Chris Berry On The Net

Now that the election season is finally over, I would like to think that we might restore some semblance of civility to our discourse. Elections tend to bring out the worst in us, turning otherwise reasonable people into strident partisans and rabid attack dogs. Language and behavior that we would never tolerate under ordinary circumstances suddenly becomes commonplace in the heat of battle. What we often fail to take into consideration is that when the battle is over, we have to put down our banners and go back to live and work among our rivals.

Bloggers played a larger role than ever before in the election of 2008. Unfortunately, we did not contribute nearly as much to the spread of worthwhile information as we did to the breakdown of rational discourse. One of the problems is that blogging permits anyone to make themselves heard, even when they have nothing worthwhile to say. Unfortunately, the loudest voices are often the most venomous and least informed. If your only contribution is an endless loop of regurgitated partisan talking points, then you have made no contribution at all. The only thing you accomplish by flooding the blogosphere with mindless diatribes and incessant repetition is to drown out the voices of reasonable people, making it harder for those engaged in thought provoking discussions to actually make a difference.

The words we use to vilify our political opponents tend to make us lazy. It is far easier to apply a derogatory label than it is to explain why we support a specific candidate or cause. If we ever hope to engage our opponents in a civil fashion, we must stop relying on negative labels and choose words that force us to actually think about our positions. Let’s banish words like socialist and neo-con from our vocabularies. Let’s quit calling our opponents fascists, radicals and extremists, and concentrate instead on defeating them with the power of our ideas. If we can learn to behave ourselves like adults, our politicians may one day follow our example.