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Why Americans Are So Awful to One Another

myDeaconmyhand

myDeaconmyhand

First man to get a team of horses up Bear Mountain
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I just found a new David Brooks article from the Atlantic titled “How America Got Mean” that really delves deep into the history of moral education in our country, and how as a people we have stopped training ourselves to be good people, and have instead generally just trusted that our human nature as individuals would lead us to become moral adults, but how that has mostly led us to be sad, angry, and self serving. I don’t agree with every point made, but on the whole I think it’s a very worthwhile essay.

For anyone who is immediately disagreeing with the title of the essay, I would like to premise this by saying that America on the whole has always been “mean”, but I think we can all move beyond that general truth to recognize that their has been a definitive structural/philosophical change

apple.news

Why Americans Are So Awful to One Another — The Atlantic

In a culture devoid of moral education, generations are growing up in a morally inarticulate, self-referential world.
apple.news apple.news
 
Deacsfan27 said:
I think this is a good thread overall, but David Brooks is probably the worst possible guy to try to convey it. Talk about a guy who, throughout his career, has disregarded stats and facts to prove points, and instead used his own feelings and moral platitudes.
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Yeah, no argument here, David Brooks is a piece of shit. Thankfully I was open to his premise despite my reflexively disagreeing with him. I’m not saying it’s a perfect or even correct essay, but on first read I think it’s worthwhile, thought provoking, and written in an evenhanded mostly apolitical manner.
 
I can’t access the article, but I certainly have some thoughts.

The rise of social media has created both echo chambers and the ability to be relatively anonymous when posting. Apps like Twitter or even message boards like this one curate information and opinions that tend to align with what we already think/believe. All of which was amplified by a pandemic which forced even less face to face contact.

People say things they wouldn’t, or in a way they wouldn’t, face to face.

Add in an incredibly vitriolic person rising to power and it’s been a powder keg over the last 10 years or so.

I can’t get my head around how we’ve become a country that no longer values differences of opinion, or beliefs. It’s easy to blame Trump, but he’s the result of the problem IMO not the cause.
 
Kory said:
I don't have access to the article but I imagine Putnam's "Bowling Alone" (and subsequent criticism of it) would be a better touchstone for this specific question if you're specifically interested in it.
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Let's bridge and bond some social capital, bby!

The professor I ra'd for in grad school did a lot of social capital work and, as a fun byproduct, I can now bore people to death talking about social capital theory.
 
There's a pretty good chance that people were always like this as far as just being solely self-motivated, but with the rise of social media and gestures at politics, it has become socially acceptable to just be a complete asshole most of the time.
 
Deacsfan27 said:
There's a pretty good chance that people were always like this as far as just being solely self-motivated, but with the rise of social media and gestures at politics, it has become socially acceptable to just be a complete asshole most of the time.
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It's a weird effect because, on one hand, social media has contributed to the erosion of social capital, mainly suburban and rural communities but really everywhere, but has also replaced this lost social capital with a form of community that encourages people to act like colossal assholes and treat other people like shit.
 
Frosty said:
It's a weird effect because, on one hand, social media has contributed to the erosion of social capital, mainly suburban and rural communities but really everywhere, but has also replaced this lost social capital with a form of community that encourages people to act like colossal assholes and treat other people like shit.
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Completely. I have rarely seen 2 people who disagree talk to each other in real life the way they do on social media.
 
But with this specific erosion of social capital and social media fulfilling the need for community and solidarity, the social consequences for acting like a huge twat have been largely removed. And research shows that people are far more likely to conform to social norms and expectations at the risk of being ostracized from their community than they are to follow normal laws.
 
Frosty said:
But with this specific erosion of social capital and social media fulfilling the need for community and solidarity, the social consequences for acting like a huge twat have been largely removed. And research shows that people are far more likely to conform to social norms and expectations at the risk of being ostracized from their community than they are to follow normal laws.
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Social media needs an equivalent of someone hitting you with a right cross.
 
WindyCityDeac said:
Social media needs an equivalent of someone hitting you with a right cross.
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Yeah. It used to be that acting like an unhinged asshole would get you booted from your bowling league and there goes your main social outlet, so even the crazies mostly knew enough to keep it together for a few hours each week. No such consequence exists anymore.
 
The irony is I’ve found the same disregard folks have on the internet for spouting off nonsense seems to have waned in the face to face world. Sure some of that has to do with pre-existing relationships and probably confrontation avoidance but perhaps some of this would self-correct if we did a better job excluding from our social groups folks who are constantly saying intentionally dumb/provocative shit.

Or maybe this just creates more bubbles but I have no inclination to spend time with or passively endorse people throwing out right wing conspiracies, anti-vax, and/or vast “deep state” garbage
 
I can’t read the article but I assume Brooks is discussing why Americans of similar backgrounds are mean to each other or perhaps why are people are mean to him, a wealthy older white man with stature in society. Because some Americans have always been very mean and cruel to the rest of us.
 
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