A Fight For Civility

It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.
            Albert Einstein

In an interview with the BBC, Kate Riley, the opinion page editor of the Seattle Times, suggested that the nature of opinions in media is a sum positive.  While she recognizes the “trolls” who clog up message boards and comment sections of online newspaper articles with contributions that are unproductive at best and hateful at worst, something better is emerging.  Ms. Riley might have a sense that she is producing an approach that embraces both conservative and liberal points of view and that her writers are embracing the best of “old-school civil discourse”, I’m not sure that has filtered down to the reader and commenter. 

When I started this blog, I wanted to create a forum where ideas and political opinions were discussed in a respectful way.  To do this, I’ve attempted to do various things.  I always refer to people as Mr. or Ms. or by their earned title.  I’ve stayed away from ad hominem attacks that tear individuals down.  I’ve tried to follow the axiom that it is best to disagree without being disagreeable.  Unfortunately, this is not valued in too many other places.  Social critic Neil Postman spoke of the sensational way in which news is presented – valuing the knee-jerk, emotional response over the intelligent consideration of issues and ideas.   

My view is exclusive to the American media scene as foreign papers and media outlets provide less a venue for reader comment and contributions.  The fact that the American media has so capitulated to it, it is easy to see some trends.  Throughout the history of our Republic, there have been two components to one’s ability to speak out – first was one’s position or expertise and the second was one’s ability to stand up in public.  It is the second category that typically included the “common citizen.”  In town halls from Maine to California, citizens stood up amongst their peers to question or challenge officials or experts on various matters.  Their comments were shaped by personal conviction and community standards of what was considered appropriate or not.  In short, such a public display of opinion prevented the most boorish and offensive behavior.   

The mass media and people’s access to it has greatly democratized the ability to speak and voice one’s convictions.  Still, for every person who does so responsibly through comments or their own blog, hundreds of others unleash a mind boggling barrage of depravity and coarseness.  What is more, they do so without the public indignation and pressure that used to govern society.  Some newspapers have disabled comments for their articles and that is likely a wise course of action.  My concern is whether we are reaching a point of no return.  English writer Samuel Johnson wrote that once civility is discarded, “there remains little hope of return to kindness and decency.”  I’m tempted to delve into the same level of pessimism but that cannot be the end. 

If there is a way to end this bâtonnage of rudeness and near psychopathic levels of thoughtlessness, it might be a simple return to the restraints of a previous age.  We cannot turn back the technological clock – we’ve already consumed the fruit – but perhaps we can reassess how we approach and experience it.  It is imperative that we first reacquaint ourselves with our values and virtues.  On that basis, we must become more critical of the technologies that assail us in the future.  By doing this, it might be possible to follow the words of Mevlana Rumi, the 13^th-century Persian Muslim poet and philosopher who said, “Let’s rise above this animalistic behavior and be kind to one another.”

Read All About It

The whole problem with news on television comes down to this:  all the words uttered in an hour of news coverage could be printed on one page of a newspaper.  And the world cannot be understood in one page. 

Neil Postman

In a recent article in The Economist, a 2008-2012 study demonstrated that the daily circulation of newspapers per 1,000 people in the U.S. dropped by nearly 15%.  Meanwhile, there is an increased usage of twenty-four hour networks and online sources for news.  A few newspapers in the country remain stalwarts of print journalism but even papers such as The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times have faced a drop in readership.  Some newspapers folded altogether, a trend that began in the late 1970s and early 1980s when the idea of two or three newspaper towns disappeared nearly altogether.  Others have retreated into the ambiguous world of the information superhighway, such as Seattle’s Post-Intelligencer.  The decline has much to do with cultural changes and its impact is despairing. 

There is a cause and effect relationship occurring at the same time with newspapers and has been witnessed over the last fifty years.  The presentation of news coverage on television introduced an entertainment element that was evident but not prevailing in newspapers prior.  As television and the internet have developed, the nature of news has changed radically in two particular ways. First, what is classified as news has altered beyond a point where journalists of old would recognize.  The nature of twenty-four hour news networks and the omnipresent internet have too much time and space to occupy with what is genuinely news.  Therefore, what serves as news is progressively superfluous.  The news personas of today are talking about jail house confessions, sensational trials that hold no societal relevance and celebrity-generated ballyhoos.  The desire and the need to fill time and space has broaden the concept of not only what is news but what is germane.  Today, no one thinks anything of a “serious news program” devoting time to a woman who killed or may not have killed her boyfriend.  From a societal point of view and not an individual perception where it could have more importance, is this relevant or even note-worthy?  I would dare say not.    

Second, in conjunction with the dispensing of the irrelevant, the news that is delivered is increasingly and perhaps irrevocably simplified.  Today, news channels and websites are occupying themselves to answer the question, “what happened?”  However, no thought is given to explain why.  Throughout the popular mass media outlets today, they may discuss the riots in Turkey but little mention, if any, of secular Turks’ concern over Prime Minister Erdogan’s crackdown of earlier protests.  The average American knows nothing of why the protests began, why the Turkish government responded as it did and the ramifications that such measures might have in Turkey, the future of the country as a secular one, its consequences on U.S. policy in the Middle East and how such actions by Mr. Erdogan might affect Turkey’s constant search to draw closer to Europe.  The news channels and websites are focusing on “five ways to know he is lying to you.”  The content is available but media outlets determined and the public approved through ratings and hits that they are not concern.  Those who want to know are out of luck without time on their hands.

What is the effect?  It is amazing that in this age of the “information superhighway”, our students are no more capable of telling you when the American Civil War was, who the prime minister of Turkey is or why it should even matter than an earlier generation.  At a time when we are constantly bombarded with the positive impacts of computers at every level and we have an unprecedented access to information, we seem to know less.  At every level, the knowledge that some seek is truncated by a mass media that favors brevity over breadth and revolvs around the capriciousness of popular tastes and whims rather than on the demands of their profession. 

Newspapers are a potentially brilliant resource in that its limited canvas ensures that only that which is truly news can be presented but the space also allows for examination and elaboration on both the facts and the reasons why.  If newspapers are to survive at all, it is likely they need to go in the opposite direction of the “less is more” concept they are currently embracing.  By seeing their limitations, compared with television and the internet, as the positive that it is and not concerned with what they can’t do, they can see a possible future.  It was once said that people did not believe it unless they read it in the newspaper.  In the face of all that is wrong with television and internet news, people can learn to believe so again.