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 Concerning Harmful Aspects of On-line Incivility;
An Essay by Anthony Henry Smith
Anthony Henry Smith, 2008, All rights reserved.
This is coming to you from the eighth year of the twenty-first century and the
internet is in its infancy. The ways we communicate are changing rapidly.
For the purposes of this essay, I’m primarily addressing such incivility as might
limit other participants in the reasonable exercise of their freedom to
communicate through on-line postings and discussions.
The importance and future of interactive on-line journalism is a related, but
separate topic I hope to address in the future.
On December 13th, 2008, an individual appears to have been driven from
participation in a well established on-line forum of many years standing. As it happens, she was not removed by the
moderator. She appears to have been harassed into removing herself from the list by other participants. All this
occurred in full view of the assembled on-line community. In her terminal posting, she described the situation
in these words: “…this place has gotten out of control. It was great for a while -- but not anymore, at least not
for me. These days, the community here is a different make up, and now we have residents who engage in name theft,
offline bullying, online bullying, threats…”. I think she exercised good judgment by leaving. I would not
encourage her to return to a forum where good intentions provide insufficient protection. Rules and order are
necessary to freedom. There is no freedom without such protections.
The forum continues to be useful as a kind of an electronic graffiti wall where articles and announcements can be
posted and where those who write what are essentially stand alone articles can be posted. It also performs some useful
service as a place where persons of all stripes can vent anger and frustration. It also serves to re enforce that as
much as we like to think so, clearly information and education is not the answer. The main difference appears to be
among persons who hold very different values.
It was once a place where people could discuss the social and emotional issues that attend serious discussion of life
as we experience it within our communities and within the network of interdependent life that surrounds us.
Some restrictions are necessary to protect and defend the freedom of others to express themselves. (It’s not always
intuitive that restriction is either part of or necessary to freedom, but then who would ever guess light can be both
a wave and a particle?)
I’ll miss her participation. She posted much that helped keep me informed. Of course I enjoyed it when her opinions
coincided with mine, and even when they didn’t, her opinions interesting, sometimes helpful, and always welcome.
She did not hesitate to point out that I’m often at odds with many individuals and organizations at once. At the time,
I supposed she meant to describe me as someone who really can’t get along with anyone. Whatever her intent, her comments
made me think about it.
Upon reflection, I came to realize the specifics of my complaints are symptomatic of a deeper malaise within the
environmental movement, locally, regionally, and nationally.
The issue of incivility is itself emblematic of deeper problems within what remains of the old environmentalism and
foreshadows what I hope will become the new environmentalism gradually replacing the old. Changing values are at the
foundation of all new endeavors and all that is now tradition was once change.
Environmentalism:
Environmentalism is thinking and acting in ways that support and enhance the changing biosphere as it responds to the
ever changing Universe of which it is a part.
The Old Environmentalism:
The Old Environmentalism was the original 1960s grassroots movement in popular response to the fact that it was
necessary to organize and respond to the reality that what we were doing was harmful to large portions of the biosphere,
including humans.
The Storm King Mountain case became the basis of environmental law in the United States by establishing the right of
citizens to sue the government to protect natural resources. Gradually, the original volunteers within the movement
were displaced by specialists and careerists.
Armed with law and strengthened with donations from a growing membership base and strong foundation support, as well as
funds realized through lawsuits and legal settlements, what had started as a popular movement with broad support became
increasingly specialized, professionalized, and adversarial.
Now, more than a quarter of a century after the Storm King decision, environmental careerists far too often align
themselves with power bases composed of celebrities and politicians with private agendas. Professional environmentalism
has degenerated into a muddle of organizations poorly led by individuals whose careers are predicated on a continuance
of the problems they are charged to resolve. Guided more by egos than by science, professional environmentalism has
adopted the values and methods of the very culture the original Movement had hoped to reform.
The New Environmentalism:
The New Environmentalism is a revitalized grassroots movement. It consists of people from all walks of life working
together to optimize the ways in which people think and act in mutual support within the context of the biosphere of
which they are a part.
The single most important issue in environmentalism:
We are social animals living within a context of interdependent life. The single most important issue in environmentalism
is how to accomplish mutual support for one another and the biosphere of which we are but a part.
Environmental ethics:
What is possible to do is a matter of art and science. Which of the things that are possible
to do ought to be done is a matter of ethics.
“Democracy” is best understood as a principled social process:
The principled democratic process is the art of relating to one another within the context of the biosphere of which
we are a part and upon which we depend.
If the principled democratic process were difficult, it wouldn’t be very useful. Fortunately, democracy is something
that can and does happen frequently and naturally, when people come together for the purpose of working, learning, and
problem solving, especially among friends. Democracy can be defined as a principled social process informed by the
principles of equality, mutual respect and kindness, personal responsibility, and shared decision making.
The principled democratic process serves to expedite the acquisition and utilization of knowledge. Knowledge thus
obtained can inform the political process.
Environmental ethics:
Environmental ethics concern how we ought to think and act within the context of interdependent life, including what
we owe to one another and what we can and cannot expect from one another.
The single most important issue in environmentalism:
The single most important issue in environmentalism is how we treat one another; what we owe to one another; and what we
can and cannot expect from one another. ALL else follows from this. Although we are not the center of the universe,
neither are we apart from the universe.
The single most important issue in government:
The single most important issue in government is the promotion and protection of Life, Liberty (as freedom) and Justice
(as fairness) for all of life throughout the biosphere of which humanity is but a part.
The goal is to obtain a place for humanity within the context of an orderly and well regulated biosphere of which
humanity is but a part.
One purpose of government is to facilitate the preservation of freedoms through the exercise of the mandate (given by
the consent of the governed) to restrict freedoms to prevent them from impinging upon the freedoms of others to exercise
and enjoy their own freedoms. These restrictions may take the form of orders, customs, laws, regulations, and the
internal controls of conscience.
Implicit in the responsibility of government to preserve freedom is the mandate to restrict freedoms to the extent that
they impinge upon the freedoms of others to exercise and enjoy their own freedoms. The principled democratic process
derives from and is protected by this important mandate.
Properly executed, environmentalism is participatory world government by another name.
Science and Religion:
The new environmentalism requires no specific religious belief and is compatible with many religions and belief systems.“…from the perspective of human well-being, science and spirituality are not unrelated. … I wish to emphasize to the
millions of my fellow Buddhists worldwide the need to take science seriously and to accept its fundamental discoveries
within their worldview…. certainly some aspects of Buddhist thought - such as its old cosmological thought and its
rudimentary physics - will have to be modified in the light of new scientific insights.” - His Holiness the Dalai Lama,
(The Universe in a Single Atom, 2005, pp. 5-6, ISBN 0-7679-2066) The new environmentalism does require faith. All
science is predicated on the faith that order or structure exists, even though that has not been proved. So far, it seems
to be a fact.
Anthony Henry Smith, 2008, All rights reserved.
(Please Note: The above is copyrighted material. Anthony Henry Smith, 2008, All rights reserved. Permission to quote or
reproduce beyond the limitations of The Fair-Use Statute Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 must be obtained from
the author in writing. The Fair Use Statute is available for viewing at the following link:
http://www.fishkillridgecommunityheritage.org/fair_use.htm )
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