The concept of decency came up for me in a recent article on Medium. Does Decency Matter? This specific article referenced ‘The war of “conservative” and “progressive” ideologies’.
Viewing the United States through the lens of a word like decency really made me think how decency as I grew up with is not valued in politics anymore.
What is decency? The Oxford definition: a behavior that conforms to accepted standards of morality or respectability.
Is there an accepted standard of morally or respectability in the country? Hard to say there is much the vocal left and right agree on from a moral or respectability perspective.
Does Trump (and by association Republicans) conform to the idea of decency? I am pretty confident most would say no. I would be interested to hear from MAGA supporters whether decency is important to them?
Does Biden (and by association the Democrats) conform to the idea of decency? I believe all on the left and most independents would say Biden is better than Trump. There is one issue on this that the Democrats have never really addressed. Hillary’s comment about Trump supporters being a “basket of deplorables”.
Why is the basket of deplorables comment so relevant? Because instead of just focusing on candidate Trump, that comment called Trump supporters (i.e. voters and fellow citizens) deplorables for supporting Trump. Hillary went beyond the candidate to call out Trump supporters.
Prior to that, I do not know of a presidential candidate that lowered themselves to blaming the voters. After that comment, all decency in presidential campaign seems to have been lost. Was Hillary wrong for characterizing MAGA supporters as deplorables?
What should decency look like in today’s world and specifically for the United States? In my articles, I use the term divided states instead of United States to refer to the country. Have I lost decency for calling the country the divided states instead of the United States?
I do not believe a country as culturally diverse as the divided states can ever be united. Maybe I have a very simple proof of that. Without a common culture and morality basis, there is no basis for decency. Without decency, can a government really work?
Is there an implied decency for social media? Most would agree there is not. Especially given the ability to be anonymous on social media. The debates about censoring “hate” speech gets to lost deceny.
I have a pseudonym on Medium. Why is that? I believe the lack of decency in the social media realm is a good word to describe why I publish on a pseudonym. I think of the world very pragmatically. My comments on medium reflect my pragmatic view of their article. Many Medium articles are idealistic or emotional reactions to the world. They do not have any practical suggestions how to achieve the ideal. In many cases, my comments invokes what I view are indecent comments and sometime being blocked by a reader. For the ones that block me, do you realize the comment you made right before you blocked me is gone?
I was suspended from Medium in May of 2023. According to the Trust and Safety division I violated the Medium Rules. I still need to write an article on the details of what I did and why I am back. Through the actions as a result, I got the attention of the director responsible for Trust and Safety. The director looked over all my articles and comments and could not point me to any real examples where I was not following the Medium rules. Although he did not say it, what seems clear is that I was suspended because Medium authors and subscribers reported me on responses they did not like. Medium does not have sufficient staff to review whether all the reports are valid. As a result, I got suspended by the Medium algorithm for processing reports. Is using the report feature to voice your disapproval of a comment maintaining decency? Is blocking a person maintaining decency?
Decency is an interesting way to think about the cultural issues that are dividing the country. What would it take for the country to be able to achieve a common standard of morality or respectability? Is it even realistic to believe that could happen?
