A Quebec late night radio show host informed a caller that it was fortunate she could remain anonymous otherwise she would not have been able to say that the Holocaust was “the most beautiful thing that could happen in history.” The host, Jacques Fabi, lamented that it was a pain not being able to say what one really believes; except of course on media that allows for anonymity. Anonymity on the telephone seems to have taken a lesson from social media. Social media gave us anonymity and it has opened the door to incivility throughout the public square.
For all the good social media was meant to achieve it released unintended consequences by encouraging anonymity and grandiose infantile delusions of entitlement, a selfish self-regarding ethic that eschews the concomitant responsibilities, obligations and duties to others which are needed to live in a thriving civil democracy. Anonymity makes it possible for people to express feeling-based opinion that is often 100% fact-free and rarely resembles anything close to truth. There is no accountability when one can espouse beliefs behind screen names and telephone lines. It is de rigueur to speak rudely, disrespectfully, thoughtlessly throughout the public square.
Mr. Fabi, and too many like him, have lost respect for the importance of maintaining civility in public. Civility is a firewall meant to keep us from reverting to our petty, selfish, inner, ugly natural selves; from expressing dangerous hateful dogma. In the 1920’s Freud wrote that without some form of controls, religious or otherwise, mayhem would rule as we fall to the lowest common denominator. Most recent studies from Yale University point to an innate lack of compassion from birth towards those who are different. Anything that takes the restraints away from civilization is welcomed by those, like Mr. Fabi and the anonymous caller whose screen name was Maria, who attack others whom they view as different or most often weak; easy targets. Orwell’s Animal Farm on-line. The ordeal of civility is an ordeal for a reason.
Anonymous comments, “the new norm,” can inflame a situation, feeding the baser emotions of readers and listeners. Anonymity makes it possible to taunt others, to agitate, to provoke but not educate, making room for a meanness that has insinuated itself into everyday communication; a meanness that promotes anger, the type of anger that in its vehemence can lead us away from compassion and empathy. “Maria’s” diatribe, made possible by anonymity, had one purpose; to promote hate and she did so without any restraint. Mr. Fabi is under the impression that it is acceptable, today, to speak without consequences.
Our young people, encouraged to bare all, are incorporating disrespectful behaviours into their daily interactions, so much so that Professor Jill Jacobson at Queen’s University felt compelled to introduce rules of civility into her classroom “Discriminatory, rude, threatening, harassing, disruptive, distracting and inappropriate behaviour and language will not be tolerated.” It is a sad comment on our students, today, that one would need a clause to ensure respect for our teachers. What was more surprising was the response that somehow demanding respectful speech would impinge upon freedom of speech as if the right to speak included the right to discard all things civil.
Unfettered access to social media is changing our society. There is no doubt that social media is contributing to great positive changes in our world. But we must not forget or ignore its dark side. Our children, young and older, have become so comfortable expressing their feelings on their computers, phones, and iPads, they are unwittingly disseminating thoughts and pictures one would never share in public while at the same time they are opening their private space to new-age bullies and sexual predators. Remember the nursery rhyme: Sticks and stones can break my bones but names will never hurt me? Not true. Words abused are weapons of destruction. And today, these words remain in the public discourse for perpetuity. There are no MRI’s to detect broken souls; the result of language abused. We need to teach our children that if they wouldn’t say it or do it in the hallways at school, don’t do it on line.
In the long history of human development, civility is nascent. The past century has shown us the ease with which the foundation of civility is breeched; it is still a tenuous veneer. Social media, by encouraging anonymous communication, bit by bit fractures civility, the rock upon which a healthy society stands .A society without civil constraints falls into decay. The anonymous world of social media is unintentionally teaching us, consciously and unconsciously, to be unfeeling, uncaring, and insensitive. We do that at the expense of the health of our children and the health of our community. Continuous impersonal communication prevents the development of civilized, emotionally well-developed, compassionate citizens capable of rational, respectful dialogue. We can’t put the genie back in the bottle. But we must find ways to teach civility, again, or we all lose.
