Free Press and other Wicked Local readers have had the ability to post comments on stories since October last year. If you’re reading this online, the siren call of the boxes labeled “Name” and “Comment” beckons at the bottom of this page. This article itself may result in a number comments, simply because we live in the postmodern age of thought and commenting on an article about commenting is too savory a dish to pass up … or maybe because E.B. White, Marilyn Manson, Oscar Wilde and Radiohead all makes appearances at one point or another, and one of those is bound to provide enough fodder for a retort.
The commenting feature has elicited a deluge of feedback. Among the lamentations heard both in person and read in the comments themselves has been that allowing anonymous comments on the Web site has lowered the level of discourse.
Indeed, perusing the comments of a story can yield attacks seemingly unrelated to the topic of the article, wild speculation and non sequiturs, both of the illogical and intentionally humorous varieties — all ridden with grammatical and spelling errors.
These, of course, are occasionally interrupted by thoughtful comments and opinions. Even those thoughtful contributions sometimes come from posters who do not keep a copy of The Elements of Style next to their computer, but their scriptural shortcomings do not necessarily deprive their comments of thoughtful, honest opinion, only merely obscure it to a degree.
Still, the focus remains on the banal back-and-forth that can dominate any online forum. The downward spiral quickens its pace most often when a comment makes either a wild accusation or speculation, or someone is invoked by name. It’s a form of “gotcha” — either by throwing an idea into the fray or by goading someone into a reply by writing their name.
It is quick and easy to comment, both technically — a few keystrokes, a click of the mouse and voila — and given the lack of immediate repercussions, plus the Internet’s unfettered and ostensibly — but not truly — free environment.
It is certainly a new medium, or “new media” as the journalism industry calls it with a slight whiff of condescension or fear, so both the readers and writers play by new rules. Although Free Press articles now feature “Pool Rules” listed at the comment section, they are not so much rules, but polite suggestions that only have the specter of the possible deletion of a comment hovering behind them. Generally, online comments posted on Web sites are much like schoolyard games, and as Mary and Herbert Knapp wrote in One Potato, Two Potato: The Secret Education of American Children:
“The distinguishing characteristic of a traditional folk game is that although it has rules they are not written. Nobody knows exactly what they are. The players have a tradition to guide them, but must settle among themselves the details of how to play a particular game.”
Currently lacking a formal e-mail registration process that can track who posts what, commenters apply their own rules in regards to what they deem to be a contribution to the discussion. Left without particular mandates, the commenter’s choice to click on “Add Comment” becomes a matter of situational ethics or, at the very least, whether or not their contribution is funny enough, which can be matter of situational ethics in its own right if the commenter alone will find it funny and believes there is enough value in that.
So, has this new ability actually lowered the level of civil discourse? Ultimately, no — it hasn’t lowered the bar any further, but simply made the location of the bar that much more public.
“Times have not become more violent,” rock and roller Marilyn Manson wrote in Rolling Stone after the Columbine shootings. “They have just become more televised.”
Some readers have deemed posts on various articles uncouth, paranoid and, and at their very worst, vengeful. Ultimately it is objectively impossible to discern whether any of those previous adjectives apply, but even if they do, does that then tarnish an utterance that may be true?
Motive may not be as important as the truth of the word. Someone may something true, even in an anonymous posting, with the worst of intentions. Yet despite intention, truth is truth — at least in terms of determinable fact. Whether or not an utterance is meant to make someone else look bad or fulfill a personal, self-aggrandizing desire does not diminish whether something is verifiable or not.
So why a certain amount of backlash regarding online, anonymous comments? There is certainly a concern over a lack of accountability — we are a hierarchical society that depends on set orders of powers to, at the very least, keep the power of others in check. This applies most to those comments considered ‘untrue,’ those wild accusations and speculations.
However, to a certain degree there may be a backlash over public sentiment itself. Oscar Wilde added a preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray added after the novel’s original publication in Lippincott’s Magazine stirred controversy in Victorian culture.
In that preface, Wilde wrote, “The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.”
The twenty-first century dislike of online comments is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass. The Internet, whether through comments sections or otherwise, holds the mirror up. It is merely a reflection. Not everybody likes what they see when they look in the mirror.
Of course, there remains the question of providing the mirror itself. By allowing the widespread dissemination of ideas from the public, do Web sites then somehow validate those ideas, even at their most absurd, and even encourage that level of discussion?
That’s a question worth asking. Online comments, at least on a basal level, place each contribution on the same level, effectively equating one response with all. However, this is where the reader comes in. Even when browsing the paper, the responsibility is upon the reader, to a certain degree, to make his or her own determinations. Motive is rarely verifiable; if it were, more psychics would stay in business longer. The same applies for anything read on the Internet, whether a commenter’s post at the end of the story, or pundit of repute’s blog entry. The sin is never in making ideas available; the sin is in never even considering them before acceptance or dismissal.
As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in his dissenting opinion of Abrams v. the United States:
“Persecution for the expression of opinions seems to me perfectly logical. If you have no doubt of your premises or your power and want a certain result with all your heart you naturally express your wishes in law and sweep away all opposition.
“But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas,” Holmes wrote. “That the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out.”
Perhaps it is a utopian view to believe that truth can win out in the marketplace of ideas, even a marketplace that makes no discernment between products of high and low quality. Yet American society is not predicated upon the ability for its members to make what another would deem the correct decision — merely to give them the option.
Still, freedom of speech aside, commenters would be at least wise to heed the words of Thom Yorke singing on the latest Radiohead album:
“Words are a blunt instrument. Words are a sawn-off shotgun.”
