Okay, I admit that I believe that Supreme Court rulings (Federal, that is) are important and have vast and reaching effects - often unpredictable - on our lives. But most lower court rulings simply don't live up to the constant hype the media builds, not just the news when a high profile trial is building or commencing, but the zillion court dramas riddling network television. To watch any of those, you'd think human beings could never settle differences with one another without resorting to high-priced lawyers like William Shatner's Denny Crane. Cases usually take years to work their way through appeals and are often overturned or mitigated on the way.
As for climate of opinion, try having lived here between 2001 and 2005, when even the slightest criticism of Bush got you thrown into the "stupid hippy, won't don't you move to Iraq if you love it so much" category. That's always been around, certainly during the Reagan years, but to see otherwise sane people that I knew and worked with converted to that kind of spewing... that was something else.
And I think the Internet is a wholly different climate than "real" life. Something about this medium simply generates arguments and bile that would never arise in interpersonal conversation or even the more measured correspondence of letter writing. As Clay Shirky has noted, the Internet and social networks have allowed fringe cultures to band together, and this strengthens their sensitivity rather than mellowing it. Before, a misunderstood loner could always doubt that he was in the right. Now, he's got a bunch of people to back up any inane thing he says. I'm not bashing fringe cultures here -- I have a lot of sympathy with them, and consider myself part of some of them (comics, gaming, etc.). But their members are -- understandably -- oversensitive in the first place. Give them strength in numbers, and the Mob begins to grow.
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Date: 2008-05-23 12:40 am (UTC)As for climate of opinion, try having lived here between 2001 and 2005, when even the slightest criticism of Bush got you thrown into the "stupid hippy, won't don't you move to Iraq if you love it so much" category. That's always been around, certainly during the Reagan years, but to see otherwise sane people that I knew and worked with converted to that kind of spewing... that was something else.
And I think the Internet is a wholly different climate than "real" life. Something about this medium simply generates arguments and bile that would never arise in interpersonal conversation or even the more measured correspondence of letter writing. As Clay Shirky has noted, the Internet and social networks have allowed fringe cultures to band together, and this strengthens their sensitivity rather than mellowing it. Before, a misunderstood loner could always doubt that he was in the right. Now, he's got a bunch of people to back up any inane thing he says. I'm not bashing fringe cultures here -- I have a lot of sympathy with them, and consider myself part of some of them (comics, gaming, etc.). But their members are -- understandably -- oversensitive in the first place. Give them strength in numbers, and the Mob begins to grow.