Civil Discourse

I had a little extra time this morning and I was reading the responses to various articles on Newsvine that have been published over the past month. In reading the responses to various subjects from Michelle Obama to the weather. I was really shocked at the personal attacks as various people have commented upon the news stories.

The part that really shocked me was the level of venom and vitriol that is espoused by these faceless and anonymous people. There is a reason they are anonymous, because they are the same people that would have been the bullies on the playground at school. People who hunt in packs and pick on people least able to defend themselves.

Likewise, people who have their caustic remarks published under a name that means nothing and not even a photograph to find what the person looks like. Judging some of the comments I would suggest that the people who have the most to say are either retired or do not have employment. And they have plenty to time to generate what is wrong with everything. Heaven forbid they make constructive suggestions about how to solve some of our problems.

And much of this translates into the performance of our law makers in the other Washington. You can disagree with someone without being disagreeable. The electronic medium in which we all live has given us tools we did not have many years ago, e.g. if you wanted to put forward your point of view you generally wrote to the newspaper and the editor would decide if the content was suitable for publication. i.e. that the articles was conducted with civility. Whereas today we have no filter, spelling and grammar are a thing of the past so is the courtesy that goes with publishing an article on full view of the public. You see to publish now, it can be any rubbish, and that does not matter because no one knows who you are, and that is really the mark of a bully or a coward. Not acting as you would expect of people in a civilized society.

I am always very interested in what others have to say and the logic behind their point of view, but some of the comments I saw today were so caustic it caused me to write a this short article on my observations. I thought we had a code of ethics when you comment or publish on Newsvine? But it is clear to me no one follows the rules. We are after all self-policing and expect people to behave with courtesy. WE DO NOT HAVE TO AGREE WITH EACH OTHER WE JUST NEED TO REMEMBER WE ALL HAVE DIFFERENT POINT OF VIEW, AND NO ONE IS RIGHT OR WRONG.