Screen-centric world puts civility in peril
We need wise discourse about the issues facing our province, city and country
While most of the jobs I took on in the early ’80s to fund my post-secondary education (including the requisite rugby pants, mullet haircuts and happy hours) were precarious to say the least, they gave me great experience for the roles I’ve been called to as a full-fledged adult.
Take the summer I carted around an Adidas bag full of canned fruit, by bus and by bike, door to door, asking people to participate in our taste test between no-name peaches or tomatoes and a brand-name equivalent.
I’d often be invited into the homes of complete strangers to use the facilities and get some water (from the tap) before I ventured on to the next door.
If I made a return visit to complete the final survey, I’d be offered coffee and cookies (or a beer on a good day) and we’d reminisce about this ’n’ that like we were old friends.
Like so many others who volunteered in the recent election across the province, I had the opportunity of going door to door once again, meeting tens of thousands of people where they live.
The reception was a little different than that London summer 35 years ago.
Now to be fair, I didn’t have the advantage of offering unmarked tins of canned fruit as an icebreaker. However, I was offering the opportunity to have a minute or two of civil discourse on provincial politics. This was often not a welcome product.
Shannon Vallor is a philosophy professor on ethics and technology and author of “Technology and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting.” Of the 12 classic virtues she identifies, she sees civility as the virtue in greatest peril and technology isn’t necessarily helping.
Vallor says democracy requires civic virtue, that is, “the sincere disposition to live well with one’s fellow citizens” and “the will to collectively and wisely deliberate about important issues and challenges the human family faces.”
Perhaps knocking on doors at election time isn’t the best opportunity for wise deliberation about important issues facing the human family, particularly with the recent trilogy of hydro, homophobia and hate dominating the conversations.
So is technology helping us to further civility? While social media, particularly Twitter, are very effective at creating moral outrage, they are not tools that help people wisely deliberate or find common ground.
Vallor encourages us to increase our technological virtues with a little mindfulness. Thinking about our overall goals in life and asking if each of our screen encounters has impacted those goals positively or negatively is helpful.
For example, most of us say we want lives that are less stressful. After the next encounter you have with your screen, ask yourself, “Do I feel more stressed or more relaxed?”
If the answer is more stressed, Vallor poses this followup: “Is there anything that compensates for this hour spent online and the stress this has left me with?”
In a week since I started asking myself that question I have already made changes that have made my technological use more aligned with my personal values or goals. I’m posting more flowers on Facebook than commenting on Twitter.
Instead of grabbing for my phone, I pick up my pen and paper and start to write about the great encounters I had at the doors.
For every person who ripped up cards in our faces or swore about women in leadership, there was someone who excitedly called for their partner, husband or wife because “the writer from the Spec is at the door!”
There were hundreds of cats and dogs to meet and so many garden perennials to discuss. We were even invited in for tea at the home of a newly-settled Syrian family.
As we settle into a new summer, may it be filled with more time for wise and civil deliberation on the important issues facing our community and our province in the days ahead.