i post a lot of music criticism; some of it is downright ruthless, because i have absurdly high standards. but, i'm criticizing an art form. in turn, i get a lot of hateful reactions. something i'll run into fairly regularly is that i'll post a page length critique of something, and get fifty dumb one-liner responses telling me to impale myself on something. you won't see many of them, because i have a zero tolerance policy on it and delete them on contact, but it's a routine that i need to delete twenty insults when i wake up every morning.
am i being a hypocrite? no. because i'm criticizing a form, not insulting a person. there's a tremendous difference. it doesn't often come off obviously due to the way people express themselves. but, notwithstanding the low level of discourse in the comments sections online, it remains true that "your music is dumb" is not the same thing as "you're dumb".
here's the thing: if you're going to put yourself out there (whether in the form of creating something or reacting to it), you have to expect some criticism. that criticism is fundamental to an open society and inherent in the artform itself; the simple, blunt reality is that it doesn't fucking matter if you like it or not, you've just gotta bloody deal with it. but, it's reasonable to expect that that criticism is grounded in something that's being presented for some sort of interaction and consumption, rather than something irrelevant.
so, the way i see it is that there's really not a need for people to be less mean - you have no right to tell people not to react to something you post. what there is is a need for people to be more relevant in their reactions, and more focused in their criticisms. this ultimately reduces to a failure of the public education system, which needs to be addressed at it's systemic cause, not flailed against with internet slacktivism.
social criticism is itself an artform, when done at a high level of discourse and emotional investment. it can take on the role of being an essayist, the role of performance art, the role of the comedian, the role of the social activist or the role of a punk or folk musician to name a few approaches. the comments section opens up new opportunities to fill this role. and, yes, sometimes it can be downright mean. brutally so. it can ruin people. but, this helps us come face to face with our errors and move forwards. we don't correct ourselves by getting together in these circle jerks and ignoring the outside world. this is the error of modern activism, the dominant reason it is so useless. we have to be constantly challenging our assumptions and biases, and we have to remove ourselves from our mental shelters and barriers in order to be constantly tearing down those preconceptions and assumptions.
but, yeah - i could do with a few less responses along the lines of "u r gay, die homo".
so, i think that if we follow too many rules we'll be putting ourselves on the path to a stagnant society. it's one of the main criticisms that the punk generation had of the hippie generation - that if we end up stuck in this fake huxleyan dystopia, we'll just be floating towards our demise. if you're going to throw a lot of hippie bullshit around, i'm going to have little choice but to throw molotovs at you to wake you up a little.
most of the time, when somebody insults you it's because you deserve it. let's get that point down. getting offended by an insult is consequently kind of the retarded way to react to it - and i mean that literally. it's indicative of an inability to react; the reaction of an unformed mind. it's stupidity. an insult is either an entirely wrong observation and should be ignored, or it's something to learn from. the mere concept of "being offended" is just being ignorant to the concerns of others.
but, it's necessary for the insult to be articulated well to get anything out of it. i can't learn anything from "u the gay, die smell" - well, other than that i ought to block that person. that's the crux, here. we don't need less mean. we need less dumb.