Whence our incivility?

From “out there” in our society, angry declamations — from criticism through mild hostility to seething fury — travel through the ether, over the air waves and onto the pages of our newspapers and seem finally to have reached the shock level.

I speak of some undisclosed, subsurface anger; anger without external provocation, anger that lies beneath the surface fabric woven of our everyday human interactions. This latent fury erupts like a mound of fire ants, unpredictable as to time and place; we can usually deal with it, but as often as not it will pop up again nearby.

It has been manifest for years in the popularity of people like Imus and Limbaugh, in the coarsening of our political commentary, and of course most devastatingly in incidents of random violence, from "road rage" to the "Unabomber," from the D. C. snipers to schoolyard shooters.

I have no credentials as a psychologist or sociologist, so cannot examine the American psyche with any expertise. But it doesn’t take any kind of specialist to recognize hate when it hits you in the solar plexus.

This past weekend brought considerable discussion about threats to female bloggers made by anonymous (always!) posters. From deep in my memory bank I drew a recollection from a dozen years ago: I was watching a discussion on C-Span between a very mild mannered anchor and his guests, two equally pleasant and well-mannered journalists with differing political leanings; they were discussing the convention they were covering and responding to telephoned questions and comments from viewers.

It isn’t unusual for a caller to promote one point of view or attack another, nor is excoriation of public figures unheard of. But it suddenly became personal, when a caller who began by angrily denouncing what he perceived to be the wrong political opinions of one of the guests, a woman, concluded with a suggestion that involved Jack Kevorkian. I saw her blanch slightly even as I felt a thump of fear within me: it was scary.

What is going on in America? Sure, there are bugs and glitches in the way things work, certainly there are frustrations related to any aspect of our society — there always have been and always will be, because it is a dynamic organism. But this is not France in 1789, when conditions of the ordinary citizen were so miserable as to foment revolution. These angry voices attack, but don’t lament; they are furious about something, but it’s not the condition of themselves or their brethren.

The anger is not a new phenomenon, but over the last dozen years it seems to be growing exponentially. Perhaps it has always been there, obscured by a socially acceptable outlet in gearing up for, fighting, and then coming down from all the wars and almost-wars. With no mutually agreed enemy to despise, have we simply turned it inward?

Or can it be simply that because the opportunities for venting without fear of reprisal have expanded with technology, it is only an illusion that there is more anger now?

One thing is certain: From the perversion of CB radio to the ascendancy of call-in shows, to hate groups and terrorist wannabes exchanging venom on the Internet, to the ubiquitous anonymous poster of today, the Unknown Angry American is no longer limited to a hand gesture on the highway.