How the Web destroyed civilization · 5:38pm Apr 24th, 2012
"Civilization" in the sense of "a place where people act civilized." My brother forwarded me some of the comments left on CNN's web article about Charles Colson's death. It reminded me of the comments I often see left by haters on pony videos, only with better punctuation. And this made me wonder whether the increasing polarization of American politics, and gridlock in Congress, is partly the result of the Web.
Before the Web, if you wanted to express the view, "YOU PONY-FUCKING FAGGOTS CAN ALL SUCK MY DICK", you were pretty much limited to the walls of alleys and bathrooms. Neither of which convey high status to the author. This led to the pleasant shared illusion that these sentiments were rare and held only by low-lifes.
Now that the Web provides respectable venues for the spewing of hatred, the floodgates have opened, and hate has become commonplace. Expected. Acceptable. Anne Coulter's first best-seller was published in 1998. There wasn't any comparably hate-filled New-York-Times bestselling author that I can think of in the 1980s. Coincidence?
Scale and access have no bearing on human nature. Blow up a balloon and you haven't changed the balloon itself. Its mass and chemical composition haven't changed at all; you've just altered its dimensions and appearance via the introduction of a separate element. A song is exactly the same no matter what volume level you play it at.
Just because people can now put into public text what was once confined to angry mutterings in their living room and interpersonal commentary doesn't mean society has changed for the worse. Hate is no more or less acceptable now than it has ever been. We, as a species, are no more or less civilized than we were in the Middle Ages. Socially destructive ideas that were promoted by Aristotle are still alive and thriving today. The only progress we've ever made (so far, at least) is, fortunately, in the area that matters most: legislation. Yes, people who support socially destructive ideas are more easily heard and can more easily get in touch with fellow degenerates, but what has that accomplished?
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What humans are like changes slowly. What's acceptable changes quickly. In Germany in the 1930s, people at birth were no better nor worse than they are today; but it was socially acceptable to say that Jews were greedy and dirty. And so people with socially destructive ideas were more easily heard and could more easily get in touch with fellow degenerates, and they did.
Now I'm curious what Aristotle's socially-destructive ideas were. I'm more acquainted with his insightful but sometimes-destructive ideas about ontology and literary theory.
115277 I could be wrong but Jews had diminished social rights back then; it wasn't just a matter of social acceptability. Racist speech is legally unacceptable today but it happens anyway. In graffiti, in conversation, online and even in mass media. Look at the Transformers movies or the Ferengi from Star Trek TNG.
While I will give him credit for having a more nuanced and sane viewpoint than will be expressed by my very brief summary, Aristotle believed women were inferior to men, belonged in the home, should be ruled by their husbands, etc.
Even if the internet allows people to shout a lot more, I don't think it has really changed their volume, so to speak.