This part of Cardinal Way: Civility Rules project to encourage constructive dialogue on difficult issues. You can participate in the project by filling out this survey.
Social media was supposed to bring us together, but many respondents to our Cardinal Way project on how to promote civil discourse say it’s driven us apart.
I’ve been able to use social media to reconnect with high school classmates I haven’t seen in years, and make friends around the world who share the same tastes in music that I do. Is that worth the downside of a more politically polarized society where we don’t know how to speak to each other in civil terms anymore?
Gray Montrose, recently a candidate for clerk of court in Henrico County, responded to our online questionnaire with this observation: “As someone who just ran for office for the first time, I think an important point in the discussion is how often people … are vitriolic when they don’t have to face the person at whom they direct their hate.”
Montrose said she made a point of trying to meet some of her online critics: “Without fail, these folks would savage me and others online, but butter wouldn’t melt in person,” she writes. “How do these folks, many of whom profess to be deeply Christian with all that faith’s exhortations about ‘as you do unto the least, so to Me,’ act so badly and then tell themselves they’re good people? Is it that online spaces or spaces where others aren’t physically present make all of this not ‘real’? Or the objects of their anger are just that, objects, not real people until they’re in front of you? I’d really like to talk about what seems to me to be deep-seated fear — you know what you’re saying and doing is wrong, so you can’t bring yourself to do it in spaces where you may face any level of accountability. Hypocrisy is certainly easier than self-reflection.”
Montrose is a Democrat but let’s try to set party aside and focus on her point: We sometimes say things online that we’d never say to someone in person. Is that really helpful? Over the past year, I’ve spoken to a lot of Rotary clubs across Cardinal’s coverage area, and they all have one thing in common: a recitation of Rotary’s “four-way test” which goes:
Is it the truth?
Is it fair to all concerned?
Will it build goodwill and better friendships?
Will it be beneficial to all concerned?
Perhaps more people should apply that Rotary doctrine to their social media.
Brandon Lewis contributed as someone who’s not on social media (and I have no idea what his political views are): “Even though I align with one party very strongly and do a lot of political volunteer work, I’m on zero social media which has helped me not become so easily swept up in outrage. If someone I am talking to is approaching something from a completely different belief system or idea, my first thought is ‘how do I get to the root of what they believe and then reach a common ground between us.’ I find that most people aren’t malicious.”
That reminds me of the Luke Bryan song: “Most People Are Good.” Social media may have trained us the other way.
Lewis offers this suggestion: “I also try to remain humble by prefacing things with ‘I think,’ ‘I believe,’ and ‘I’ve read/heard.’ Humility and listening go a very long way. You won’t persuade everyone (maybe not anyone). But your community won’t suffer the scourge that is hostility and distrust.”
Kevin Wills advises us to try to check our emotions at the door, which is undoubtedly difficult. “I feel like the possibility of civil conversation exists and the ability to find commonalities if both parties to the conversation use good reasoning and eliminate emotion,” he writes. “After all, emotion is what drives someone to shout or call names. At that point the civil conversation is over, and any exchange of rational thought has stopped.”
Politics makes that difficult, though, because many political campaigns are designed to elicit an emotional response. Most voters aren’t responding to 15-point policy plans; they’re responding to how they feel about a candidate.
My observation: Politics has always been that way, but social media now exacerbates the situation. It used to be political campaigns were something we only saw on TV or read in the newspaper. Now they’re in this handy little device we carry around in our pockets. Even if I’m checking social media to see what my favorite band is doing or what a high school classmate has to say about a new cat, I often first have to wade through angry posts of people shouting at one another. No wonder we’re often all in a bad mood.
That makes it difficult for us to accept something else Wills offered: “Good people can believe different things. Accepting this is the first step to accepting civil conversation.”
Last week, as part of our Cardinal Way project, we ran a joint commentary by the two retiring party leaders in the state Senate, Democrat Richard Saslaw and Republican Thomas Norment. They made the case that civility is required for success in government and hoped that the upcoming turnover in the legislature will open the way for reset.
In response we posed some questions, such as asking if you’d support a legislator who broke party lines. You can participate by offering your suggestions.
