my lesson in civility

When your grandparents and great grandparents participated in the great wars, you always try and appreciate the fruits of their efforts growing up. Freedom, civilization as well as life as you know it all end up being credited to the "greatest" generation. Gifts from our grandparents generation are certainly valuable but are they always appreciable? For me, I think I probably don't appreciate my freedom as much as I should or even really understand my life, however civility and civilization were both concepts I thought I had down. I’m writing this at a time when many people feel frustrated that our grandparents efforts are being undone. It is my assessment that the meaning of civilization is being forgotten and that it’s not too late to restore its practice. Buildings, roads and hospitals stand readily appreciable at all times as testaments to it. Such buildings are not things I can see myself making alone and thus I always credited to society at large. It was this society that had once been protected by our grandparents, against all things tyrannical and unconscionable, right? Material stalwarts like tall buildings are truly the fruits of our civilization, but are their dysfunctions an abject part of it also? Buildings are impractical forms of habitation due to cost and availability. Poorly designed roads are neglected over years and hospitals prescribe Remdesivir™! Did we fail? Are we not good enough? What went wrong? There are some seemingly obvious answers such as, civilization at large was only ever a work in progress , or, we grew soft and let it all go to shit , or, we are seeing growth pains. I argue the first answer is by far the most true. Our institutions didn’t fail when it came to teaching me basic history, the value of democracy and its Greek origins, specifically how conflict resolution through dialogue is the fundamental building block of civilization - was drilled into me by multiple grade-school teachers (good teachers are the luck of the draw). Dialogue IS important but what good has it been? Even Plato would have trouble explaining to the institutionalized that masks and lockdowns are worse than useless. I’m sure those ancient great Greek philosophers would have been thrown off the scent of the Age of Enlightenment entirely had they tried escaping a vax mandate. It is through one such breakdown in communication that I started to wonder exactly what the problem is. The following is an exchange on an internet board that actually happened and is one example of very many; User1: “Sad omicron is not deadly to depopulate earth” Me: “ the vaccines probably are or pfizer wouldn't ask for 50 years to release clinical trial data; https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/wait-what-fda-wants-55-years-process-foia-request-over-vaccine-data-2021-11-18/ User2: “You're reading comprehension is terrible but your stupidity is through the roof. The reason it will take so long to go over 329000 pages with this not being the only one requested. "But the FDA can’t simply turn the documents over wholesale. The records must be reviewed to redact “confidential business and trade secret information of Pfizer or BioNTech and personal privacy information of patients who participated in clinical trials,” "The FDA proposes releasing 500 pages per month on a rolling basis, noting that the branch that would handle the review has only 10 employees and is currently processing about 400 other FOIA requests." Stop with your conspiracy BS and get checked for mental illness. Me: “:) my friend this is Reuters a major news outlet telling you a clinical trial that took less than 6 months will take over 50 years to have it's documentation processed, will you wake up and smell the bullshit please already because your naivety is really embarassing” User2: “If you actually read the article and can comprehend it, then you know why they are saying it will take that long. I even pasted the paragrqphs that state why, in case you didn't read it. Are you too dumb to understand? Like i said, go get checked out. You're suffering from some undiagnosed mental illness.” Me: “ "If you actually read the article and can comprehend it" the article is incomprehensible by nature. Noone can explain why the FDA could take longer than both our lifetimes put together to catch up with FOIA requests, it does not make sense. For some context, here is an example of the FDA responding to FOIA as recently as 2018; https://www.science.org/content/article/hidden-conflicts-pharma-payments-fda-advisers-after-drug-approvals-spark-ethical” I had failed many times to ‘see the forest for the trees’ before in my life but this time I was failing to show someone else. Repeating the facts and telling this person to “smell the bullshit” did absolutely nothing to change their mind. In writing that reply I thought I was being very civil in my attempt at friendly association and massive repression of true feelings. That I had no effect was a familiar shock. Though I have had such exchanges literally thousands of times throughout the past decade trying to talk about “anti-cancer vaccines” or water fluoridation or big agriculture harms , something about this exchange in particular made me step back. It was the reputableness of the facts available from Reuters combined with how dire the situation is (or was, depending on when you’re reading this) that made me panic to think of what the problems and solutions are. Here is this will-be-Nazi of my generation, totally void of real understanding despite having all the facts available to him and carrying on determinedly with the destruction of civil society as we know it in the name of an illusary greater good. While the going is good, while my tea is sweet and the nights are undisturbed, while we can still speak to one another in a civil manner and be heard on the other side and considered - how do I get through to this person who I feel to be a complete and total fucking MORON ? Without letting him know that’s how I feel. Put emphasis on mutual association. Remove any words that hold unnecessary negative connotations. Use allegory or equivalency or whatever skill in the form of writing I can muster to talk with this person about what is happening while there still is a chance. Such is the practice of civilization. A work that has been built on since before our grandparents generation and one that will be continued.