Nicely done, Anchoress.
Pappy, you are missing the point. The point is to find one good thing, about someone you disagree with, that is *true* — and admit that truth — in order to keep from falling into the trap of dehumaninzing those with whom with disagree. I agree with you that it is upsetting when a dumbass is in a position of power, but that’s a separate point.
Boris, I thing you’re wrong about the Internet making things worse, although of course we could all find examples of the specifics you site (such as people saying things you can’t imagine they would say face-to-face). But people frequently became hardened in their opinions before the advent of the Internet! You can use the Internet to harden your opinions more quickly, but you can also use it to expand your horizons. I see a lot of evidence that many people are doing that. I myself have changed my mind about some things based on my Internet reading, and I frequently find that I didn’t know as much as I thought I did, or was wrong about something, etc. To cite just one example, I was raised without religion and had some biases I didn’t even realize; now I regularly read The Anchoress and a few other religious thinkers and am very grateful for these resources.
I think the Internet provides a wonderful opportunity for us to learn or re-learn how to carry on a civil, respectful dialog. I see signs of this everywhere–this essay of Elizabeth’s, for example, has very wise things to say about the essence of civil dialog (respect for others, even those we dislike). I see some great dialogs conducted on various blogs. Sure, there’s lots of yelling, but there is also a whole lot of very respectful, considered discussion. The latter can win out if we practice it. One of my favorite blogs is Shrinkwrapped, where the comments section can get pretty wild and crazy. Shrink almost never deletes a comment, and he rarely jumps into the dicussion. Usually we sort it out among ourselves. There was one fascinating incident when someone left a really inappropriate comment and when enough of us made it clear that we thought so, mostly through showing our support of the post (which happened to be a guest post), the offender actually came back and apologized! I considered that a great day for the Internet.
