[apzziyua] Uncivil speech

The problem with uncivil speech, incendiary rhetoric, lies not with the speakers but the listeners.

The speakers speak it because it currently works: appealing to emotion is currently an effective way to persuade large segments of the population (even if your argument is wrong).

But it shouldn't be.  When you hear such speech, and it elicits an emotional response in you, you should recognize it as such, and think to yourself, "It may be true, it may be false, but I cannot evaluate it because my biological emotional response has overwhelmed my rational thought.  It had might as well be gibberish."  Then, as you recognize certain speakers are are always speaking "gibberish", you can learn to ignore them, unless you are knowingly listening to it purely for the entertainment of the emotional response, like a ride in an amusement park (Obama and Rev. Wright).

It takes effort and practice to recognize yourself being psychologically emotionally manipulated.  And humility to admit to yourself that your mental faculties have been reduced.  Yes, they have, even if you don't think so: that's why the appeal to emotion works.  So often you hear an appeal to emotion disguised as fact.  This training ought to be part of education.

It's sad that appeals to emotion currently work better than rational arguments, dispassionate debate in search of facts.  Fear and anger dominate the discourse today.

Of course, freedom of speech for speakers should never be curtailed.  Therefore, freedom of speech is a two way street. It requires responsible listeners as the counterparty to the free speakers.

Inspired of course by Sarah Palin and Gabrielle Giffords, though the other side won a Presidential campaign based on hope (false hope?), also an appeal to emotion.