Back in the days of analog modems, online chat rooms and bang path email addresses there was Godwin's Law. Even then, when only the brighter among us had internet access, online discourse degenerated and according to Godwin, ultimately ending with someone, or someone's argument, being somehow related to Nazis or Hitler. Or both.
My how times have changed.
Internet speeds are faster and technology more pervasive driving online conversations from "flame-on" to "flame-out" in the blink of an eye. And, as the Greatest Generation fades into graves and from the memory of those whose freedoms they secured the currency of "you're a Nazi" has faded with them. Godwin's Law has been replaced with the Law of Southern Discourse (LSD).
The LSD could be viewed as a derivative form of Godwin's with "Nazi" replaced by "Racist" but using the same tactic to recover from, by ending, a losing rhetorical engagement. LSD is, as everything seems to be these days, most closely associated with political issues and what is more political than matters of our public schools. This area of discourse is particularly susceptible due to historical issues around segregation and white flight, the hidden politics of what is allegedly a non-partisan government bureaucracy and the fact that parents' children are in play. Monetization of the Civil Rights Movement left society without a platform for intelligent discourse with the vacuum filled by shouting and hashtag hysterics.
The LSD differs from Godwin's largely in degree...severity of execution. LSD-ers a enormously self-righteous, entitled, immune to logic and allergic to facts. They are lightening quick to overreaction, vehement in their condemnation and severe in their demands for complete annihilation of those with whom they, often without material justification, take umbrage. They are interweb vigilantes acting as judge, jury and executioners in the virtual world, summarily, seemingly arbitrarily, executing those who meet with their displeasure.
They're like Nazis.
My how times have changed.
Internet speeds are faster and technology more pervasive driving online conversations from "flame-on" to "flame-out" in the blink of an eye. And, as the Greatest Generation fades into graves and from the memory of those whose freedoms they secured the currency of "you're a Nazi" has faded with them. Godwin's Law has been replaced with the Law of Southern Discourse (LSD).
The LSD could be viewed as a derivative form of Godwin's with "Nazi" replaced by "Racist" but using the same tactic to recover from, by ending, a losing rhetorical engagement. LSD is, as everything seems to be these days, most closely associated with political issues and what is more political than matters of our public schools. This area of discourse is particularly susceptible due to historical issues around segregation and white flight, the hidden politics of what is allegedly a non-partisan government bureaucracy and the fact that parents' children are in play. Monetization of the Civil Rights Movement left society without a platform for intelligent discourse with the vacuum filled by shouting and hashtag hysterics.
The LSD differs from Godwin's largely in degree...severity of execution. LSD-ers a enormously self-righteous, entitled, immune to logic and allergic to facts. They are lightening quick to overreaction, vehement in their condemnation and severe in their demands for complete annihilation of those with whom they, often without material justification, take umbrage. They are interweb vigilantes acting as judge, jury and executioners in the virtual world, summarily, seemingly arbitrarily, executing those who meet with their displeasure.
They're like Nazis.
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