Where Has Civility Gone?

Saturday, September 29, 2012 -- 11:45 pm.

I was skimming through my Facebook account today, when I ran across a post referring to  my not so great friends at Fox News screwing the pooch yet again. It seems they were following a police pursuit live, when the perp un-assed his vehicle, ran down an  embankment, then shot himself live, on national television. To the news reader's credit, at least seemed quite upset and apologized for the failure of the tape delay system.

Fox was quick to drop the feed, after the fact, of course, but it was picked up and tweeted by other online news agencies. So. now, the grieving parents, siblings, etc., get to see live, in-color images of their loved one shooting himself on national television. I understand the video clip has now gone viral.

I was following this via a Slate blogger. I began to read the comments, and was appalled to find  so much callous disregard for the loss of life. It's as  if most of the posters couldn't distinguish between their video games and real life. It was extremely depressing to see not a single post addressing the fact a family saw their loved one end his life so publicly.

The internet has opened up a whole new world of instant communications, but has failed to open up the minds of individuals, or their ability to enter into civil discourse with others whose views may differ from their own. In fact, civility seems to have become a victim of our modern digital communications world.

I am a firm believer in the constitutionally protected right to freedom of expression, but I also as firmly believe that with that right comes a responsibility to weigh your words with great care. It is so easy to hide behind a screen of anonymity and spew the most hateful, vitriolic rhetoric without regard to the effects of  those ugly words on the people and institutions addressed.  People who do that reveal far more about themselves than about the subject at hand.