Dialogue Is Dying

And now, theory on one of the reasons why people seem to be so disconnected in our understanding of each other these days. How ironic, in the age of the Internet, of instantaneous communication, so few are listening or understanding what is communicated to them. No doubt many of the changes in societies today account for this, but I posit that the Internet is a big one. Unlike in pre Internet days, we use this medium to get in touch with each other via many the "languages" and dialects.  That is, the diversity of the net is killing our understanding of what we are telling each other.

>From the mysterious "lol" to a treatise on the philosophy of conduct, we speak and write to each other in more forms than ordinary spoken and written communication, pre Internet. No wonder people are polarized. You write to the person, he or she reads it, and interprets it far differently than you meant it. And even if the interpretation is correct, there is always some site on the Internet to verify that your aright and the communicator is wrong. When we are challenged in our belief today, we don't consider the other opinion. Instead we search for a web site to verify our current ideology and write "See this! It, I proves that you are wrong".

Dialogue is disappearing. citing reinforcement for our belief as "proof'" is replacing the normal communicative exchange. And every theory, crazy to correct can be verified by citations from an online that agrees with the person using it. What is particularly sad is that we don't seem to know this is happening us. We are unaware that we have suspended reason, analysis, synthesis and conclusion in favor of a copy and paste that agrees with our sentiment. When people become too comfortable in their enclaves, they stagnate. The division in politics is a prime example of this.

I am hopeful that the suspension of dialogue between humans is temporary. The Internet is new and we haven't had time to think about it, much less whether it is clouding our judgments. Perhaps we are like novice skiers who need time to learn how to ski. When the novelty of Internet technology wears off , perhaps we will use the medium more prudently and positively. But in the meantime understanding and compromise will be little used here.