The Sooner, The Better | #Hoping for real dialogue

“Dr.Laura:don’t retreat...reload! (Steps aside bc her 1st Amend.rights ceased 2exist thx 2activists trying 2silence“isn’t American,not fair”),” tweeted @SarahPalinUSA.

Say what?

First, a little background: Dr. Laura Schlessinger had just resigned from her radio show following her repeated use of the “N-word” while advising a black caller. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin chimed in to rally her camp with some Orwellian Newspeak.

But beyond Dr. Laura’s drama, I was disturbed by the medium used by Palin and many others to tackle sensitive political issues: Twitter.

Over the past several years, tens of millions have taken to the social website. Discussing everything from Jay-Z to Jersey Shore, communities have erupted through “hashtag” labeling, lists and like-minded “followers.” “Retweets” perpetuate popular ideas and “replies” foster fast-paced discussion. Discussion on Twitter, unlike on Facebook and MySpace, is limited to 140-character posts — making each post’s conciseness an art form.

Most of the time, Snooki and Justin Bieber innocently dominate the discussion. Topics like #thingsthatscareme can elicit some laughs, probably in combination with either celebrity just mentioned. But as it does in any medium, politics is also staking a claim.

And that’s the problem: Twitter’s rules of engagement oversimplify our political discourse.

In the Age of Obama, a politician’s technological aptitude is often associated with his or her forwardness of thought. The more internet-savvy candidates are, the more democratic they are perceived to be. Twitter has attracted thousands of politicians, party leaders and politically active citizens. The platform is opening new doors as an organizational utility and won’t be disappearing anytime soon.

But when it comes to dialogue on challenging and complicated issues, Twitter falls flat. As Palin’s tweet shows, there’s just no substitute for, well, a complete thought.

In his 1985 book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, former New York University professor Neil Postman writes that “a major new medium changes the structure of discourse.” Postman asserts that 24-hour cable news has poisoned politics by rewarding symmetrical, shouting faces over rational written thought. Five minutes of watching any cable news channel is enough to prove Postman right.

The shift to Twitter wouldn’t bother me so much if news outlets hadn’t started viewing tweets as significant opinions. But alas, Palin’s comment was plastered on CNN and Fox News — a glaring reminder that we’re incapable of having a meaningful discussion on race, the economy, health-care or anything else.

We really cannot blame Twitter though. We tumbled down this rabbit hole a long time ago. Twitter is merely the visual version of the well-known sound-bite, but that doesn’t mean we don’t deserve better.

In Pennsylvania, nearly every candidate on the ballot in the November 2nd general election has embraced tweeting. Former Rep. Pat Toomey and Rep. Joe Sestak are fighting each other on Twitter for the U.S. Senate seat. Fortunately, however, those two have also held reasoned policy discussions over beers.

In the suburbs, Congressional candidates Bryan Lentz, Pat Meehan, Patrick Murphy and Mike Fitzpatrick (or at least their young staffers) are posting their opinions into those tiny boxes — pushing issues into simplicity, as if a reasoned debate on the “9/11 mosque” in New York City can be condensed into a single sentence.

“We do not measure a culture by its output of undisguised trivialities,” Postman wrote, “but by what it claims as significant.” Again, Twitter isn’t the real problem: it is our culture’s obsession with bold, concise statements posing as real dialogue.

As freshmen register to vote and the usual campus suspects rally their volunteers, we should remember to ask: what are the next 140 characters of a candidate’s argument? And the 140 after that?

In college, we have come to demand strong intellectual standards from our peers, professors and politicians. We should not abandon that expectation the second our fingers hit the keyboard. Here’s #hoping.

Colin Kavanaugh is a College senior from Tulsa, Okla. He is a former regional director of Students for Specter. His e-mail address is kavanaugh@theDP.com. The Sooner, The Better appears on Mondays.

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