Random rudeness

I think it was Kate P., in my comments, who remarked on the Internet/non-face-to-face communication, and wondered what I thought about it maybe contributing to greater rudeness? (If it wasn't Kate, I apologize to whoever it was).

I DO think anonymity - as in an Internet situation - allows people who might not otherwise be rude (because of social constraints or fear of reprisal) to be rude. But I don't think that everyone will necessarily behave that way; I think perhaps it's more of a "natural tendencies" or "state-of-nature" thing coming out.

There are a lot of really pretty anonymous people I've communicated with via this blog and their own blogs - Ken S., Emily, the nightfly (whose real name I do not even know), Dave, Kate, Lisa, Shannon (both Shannons) and others...and they've all been quite polite. Nice even. Even when I say really rather stupid stuff. I don't think the model that some people push, the "Teh Internets makes U roood!" model, works. I tend to think that it's what's more at the base of a person that comes out.

J. C. Watts famously said that character is what comes out when no one is watching (or words to that effect). I tend to believe that. I try to practice it in my everyday life - to behave as if someone were watching me, as if someone could tell my character from how I acted even in private.

So, I try to be civil. I think I said in a comment on Sheila's blog, that if a blog irritates me, I ignore it. Usually, if I disagree with a post or a comment, I don't say anything, unless I have a good and reasonable argument to the opposite: I am not given to the "You are teh SUCK!" kind of comment in response to things I disagree with. Because I tend to feel like there's not much point to that - you're not convincing anyone, and what you're saying really has little to do with the opinion expressed.

But I do think for some people, anonymity facilitates rudeness.

What would you do if you knew you would not get caught? goes a question (whether it's from a Barbara Walters interview or a test-to-screen-psychopaths-out-of-the-hiring process, I don't remember.) And for some people, that's being rude to the fellow man.

I also think - and this is a trap a lot of people fall into, even people who might be mortified at being rude in general - is that the people you communicate with on the Internet don't seem "real." Even when they have pictures of themselves up on their website, even if you know their real name. And in our video-game soaked world, there may be just some people who are used to shooting down "not real" enemies on a screen...and so, anything that happens on a screen develops an air of unreality, and it's easy to flame someone for something they've said - because you're not flaming a real person.

(I remember a "cautionary tale" - perhaps I'd even call it a "modern parable," in that it's a story that may not literally have happened, but that it carries an important truth. A young man had just got his driver's license. He was allowed to borrow the family car one Saturday. And so, he took the car out. But he wound up stuck behind an old man who was driving very slowly and had left his turn signal clicking. The young man followed, getting increasingly annoyed, until there was a point where he could pass. As he passed, he "shot the bird" at the driver of the other car. To his horror, the face he saw as he passed, finger in the air, was that of the minister of the church he belonged to.

In other words: You may not realize who you are flipping off until it is too late.)

I would add that this increasing anonymity of modern life - and I DO think anonymity is increasing - encourages people to do certain things, like litter, that they might not otherwise have done. But that's another topic for another time, my own personal version of The Tragedy of the Commons.

I also think the anonymity of the Internet makes it easy to ignore the fact that others have feelings. And that feelings can be hurt. Perhaps I'm overly conscious of it, and overly careful (because I do have pretty sensitive feelings and I know very specifically what hurts me). But I also remember the old Platonic dictum to "be kind, for you do not know what burdens others are carrying." You can't always do that perfectly to a t (there are some people who, for example, are infertile and who don't mind the topic being discussed; there are others for whom the mere mention that "X is having a baby, did you hear?" can send them into a total spiral. I try to be sensitive to stuff like that but I don't always know or always remember).

And I think it's particularly unpleasant for someone to KNOW the exact button that will set someone off, and then for that person to keep pushing that button. I know some people who seem to take a certain joy in going for the one tiny weak spot in a person's emotional armor, again and again, and it's a fairly ugly thing to witness.

I also tend to think there are simply some people who don't see being unpleasant as unpleasantness. Those are the people who roll their eyes and say things like "oh, grow up" or "don't be such a wuss" when they've said something rude and someone got offended. That's simply a personality thing. To be honest, I don't like dealing with people like that in my everyday life and I try to avoid them in my online life. I've become pretty good at sussing out who is that way from what they say and how they respond to people (the old Usenet rule: read a newsgroup for a month or so to learn its tenor before you post, also works with blogs). I guess it's pure self-preservation (deep down I am a rather sensitive person. And when my feelings get hurt I kind of curl back into myself like a sea anemone that's been prodded, instead of lashing out at the other person. I know that I tend to BELIEVE the rude and unkind things people say about me. So I try to avoid places where those things will be said to me in the first place). I guess I've been pretty lucky in that I've really not dealt with that much rudeness in the blogosphere.

I will also add that I think some people like hiding behind an anonymous mask, that they don't really think of themselves as "representatives" of their faith or their profession or their ethnicity or their political beliefs, or whatever. But I will say I do see myself as a representative of whatever I am. I cringe when I see other college professors behaving in asinine ways. I get a little sick to my stomach when someone who calls themself a Christian says something that I'm reasonably sure Jesus would call him out (just as He called out the Pharisees) for. So I try not to be "that person." I try to be gracious. I try to be kind. I don't always succeed, because I am just a weak foolish human, but I do try.

I will say if I could change one thing about the human race is that I would increase our respect of each other. Not so much "enforced respect" of groups (in other words, political correctness), but the old-fashioned, "I'm not going to be mean because that's mean" kind of respect - where you treat people as individuals, where you (if it is in your realm of belief) you try to look at each person and see them as a child of God, where you are kind to them because they are a fellow human - with loves and fears and hopes and desires and they are as bound for the grave as you are.