be unreadable as individual words on a page disappeared into a blur of uniformity. Boldface is not part of the Facebook font, and only very recently has Facebook given users the option of a colored background for personal commentary.
So what’s left for the social media user to get noticed? Hyperbole
is one option – its exaggerations are deliberately intended to draw attention
to the issue at hand. Heightened emotional states – especially anger, implying and generating such anger through sarcasm, snarkiness and sniping – is an another attention-getter, but then fosters
a counter-reaction of anger in response. As a result, the memes and the
rhetoric get racheted up.
And what’s worse, as people engage in this type of
communication, with time and usage we become accustomed to it. An example of
this is the “f-bomb,” once only used in the coarsest circles in my parents’ time,
but which now has become a meaningless, commonplace adjective in this one. Make no
mistake, when culture corrodes, so do the niceties and politeness that once
defined it.
Humorous meme illustrating both the incivility of discourse and the corrosion of culture.
The old cautionary adage “you are what you think” is more
true than we are prepared to admit sometimes. People do mentally reinforce what
they repeat to themselves into believability. In this way, fake news becomes
“true” news. How many times have I advised friends that a certain meme being
circulated was false, only to hear the response, “Well, if it isn’t true, it could
be.”
So, if a meme suggests that Obama had been planning a coup d’etat to declare himself president for life, or Trump is putting a harem together in the Lincoln Bedroom, even though false in fact, as long as these actions (according to their respective opponents) are in the realm of possibilities at all, the memes have credence.
To be sure, politics and religion have never been neutral subjects for discussion. Even in the days before social media, many families and friendships did not weather the storms these topics are capable of producing. But for the most part, in face-to-face relationships, people learned that for the good of a civil society as a whole, it was best to put these kind of discussions on the back burner on a low setting, if not to avoid them altogether. Political campaign season notwithstanding, politics and religion used to be one’s own private affair, and even if disagreed with, at least respected.
So, if a meme suggests that Obama had been planning a coup d’etat to declare himself president for life, or Trump is putting a harem together in the Lincoln Bedroom, even though false in fact, as long as these actions (according to their respective opponents) are in the realm of possibilities at all, the memes have credence.
To be sure, politics and religion have never been neutral subjects for discussion. Even in the days before social media, many families and friendships did not weather the storms these topics are capable of producing. But for the most part, in face-to-face relationships, people learned that for the good of a civil society as a whole, it was best to put these kind of discussions on the back burner on a low setting, if not to avoid them altogether. Political campaign season notwithstanding, politics and religion used to be one’s own private affair, and even if disagreed with, at least respected.
So, yes, we can point to social media (and media as a whole
through its feedback loop of acrimony) in bearing much of the blame here for instigating
the caustic atmosphere we have seen gradually erupt into a divisiveness almost
unparalleled in American history.
At the same time, however, we must acknowledge that a strident
advocacy of causes that have the potential to affect other people’s lives in a
significant fashion is necessarily going to generate strident opposition. In
this sense, social media is only reflecting what is happening in the current
social, cultural, and political scenes. (I will explore this further in Part II
of this essay.)
In analyzing how social media works, asynchronous textual
communication has its analog in face-to-face communication, but it is not a
facsimile thereof. The rectangular screen of the computer or mobile device
mediates the communication process, its virtual world flattening out
relationships into the pixels of the screen itself.
Behind these screen-walls of silence and invisibility, people’s masks of restraint fall off. Free reign is then given to unleashing those suppressed feelings or emotions that people usually adroitly control – impulses of confrontation and hostility incited by the barbarous self that is not a part of everyday existence for most people (or at least, what most people like to avoid in their everyday existence!)
When Western author Louis L’Amour stated that “civilization is a thin veneer,” (one of my favorite quotes I often cite) he was referencing the forces of barbarianism that lie just beneath the surface of susceptible people for whom self-restraint is a weak force. Hobbes, too, subscribed to this view, in his belief that in the absence of strong government, a rapacious anarchy would necessarily result.
But government is only part of the order that civilization entails. Civilization, and the civil behavior that constitutes it, is a more natural and preferable human instinct than barbarianism, simply because barbarianism is so destructive. Humans innately recognize it as such and are repelled by it.
Behind these screen-walls of silence and invisibility, people’s masks of restraint fall off. Free reign is then given to unleashing those suppressed feelings or emotions that people usually adroitly control – impulses of confrontation and hostility incited by the barbarous self that is not a part of everyday existence for most people (or at least, what most people like to avoid in their everyday existence!)
When Western author Louis L’Amour stated that “civilization is a thin veneer,” (one of my favorite quotes I often cite) he was referencing the forces of barbarianism that lie just beneath the surface of susceptible people for whom self-restraint is a weak force. Hobbes, too, subscribed to this view, in his belief that in the absence of strong government, a rapacious anarchy would necessarily result.
But government is only part of the order that civilization entails. Civilization, and the civil behavior that constitutes it, is a more natural and preferable human instinct than barbarianism, simply because barbarianism is so destructive. Humans innately recognize it as such and are repelled by it.
Just the fact that we see people starting to pull back,
instinctively aware that something is going awry here, shows us that being
civil – whether in person or online - is
a preferred trait over incivility. Consequently, to avoid going down this dangerous
road with any number of equally catastrophic outcomes, “Think before you post,”
would be a good first-step guideline for social media commentary.
Now, after this lengthy diatribe, will I be able to heed my own advice, short of completely disengaging from social media? As an educator with a background in philosophy, I feel a responsibility to instill and promote critical thinking.
So the answer is, probably not, if an issue crops up that I feel is completely lacking in critical thought. The citizen of a democratic civil society has multiple responsibilities: promoting civil discourse is one, but pushing back against the always-present mob mentality is one equally as important.
Now, after this lengthy diatribe, will I be able to heed my own advice, short of completely disengaging from social media? As an educator with a background in philosophy, I feel a responsibility to instill and promote critical thinking.
So the answer is, probably not, if an issue crops up that I feel is completely lacking in critical thought. The citizen of a democratic civil society has multiple responsibilities: promoting civil discourse is one, but pushing back against the always-present mob mentality is one equally as important.
* * * * *
Notes:
[1] Quote about incivility from “Shift in education
underway,” by Gene A. Budig and Alan Heaps, Guest Commentary in (Champaign IL)
News-Gazette, January 22, 2017, p.
C-2.
