A comment on comments

I have a habit of reading the comments under the articles I read on the Internet. Why, I don't know. It is a rarity that I'll find a halfway intelligent remark. Most of what I read are either remarks that insult the other side of a debate or an expression of the absolute certainty of the poster that their beliefs are the correct ones.

The Internet has been for the most part, a boon for democracy. The expression, sharing, and dialogue between different view points are healthy for a democracy. We need that interaction for this country to progress.

But the Internet also has help lead the to the destruction of civility and tolerance in political discourse. Websites dedicated to a particular viewpoint take articles and find ways to use them to incite their fellow ideologues. These ideologues then either take this information and either blog about it or use it bash a rival ideologue on some forum or comments section of a article.

The venom-dripped words that fill the subsequent posts cannot be good for dialogue for all that it accomplishes is too elicit an response that is equally lethal for a healthy debate.

The problem is that so many of these people isolate themselves from other points of views that it creates a significant level of tolerance.Then when they engage others with differing views that are so convinced of the supremacy of their beliefs and the utterly absurdity of the other persons, that they have no thought of trying to understand where the other person is coming from. The other avatar is a dastardly member of the most execrable party known to man.

We tend to think of segregation along the lines of racial or ethnic lines, but I think we now have to include politics in that as well.More and more we see people congregating in ideology specific websites where the members don't debate, but engage in intellectual incest.What will happen is that over time the ideas of said group will become deformed by the lack of rigorous challenge of beliefs and concepts that scientists so diligently apply to their own theories.

I know nothing will change when it comes to anonymous people bashing other anonymous people in the comments section. People have too much invested emotionally in politics and the very anonymity of it makes brave men of us all. But it would be nice to see people learn some decorum and at least try to respect other people's opinions.

A faint hope it maybe, but faint is better than none.