Last week’s discussion of internet etiquette seems to have struck a cord with many. While some misconstrued my comments as seeking to address the topic of male-female roles (in fact, I was urging proper etiquette for everyone), there appears to be a fairly common sentiment that rudeness runs rampant on the internet. In this context, I sought to issue a call for civility of discourse while taking advantage of this wonderful new medium for dialogue.
A few months ago Albert Mohler, in a blog entitled “Blogs and the Survival of Civilization,” cited Daniel Henninger of The Wall Street Journal as saying that “the world of blogs may be filling up with people who for the previous 200 millennia of human existence kept their weird thoughts more or less to themselves.” Henninger noted that the internet seems to be filled with those who he calls “disinhibited.” He wrote,
“Disinhibited vocabulary is now the normal way people talk . . . [o]n the Web and on the street, more people than not talk like this now. . . Intense language like this used to be confined to construction sites and corner bars. Now it is normal discourse on Web sites . . . the blogosphere is also the product not of people meeting, but venting alone at a keyboard with all the uninhibited . . . thinking, suggestion and expression that this new technology seems to release.”
Mohler adds this observation of his own: “Civilization requires a certain level of trust and a set of manners that determines what is and is not acceptable speech or behavior. Right now, the blogosphere is something like a wild, wild West with no sheriff in town. There are few rules and a great deal of anarchy. Bloggers are often ‘disinhibited’ and worse.” Nevertheless, Mohler notes that the web log is “not going away anytime soon.”
When in my previous blog I talked about my love of open spaces but the need for boundaries and self-restraint—for everyone!—I was not talking about male-female relationships or roles, but about civility of discourse—“internet etiquette,” per the title of my post. We all should submit to the biblical standards for courteous, Christlike conduct, whether in the family, the church, or on the internet. Surely that’s something on which we can all agree.
Technorati Tags: internet etiquette, Kostenberger, Mohler
Very well said.
Dr. K,
Thanks for making this appeal for Christian behavior on the blogosphere. Most of what is said on blogs to other people, and Christian brothers at that, would NEVER be said face to face. The keyboard can become a coward’s shield.
Dr. Kostenberger,
I could not agree with you more. Sometimes, there seems to be assumed, total anonymity when it comes to typing on a screen.
I too have unfortunately observed a measure of utter meltown in Christ-like behavior on the internet.
I trust we may be able, by humbly displaying ourselves, what would please our Lord on cyberlogue. With that, I am…
Peter