Missing The Point

Often I will read an article or blog and then continue reading through the comments. It is stunning how often people use another’s writing to go off on their own political rant completely and totally missing the point of the original writing. Cases in point:

Two articles relating to the shooting in Aurora. The first was a factual news article relating the story as it was known then. The main point: twelve people had been killed and many more wounded. Very few of the comments dealt with sympathy, compassion or even the horror of it all. Suddenly there was this very divided rant about the availability of guns ~ from both far sides of the issue. The grieving families and friends were lost in the avalanche of gun control rage. 

The second was an op-ed piece by William Bennett in which he commended the three young men, very different types if you judged by their pictures, who put their bodies between their girl friends and gunfire. All three lost their lives with this very natural and protective gesture. The Very First comment condemned Bennett for singling out the three men and not saying anything about the women who had done the same, several for their children. And off we went into feminist/anti-feminist rhetoric of the worst kind completely ignoring the point of the article, the heroism of these three young men. Now I am an old middle- of-the-road feminist. Never burned a bra but certainly wrote, spoke out, moved and changed things where I could. And I just didn’t understand. I knew there had been heroic women in Aurora. I had read about them. Bennett chose to write about three young men. So? If he was going to write at all, he needed to choose his topic with care and brevity. Why all the anger that seemed to miss the point that three young men had died performing a noble and honorable act. 

My third article within the same week was a business article by a man who wrote very clearly that grammar matters and that he gives all prospective employees a written grammar test and if they don’t pass, they don’t get hired. His business is one where writing is at the forefront of what they do and he needs employees who write well and are meticulous about grammar as well as other things. Good for him. It’s his business and if he wants to take a hard grammatical line when hiring, it is his choice. Oh My Goodness! You would have thought he was the devil incarnate in the comments. Employers make hiring judgments all the time based on all sorts of criteria. This man just happened to put his criteria out there for us all to see. And most of the comments missed the point that grammar just might be important and took on the writer as though he had personally ruined their lives. 

I have no quarrel with a discussion of Aurora including a discussion of gun control or even of the general heroism of all people. I have no quarrel with a discussion of hiring practices including the judging of criteria that employers use and whether or not they are fair hiring practices. What I do wonder about is the Anger that seems to permeate our society right now. Anger that was turned not against the Aurora killer but against other commenters with a different view. Anger turned first against the employer but also in great part against other commenters with a different view. Are we no longer able to have civil discourse in this country? Are we so angry about everything that we have to use every opportunity to vent that anger even to the point of missing the point, sometimes the very important point, of what is being said? If that is so, I am very sorry for the state of our country.