Today's media can only make us despise one another if we let them

Matt Taibbi covered politics for Rolling Stone for a number of years; the Internet advises that he now is self-publishing his work on Substack.

I saw a chapter of Hate Inc. online (it was in my price range... free) and I thought it so good, and so important, that I actually ordered the book. (OK, so I had a gift card.)

The subtitle of the book is "Why Today's Media Makes Us Despise One Another." And so many of us do -- perhaps without wondering why we do. Didn't we always?

And the answer, of course, is "no." Throughout the course of American history there has never been a shortage of instances of vitriolic, ad hominem attacks and partisan extremism -- but there have also been many instances of persons with strongly held, opposite views who somehow remained friends. There are just a lot fewer examples of such persons in these turbulent times. (In mourning her passing, the apparently genuine friendship between the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia has been frequently cited... often with seeming astonishment.) A politician from one party could occasionally speak with an officeholder in the other party without either, or both, being denounced as quislings or traitors. Sometimes they could even meet in public.

Taibbi's book addresses how things have changed, and how the media has changed them... and us... all in the craven pursuit of clicks and bucks.

In particular, I submit that Mr. Taibbi is onto something with his 10 Rules of Hate. These are the rules; I encourage all to read the book to see his explanations:

1. There are only two ideas.
2. The two ideas are in permanent conflict.
3. Hate people, not institutions.
4. Everything is someone else's fault.
5. Nothing is everyone's fault.
6. Root, don't think.
7. No switching teams.
8. The other side is literally Hitler.
9. In the fight against Hitler, everything is permitted.
10. Feel superior.

It is difficult to imagine having a civil conversation with someone who has just called you Hitler, or who accuses you of supporting someone who behaves or acts like Hitler. And living in civil society with people who say we are Hitler or with people who we say are Hitler is pretty much unimaginable.

So this trend to extremism is flat-out dangerous. Dangerous to the future of the country, maybe even dangerous to any of us physically in the near term. Such as, for example, on November 4.

But it doesn't have to be this way. We can see how we are being manipulated. And we can refuse to play.

Naturally, I am inclined to believe that anyone reading me is not likely to live in a "silo" or "echo chamber" and has the wit to recognize how we are being played or manipulated by those who serve us "news," even if you had never before heard of the 10 Rules of Hate. You, Dear Reader, rightly disdain the open sewer that is so much of today's Facebook and Twitter -- but I'll bet you know plenty of people who are hopelessly mired in the quicksand of online hatred, fueled by manipulative media. These acquaintances of yours (perhaps persons whom you once called 'friend' in real life, or to whom you are regrettably related by blood or marriage) are probably denouncing paragons of virtue on your side, too, aren't they?

Oh... wait... maybe you might want to read this book first... before you give it to those poor, benighted idiots with whom you sometimes stoop to engage online....