Wareham Insider

Nasty, brutish and short…

Posted on November 13, 2008 by rrichards
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As I sit in the office, the economy is slowly collapsing around us and reporters are tying to get information about illegal immigrants and employment laws and what happened with a shooting that dragged from Carver into Plymouth. At times, it does seem that Shakespeare was right when he wrote that life was nothing more than a tale told by an idiot.

Civilization – as seen from afar – is an attempt to correct that, to give people some measure of control over the world around them. In a world filled with doubt and hunger, people gathered together in bands and created rules and regulations to try and bring order to that chaos.

Thomas Hobbes referred tot eh natural state of life as nasty, brutish and short without the rules of society trading some modicum of freedom (the freedom to shoot someone in the face for example) for a measure of safety. Initially this order was created through a naked monopoly of force and information, but as society evolved the clubs turned to pens.

I like to believe that what glues society together is not the implicit threat of force held by governments through police officers and military forces, I like to believe that civility is at the core of civilization.

The premise is that everyone is out there playing by the rules, and when you step outside of that framework then no one wants to play with you any more. If you lack that civility, then in a transparent and interconnected society, you’re going to struggle to find purchase.

That reputation is easier to keep track of in small social groups, we all know which friends not to trust with a drink or which family member not to help with a loan. When the scope of society expands it falls to bureaucrats to keep track of criminal records, credit reports and the many other pieces of information that score out someone’s ability to play the game.

What happens though, when civility breaks down on a massive scale?

In large part the current financial crisis came about when banks and financial wizards – a term which I use in the most sarcastic manner possible – began to take advantage of a lax regulatory environment to build up a complicated system of financial transactions to park a good deal of excess cash. There was little transparency and at least some actual graft and when the bottom fell out the scale was just so incredible that it has officials and members of the public reeling about whom to trust to fix things.

What happens when civility breaks down in government and the public? When the give and take that the every day operation of society relies on breaks down, things can’t be good.

Division can be a powerful tool in seizing power, but it is not a creative tool. The only thing that comes of bifurcating the world into black and white – or red and blue – are echo chambers where the other side goes from people to monsters.

The moment we allow another human being to become the other is the point where we are no longer civilized. Is that the point where you would like to be?

Feelings: Jerks in the age of the Internet

Posted on October 23, 2008 by rrichards
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When we first brought comments onto our Web sites over at www.wickedlocal.com, members of the editorial staff were often shocked by what they found there and so were many readers (judging at least by the number of site abuse reports that some of our sites receive).

This lead me to refer people to John Gabriel’s “Greater Internet Dickwad Theory..” Simply put, when you give a normal person anonymity and an audience they become a total dickwad.

Greater internet Dickwad Theory, first posited by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins of Penny-Arcarde in 2004.

There’s really no other way to describe the xenophobic, paranoid, racist and hateful vitriol that appears on Internet forums and postings. Even the most benign articles can become hosts to raging polemics about the world Zionist conspiracy or how Mexicans are stealing American jobs.

So when Selectman Brenda Eckstrom broke down at the Oct. 21 meeting of the Board of Selectmen, it was unsurprising that the catalyst was a post on a Web site. The posting that Eckstrom read from called the selectmen bullies and claimed that they would be the next ones sued, driving them out of their homes and out of town. It was a statement that went too far for the selectman and mother.

The tenor of politics and life in Wareham is frankly wretched.

It’s easy to watch the bifurcation of a town as sides get entrenched and stop seeing their opponents as people and start seeing them as caricatures.

It certainly doesn’t help that when the economy tanks that the knives come out even under the best circumstances. Picture rival gangs circling one another with blades drawn, like something out of West Side Story except that no one is dancing and the ending would be tragic without the redemption.

Nothing really breaks through the cycle of bickering until it spirals down to its lowest point, which I’m sure that Wareham is only just starting to see.

It’s an issue that hits both sides.

One group says that selectmen are out to get the library, selectmen accuse people of stacking town meeting.

Fingers point in every direction about craven conspiracies to undermine the town, possibly planned out in underground bunkers and secret lodges. During these meetings the participants probably wear smoking jackets, drink finely aged brandy and swear fealty to Baal, Satan’s first lieutenant who has the power to make those who invoke his name invisible. No doubt invisibility aids in their clandestine meetings.

Part of the answer is to remember that these people are not boogey men, they’re neighbors. They’re people that you run into at the store and see at the coffee shop, your kids went to school together and maybe you had a crush on the same girl in high school (which could explain where all the tension comes from). They’re not reptile aliens from the fourth dimension who have taken on human disguises.

Try and walk a while in someone else’s shoes, and maybe you’ll find that you have more in common than you thought.