The Medium Isn't the Message: In my own corner of the media world, the blogosphere, things seem to have gone downhill too, with personal attacks, efforts (sometimes successful) to get people fired, and worse becoming more common. It's reached the point, in fact, that bloggers on the left and right are actually talking about how to raise the tone.
I'm very much behind that effort. Name-calling isn't argument, and in fact personal attacks get in the way of actual argument. They encourage division and ideological cocooning: You might not mind a site that calls your ideas wrong or dumb, but you probably won't spend much time visiting sites that call you, personally, evil. [...]
In fact, the Internet is often a remedy, not simply a vehicle, for irrational personal attacks. If we want a kinder, gentler, and more civilized society, we'd be better off focusing on the kind of behavior that's acceptable, and that's not, and less on over-the-top attacks on an entire medium of communication. Even one that's costing the old guys money.
