Andy Kessler's article in the WSJ:
Excerpts:
there are calls from the media for civility. Now? We have a long history to overcome. Mark Twain, a 29-year-old San Francisco-based opinion columnist for a Nevada newspaper in 1865, was spewing venom, saying of the police, “Wax figures, besides being far more economical, would be about as useful.” Pianist and comedian Oscar Levant in 1940 said of his morning routine, “First I brush my teeth and then I sharpen my tongue.” Same.
Incivility became a favored tactic for activists. In 1971 Saul Alinsky wrote “Rules for Radicals,” which became the bible for the Obama and Biden administrations. Rule 5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” Rule 13: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Rude, but effective.
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In 2017 the Washington Post cited Godwin’s Law: “As an online discussion continues, the probability of a reference or comparison to Hitler or Nazis approaches 1.” In 2016 the Post’s website ran this headline: “Don’t compare Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler. It belittles Hitler.”
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Is it over? Is society so depraved that life will never be civil again? In January, this paper quoted Jacob Mchangama, founder of Justitia, blaming cancel culture on “our species’ hard-wired tendencies toward tribalistic behavior and the self-righteous urge to punish outgroups who transgress taboos.”
Your taboo is my ballyhoo. Tribalism and self-righteousness are hard to combat, but not impossible. It has to start early and locally, in our education system and within our families and communities, to instill a sense of civility. Maybe someday.
