The Internet is enabling the proliferation of a culture entirely bereft of tact.

Think of it. Online, you can be completely anonymous and almost entirely unaccountable for your actions. This kind of anonymity can be a great thing. It can encourage debate and discussion where censorship (or even persecution) would otherwise result. But it also removes the perceived necessity to act with candor when dealing with other people. In and of itself, this results in little more than a couple of anonymous Internet-goers getting each others’ panties in a bunch. But I think it’s trickling down into actual human civilization now, particularly here in the United States.

I’ve been “online” since the early 1990s. Back then, it was a different experience. Most people who had Internet access were either computer science students or professionals, which naturally contributed a sort of intellectual quality and ethical standard to a majority of dealings online. Nowadays, I rarely post on message boards or other open forums of discussion, because so many people get so easily rubbed the wrong way, and have such a hard time being civil about their disagreements. Usually I read forums, absorb information, and contribute only when I have something meaningful to say. On one board where I’ve been a member for six years, my post count is just under 2,300. It takes others just weeks to accumulate the same number, although most of what they have to say is dreck.

People start flamewars over the most ludicrous shit. In addition to the age-old PC vs. Mac wars that are still going on, you’ll have people insulting each others’ integrity over something as inane as which is the best online DVD rental service, or whether American cars are engineered by a bunch of peanut-eating chimpanzees. And then there are the people who believe their opinion is so important it deserves to be injected, in the most hostile manner possible, into every conversation imaginable. For example, the poster on our local newspaper website, who felt it necessary to refer to U.S. soldiers as “war criminals” and compare the U.S. military to the Wehrmacht — on a story about the tragic death of a U.S. soldier in a car accident on our local roads.

I can’t help but draw a parallel between the increasingly boorish online behavior of most Americans, and their increasingly boorish behavior in real-life social situations. Obviously, the existence of the Internet is not at fault, but it provides a handy medium for those who desire to shed their ethical restraints to do just that, after which they become accustomed to the practice.

Sir Isaac Newton purportedly said, “Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy.” It is an art that is sadly lost on most of modern American society.