Maybe offline manners need fixing first
First, I must give credit where credit is due. I asked my Twitter friends what they thought I should write about. Instantaneously, @darleenw, @j2_whittington & @corpwriter4hire mentioned different aspects of politics as it meets Social Media. So, this is what I came up with for you guys especially 🙂
A few days ago, my family was discussing the political realm as it exists today, and we all agreed that it gets worse every election cycle. More and more 3rd parties are getting involved in ad development. More personal attacks that have nothing to do with politics are being made. Neither side is more or less guilty than the other. Things have happened over the last couple of years that seem hard to believe. Slapping, yelling, spitting, cursing – all by people who want to lead our country out of these hard times.
The Bad Manners Epidemic
The more I think about manners and etiquette, the more I see that common courtesy in general seems to be pretty lacking. Our leaders just highlight and underline this deficiency. It stuns me how many people will cut in front of another car, at a pedestrian cross-walk, to get to a parking space first. People almost never turn their brights off when they are right behind you or coming at you. Patience in banks and at stores seems to be at a low ebb.
With all of this going on, is it a surprise that many people don’t have good manners when it comes to Social Media?
If these are symptoms, what is our ailment?
I think a lot of people are trying to approach the cyber-bullying problem by trying to write up new legislation and regulations, but I don’t think that’s going to do the trick. I think we need to figure out where the shadow in the real world comes from first.
Why is it so easy for so many people to be rude? Why can we no longer argue with civility? Why are our leaders spitting on each other and telling each other that they are bad human beings? Maybe it’s about fear. Maybe there’s a greater sense of desperation than we are really accounting for. Maybe people need to feel important and powerful as their savings wastes away.
In a way, Social Media is like a screen capture, ever evolving, of what society is like right now. Right now, the big news in Social Media, along with Justin Bieber, is that people are dying because they are being abused on sites that are supposed to be used for Social Networking. What does that say about our society at large?
The Real Leader
I will say one thing about the current state of politics here in the US. I can’t think of a single person right now whom I feel comfortable with as a leader. Why? All of our leaders and leader wannabes are stooping to disgraceful acts of bullying. Is cattiness and bickering really going to put more money in our pockets? Is slamming stuff around and calling each other names really going to prevent anything from getting worse? I don’t see how it is so. I am waiting for the person who says, “Um, hey guys…our educational standards are faltering, our kids are suffering, people are dying from stuff that is preventable. Can we focus on that?” I don’t see anyone singing that song as of now. Maybe I’m missing it.
Rude is as rude does
In the meantime, is it really surprising that cyber-bullying is becoming a huge problem? If you teach kids that it’s okay to drive 75 miles through a residential area, how will they ever know any better? If you teach kids that it’s okay to make racist jokes on Twitter, or to “out” people of different sexual preferences via YouTube, how will they know better? If our nation’s leaders are bullying each other on national television, is it surprising that everyone thinks they have the green light to bully people online?
Maybe the first step towards ending cyber-bullying is to follow the advice given so aptly by the cult classic Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. “Be good to each other.” (and party on, dudes!). I nominate all of our political party participants to set that new example.
Somehow, I don’t think Election Day 2010 will bring that revolution. Stay tuned.
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Great post, Marjorie!
This is something I’ve been thinking about also, in so many fields of our society, also here in Portugal. Not only politics but everybody seems to have forgotten good manners! Twitter is definitely a screen for this as I assist daily to a cross-fire of rude manners, frequently on simple discussions that would be a good coffee-table talk some years ago. I’m convinced that we lost something really meaningful since the 80’s: respect for others. I don’t have any clue on how our society will solve this problem, cause it is a problem affecting human relationships. As for me, I just stick with the good manners I learned from my parents, who were poor but quite civilized persons. Did urban civilisation killed good manners? Is it the struggle for a place in the modern arena, the town? People living outside big cities seems to be more nicer to each other than the urban people. I’m definitely rethinking this city life new paradigmas.
Nice reading you!
(hey, sorry for any english mistakes!)
Linda my friend! So nice to hear from you!
I think you raise a very interesting point. Maybe when people were a bit more spread out, and when there were just plain fewer people, nobody was taken for granted. Human company was a luxury to be cherished.
Now that the planet is so darned over-populated, it is possible that we take each other too much for granted, or we feel we have to compete with each other.
Very interesting perspective. Thank you!
Wow! You nailed this one. The political mud slinging is despicable! No one is addressing the issues and how we can fix the mess we are in. They are too busy inflicting pain on each other. How effective will these prickly people be if they make it to Washington.
Viewing the political climate we live in does make a difference in other parts of our lives. It is easy to see how cyberbulling can be seen as funny or acceptable. The Golden Rule is getting tarnished. Too many words now have jabs on them.
Thanks for the great post. I wish I could publish on every media outlet.
Thanks, Diane. I appreciate it.
Yeah, I think this is something that both parties (or all parties) have in common, and it’s really sad. The complete lack of manners apparent over the last year or so has been humiliating for our country, I think.
It’s a real shame, and it’s spreading.
I wish I knew where all of this hostility is being bred and I wish I could say that in the olden days, people used to be more civil to each other. I grew up in the 60-70s in a very, very urban part of St. Paul just blocks away from some of the most violent race riots you can imagine. I don’t ever recall people being more civil to each other, with the exception of places like church or the family home. When you left there, you were slung into the raw world of human animal fear and desperation — and the resulting instinctual behavior that kept us alive. I envied the “country folk” just because they didn’t have to walk past biker bars and hookers just to get to a $2.30/hour PT job.
Perhaps things coming through the TV used to just be scrubbed more before being presented to us. Perhaps getting TV coverage was so expensive that people who were on it would think harder about the image they were presenting of themselves and their world. I remember watching Vietnam in our living room and my mom being visibly shaken by the footage. (My dad served in Korea, he never showed any emotion, though I suspect he had some) As TV became more and more accessible and the scramble for rating became more intense, we developed the Omarosa Effect where the most outrageous got the air time, the big contracts. We reward what sells, not what is right. Perhaps we have always been vicious, selfish animals toward each other; we’re just now rewarding those who claw deepest.
Regardless, it makes the job of being a parent harder when you try to teach your kids that goodness, kindness and civility eventually wins out in the end. I continue to believe it does, but when all this vicious anger and hostility wins elections or gets one on reality shows (or even the local news) it is hard to convince them to shoot for the long-term goal rather than the short-term reward.
We may be on the track of eating ourselves. I could not imagine political debates getting any more vicious until I saw the curb stomping last night. My take on it with a sense of history and modern culture. http://www.dogwalkblog.com/curb-stomping.html
Thanks, my friend. You raise a lot of great points. Maybe things aren’t really worse. Maybe we’re just more aware of it because bad news sells. On the other hand, the curb stomping scene you mention is more reminiscent to me of scenes I saw as a little girl that were coming from Mexico. It doesn’t seem like political rallies should be getting to that point here in the land of the free, home of the brave.
As I say, I don’t think any party (literal or figurative) is more or less guilty. I think expectations for politicians, and maybe people in general, have lowered. I think we are surprised when people treat us well.
Kind of sad, eh?
Thanks for your blog link. I will check it out! 🙂