34. Basic Decency: Stuck in the Interwebz, or Just Old-Fashioned?

"You're almost as fake as your tan." My pink tee proclaims in bold white letters as I peruse the aisles at a certain home improvement store. I wear the shirt as much for its handy illustration of the difference between a contraction and a possessive pronoun as for any amusement I find in the words themselves. Admittedly, as someone with screaming Scotch-Irish blood (my skin is practically translucent) and a dogmatic devotion to 'what you see is what you get' honesty, I really do find them painfully amusing. But, somewhere between the overpriced light fixtures and the overly-expressive outlet covers, I all but bump into that girl. The one whose head-to-toe bling so exactly matches the color of her smartphone that I wonder for a moment whether she purchased two of them... and then smashed one of them with a sledge hammer so she could wear it. The one who's two sessions shy of curing into leather.

I pass her... and I cringe.

Not for fear that she'll throw down, mind you. Worst-case scenario, I can run faster in sensible shoes and pressed slacks than she can in a miniskirt and four-inch heels. No, I cringe with concern that my silly sense of humor may have offended this idle passerby, about whom I know absolutely nothing -- certainly not enough to imply that her personality is described solely by her appearance.

I'd like to think that this little jab from Jiminy Cricket's umbrella is a normal sensation, shared by everyone. But, with the proliferation of social networking and online-only interaction -- with screen-names and pixels standing in as emotionless substitutes for the responsiveness of an actual human face, capable not only of being wounded, but of showing it -- I'm not so sure.

Nothing illustrates this quite so well as the copy-n-paste status updates on sites like Facebook and Myspace (that one's still a thing, right?), where all manner of ill-advised, careless generalizations are haphazardly thrown back and forth as though members were playing Hot Potato with bigotry. Most of them fall under the category of "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Then there are the other kind. The non-starters. The "less interested in offering a topic for conversation, more interested in earning a belligerent HOORAH! from the fringes of the audience" kind. These are the insults boldly and defiantly stated in a forum where posters feel as safe as though they'd whispered the offense only in the privacy of their own minds... and detached enough that they don't care whom they hurt in the process.

Most commonly, these regurgitated statements are deeply religious, deeply political, or a measured combination of the two. No doubt you have, likely on more than one occasion, found yourself on the targeted end. Yeah... me too. And what an education I've received as a result. For one, I've learned that my secularist mentality is the source of society's every ill. That morality is a supernatural endowment, not a natural evolutionary mechanism of a social species. That my front door will be smashed in any minute now by outlaws with guns, because guns have been outlawed, and I'll deserve whatever outlaw-gunning I receive as payment for being a gun-outlaw-er. That lynching is suitable punishment for having the audacity to support the LGBT equality movement. I've also learned, to my astonishment, that I'd do well to avoid the homes of several dear friends, as they have an oh-so-hysterical habit of siccing their dogs on drug-selling illegal immigrants, flag burners, and... democrats? Not that I personally identify with a political party, but I guess anyone who doesn't sit on the far right side of the aisle is in the same anti-American category, worthy of violent ousting.

Watching friends and relatives climb on a stolen soap box to play a pre-recorded speech... counting off the "likes" as approving comments roll beneath like the credits to a really shitty movie... it's like watching a mob form.

I'm not sure when it was that we as a nation went from a melting pot, rich in culture and ideals, to a group of people collectively agreeing to opt out of diversity. From the Angry Deconstructionists of the Mindless Conservatives to the Namby Pamby Party of Bleeding Heart Liberals, like flocking to like, until we're so bemired in mundane extremism that we literally have nothing left to talk about... absent that moronic out-group of atrocious individuals on the other side of the line. Aren't they terrible? Anyone not exactly like us is a Jonah, plain and simple. And by god, we'll mutiny if they're not thrown off-ship soon.

Social media hardly shoulders the blame for the divisiveness of our generation. The reasons behind that are complex and historied. But will it be the straw that broke the camel's ability to cringe at displays of in-group morality, callousness, and contempt?

It's rare that I offer myself up to the mob in these situations. My social network is small, limited to those people with whom I have an actual affiliation, here in the really real world. I care about these people, so I've little to no desire to ruffle any feathers by taking rapid offense. But it happens. And when it does, the results are invariably the same.

"It's okay," they tell me, "Because you're part of my group."

"Sure," I respond. "But I'm also a part of that other group. You know... the one you hate with every fiber of your being."