The End of Civility?

[Elianna]

There is now going to be a fight about who is nastier.

Well, I'll tell you, I got totally derailed by this phrase:



And nothing y'all say or do now is gonna take my mind off it.

So, I'll just be over here in the corner fantasizing. TYVM.

Scoot over.

Any room for me?

 

[rgraham666]

Any room for me?

On my lap, yes.

 

[TE999]

On my lap, yes.

We've gone from a discussion of incivility to a mosh pit...gotta love this place.

 

[Guest]

We've gone from a discussion of incivility to a mosh pit...gotta love this place.

Then my work here is done.

 

[tickledkitty]

I think I'm with Stella on this one. I had a lot more fun here a year ago. Now I don't post nearly as often.

The one thing that bothers me the most, I think, is the constant attacks on scouries and BFW. It all just wears me down, you know? I don't understand why people care what those two say or think or do. They don't generally venture into other threads. I don't know. It just wears me down. That's all.

 

[xssve]

I started to read that thread - once.

If I spent my time beating up on all the hack writers on this site I'd never get anything else done.

 

[BlackShanglan]

I think I'm with Stella on this one. I had a lot more fun here a year ago. Now I don't post nearly as often.

The one thing that bothers me the most, I think, is the constant attacks on scouries and BFW. It all just wears me down, you know? I don't understand why people care what those two say or think or do. They don't generally venture into other threads. I don't know. It just wears me down. That's all.

You know, I took a long break from this site, and in the mean time I spent some time on a game in which muting people is extremely common and light-hearted. People mute each other for anything from profanity to poor spelling, and no one really gets very wound up about it.

I took a page from that book when I came back here. I'd never placed anyone on ignore before, but since I've come back, I've been on a bender. The results are beautiful. The whole place looks a lot more like the old Lit that I knew and loved. I find the silly people so much easier to see as just that - silly - when I'm not annoyed by the constant sniping. It's done me no end of good. I particularly like that I don't even see the threads such people start - it keeps the whole forum looking so much tidier and more pleasant.

Shanglan

 

[Stella_Omega]

The Kübler-Ross grief cycle

Very common among wingnuts, see any thread by amicus, outwardly civil, but brimming with barely repressed violence and passive aggressive hatred of "the other".

This sort of thing is incited and maintained by right wing agitpropagandists, and wingnuts typically operate continually in a haze of hate and discontent, regardless of external events, I've been studying this phenomena for a while, I call it a "Limbaughtomy".

During the Eighties and Ninties they used to get depressed and go into a funk when they didn't get their way, increasingly, they sulk and make even more outlandish accusations - "Obama is a terrorist" is the latest meme, largely due to the resemblance of his name to OBL. Similarly, the flap about immigrants that may well have helped trigger the current economic crisis, and will at the bare minimum, contribute to how long and deep it lasts.

Ah, the level of political discourse in this country has really reached new levels of shit stirring, there really is not point in pretending to be civil anymore to those who have elevated incivility itself to the status of a "core value".

I only come here to get laid.


TK my darling, listen to the horsey! The ignore function is your friend!

 

[rgraham666]

So do I.

Hasn't worked all that well. Sigh.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

I've only been hanging around the Lit forums for about 18 months. Some of the folks with more longevity might be able to recall periods of time when the general tone was as nasty as it seems to be now.

Over the last year and a half, the AH and several other forums (most notably the GB) seem to have shown a marked increase in shooting from the hip, pointless argument, sniping, name-calling, backstabbing, and character assassination. It's amazing to watch intelligent peoples' posts devolve into nothing more than an endless round of "You said... / No, I didn't!"

It surprised me to see the amount of intolerance and unprovoked personal attacks I've seen on the AH as of recently.

When people started jumping on bostonfictionwriter for complaining about being 1-bombed, it was cause for alarm. Then when it turned out that some AHers knew the 1-bombs had to be coming from here, well, you should know at that point that civility is dead all across the board.

It's just that racial insults don't happen here. That's one thing to be thankful for.


And the lack of civility is only happening because people are hiding behind their keyboards. They don't behave like this to anyone's face. It's much easier to have your attitude adjusted face to face. The internet is inherently a breeding ground for incivility because you don't have to take account for what you've said.

 

[tickledkitty]

You know, I took a long break from this site, and in the mean time I spent some time on a game in which muting people is extremely common and light-hearted. People mute each other for anything from profanity to poor spelling, and no one really gets very wound up about it.

I took a page from that book when I came back here. I'd never placed anyone on ignore before, but since I've come back, I've been on a bender. The results are beautiful. The whole place looks a lot more like the old Lit that I knew and loved. I find the silly people so much easier to see as just that - silly - when I'm not annoyed by the constant sniping. It's done me no end of good. I particularly like that I don't even see the threads such people start - it keeps the whole forum looking so much tidier and more pleasant.

Shanglan

Wise and wonderful equine. Your mere presence raises the tone considerably.

 

[xssve]

I have a political addiction, as you might have noticed. Truth is such a fragile thing, I hate to see it trampled - "all that is necessary for evil to triumph...", etc.

I'd come here to get laid too, if anybody in here was even remotely close to me geographically - hell, I'd even give that bitch Cloudy a roll.

 

[Elianna]

You know, I took a long break from this site, and in the mean time I spent some time on a game in which muting people is extremely common and light-hearted. People mute each other for anything from profanity to poor spelling, and no one really gets very wound up about it.

I took a page from that book when I came back here. I'd never placed anyone on ignore before, but since I've come back, I've been on a bender. The results are beautiful. The whole place looks a lot more like the old Lit that I knew and loved. I find the silly people so much easier to see as just that - silly - when I'm not annoyed by the constant sniping. It's done me no end of good. I particularly like that I don't even see the threads such people start - it keeps the whole forum looking so much tidier and more pleasant.

Shanglan

I never really met you before you left, but I'm glad you're here now. I find the little rule my momma taught me works fine here:

"If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all."

But... I deal with people pissing each other off all day during work and have to sort things out for them afterwards. I don't come here to put out any more fires. Just to talk to delightfully engaging people I have come to call "friends."

 

[Guest]

What got me started thinking about incivility, in addition to the observations I made earlier, was a barely-remembered passage from one of Robert Heinlein's novels.

Through the magic of Google, we are proud to present:

What are the marks of a sick culture?

It is a bad sign when the people of a country stop identifying themselves with the country and start identifying with a group. A racial group. Or a religion. Or a language. Anything, as long as it isn’t the whole population.

A very bad sign. Particularism. It was once considered a Spanish vice but any country can fall sick with it. Dominance of males over females seems to be one of the symptoms.

Before a revolution can take place, the population must lose faith in both the police and the courts.

High taxation is important and so is inflation of the currency and the ratio of the productive to those on the public payroll. But that’s old hat; everybody knows that a country is on the skids when its income and outgo get out of balance and stay that way - even though there are always endless attempts to wish it way by legislation. But I started looking for little signs and what some call silly-season symptoms.

I want to mention one of the obvious symptoms: Violence. Muggings. Sniping. Arson. Bombing. Terrorism of any sort. Riots of course - but I suspect that little incidents of violence, pecking way at people day after day, damage a culture even more than riots that flare up and then die down. Oh, conscription and slavery and arbitrary compulsion of all sorts and imprisonment without bail and without speedy trial - but those things are obvious; all the histories list them.

I think you have missed the most alarming symptom of all. This one I shall tell you. But go back and search for it. Examine it. Sick cultures show a complex of symptoms as you have named… But a dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than a riot.

This symptom is especially serious in that an individual displaying it never thinks of it as a sign of ill health but as proof of his/her strength. Look for it. Study it. (Friday, 1982)

[Emphasis added]

Bob actually made sense, once in a while.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

Wise and wonderful equine. Your mere presence raises the tone considerably.

I hope he realizes the demon was in himself as well.

He got into attacking me personally merely for posting facts and figures and studies that contradicted him.

Like him, I now put the silly people on ignore. I will tolerate schoolyard antics once and then no more. And like it looks to him, Lit looks a lot better now to me.

 

[Elianna]

On my lap, yes.

Just saw this.

*snuggle*

 

[impressive]

I only come here to get laid.

It's worked for me. A few times.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

GNOME youre full of shit.

America was significantly more violent in the 19th Century than it is now. Our Civil War killed 690,000 men. Lynching was common. People were murdered for being Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, and Mormons. Duelling was common.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

When I first explored lit forums, I was truly appalled at what I saw on the first page of GB. AH was a smaller and far more civil pond, and was peopled with some brilliant lights who've wandered away. I know I was much more comfortable here about a year ago than I am now. I feel as if AH is turning into GB-lite, and I know there's little I can do to stop that.

And there are fewer points of agreement on many issues, as the regular group spreads wider. Some things have happened this year that have made me feel extremely uncomfortable, and were caused by people of good intent-- which increased my discomfort exponentially. That's just the way it goes, yanno? Unless a forum is moderated, it is always in danger of self-destruction for one reason or another. And moderated forums rarely last either.

Not true. Eka's Portal is a moderated forum site that's somewhat hopping, it's been around for a while.

 

[Guest]

GNOME youre full of shit.

I rest my case.

 

[Elianna]

It's worked for me. A few times.

*snerk*

 

[SweetWitch]

I think I'm with Stella on this one. I had a lot more fun here a year ago. Now I don't post nearly as often.

The one thing that bothers me the most, I think, is the constant attacks on scouries and BFW. It all just wears me down, you know? I don't understand why people care what those two say or think or do. They don't generally venture into other threads. I don't know. It just wears me down. That's all.

Sweetie, it used to wear me down, too. I hit the magic iggy button and I don't see it anymore. And I don't care. I come here to see the friends I've made. The rest doesn't matter.

I rest my case.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I rest my case.

And why are we not ignoring JBJ?

 

[Guest]

And why are we not ignoring JBJ?

Because of what xssve wrote: "all that is necessary for evil to triumph...", etc.

 

[Guest]

And why are we not ignoring JBJ?

Oh, I am.

He's been off and on, but when I saw all the ridiculous threads he started today it was an easy decision.