We started losing the *art* or skill of communication with the creation of the internet and social media. Suddenly missing were the nuances of expression — body language, facial expression, tone and inflection, etc. — that filled out dialogue more genuinely and authentically.
Conversation was reduced to 120-character missives, asides abbreviated down to initials, and modern-day versions of pictograms and heiroglyphs.
But know we’ve gone beyond — we’ve lost the *purpose* of communication, which is to share, better understand, and, possibly, even grow. To connect, to bring people together in understanding — to “commune."
We’ve lost discipline and skill. We throw words at each other abusively, hoping to beat different perspectives into submission or to slingshot with centrifugal force identical ones. “A war of words” is our cultural base DNA. Language formally used generally as a salve is now used as a weapon, and is by default met with resistance and defensiveness replacing tolerance and the familial “benefit of the doubt.
We’ve always been told to “use our words carefully,” but “care” seems to have been thrown out the window because of self-described “righteousness.” I think it’s a plus that people have “convictions” in regards to their thoughts and beliefs, but simple dialogue seems to only how now soldered with extreme rigidity.
Which is unfortunate because when we have great struggles and respond with, “Something’s gotta give,” chances are ever more likely today that it won’t.
— Kerry Alaric Cheeseboro