A lot has been written about how the internat fracturing of the media helps to polarize the culture. Readers can, if they choose, coccoon themselves with news and commentary that only confirms their prejudices. Conservatives watch Fox News; liberals watch MSNBC, and the chasm widens.
Another force is the ability to find damning evidence against an opposing person or group in order to confirm your prejudice against them.
For example, I think that if most Catholics set out to find a “clown Mass,” they would have a difficult time. But, with YoutTube and the internet, the handful of incidences can be referenced in a post to weave a narrative about how absurd the post Vatican II Church is, and this is why there is an SSPX schism. An outside observer would thing that clown Masses were as regular a feature of American Catholicism as holy water.
We’re so darn eager to tear anyone and everything down, and with the Internet and YouTube, there’s no stopping you. Don’t like Michael Phelps? Here’s a picture of him with a bong. Not a fan of Obama? Here’s a picture of him with a ciggarette in his mouth. Lisa Schiffren took a shot at you? Let’s catalog her most unfortunate writings, going back 13 years if necessary. Anything but actually listening to each other and engaging the arguments presented.
We don’t even need to argue any more. All we have to do is search the Internet for the worst thing one of our adversaries said or did, and hope it’s worse than whatever they find on us. If questioned about the relevance, we can always fall back on “hypocrisy,” no matter how shaky the connection. For example, if you find a teenage speeding ticket in the record of a pro-life advocate, decry the hypocrisy of someone claiming to hold life precious but displaying such obvious disregard. And if an environmental activist’s cousin drives an SUV, decry the hypocrisy of the activist telling the country what to do but not her own family. This will prevent you from having to deal with those pesky actual arguments.
The Internet and YouTube are powerful tools. I suspect we are not mature enough to handle them.
