THE COMMENT FORUM IS CLOSED OR: “You’re an idiot.” “No, you’re an idiot.” “You were an idiot first.” “You were an idiot before anybody else ever heard of idiots.” “At least I’m a trendsetter, and not a lemming, like you.” “Actually, I’m a trendsetter, and not a lemming like you.” “Ditto.” “Ditto.”

A recent article in the underground broadsheet, Civil- itty, suggests that, so adeptly has the Internet schooled its users in the finer points of intentional infliction of emotional distress, that the practice has become second nature to us now, like breathing out and breathing in. As the noted blogger and raconteur, Pygmalion Puff, put it recently, “I’ve grown accustomed to this farce.”

Hiding behind fake biographies, made-up statistics, and the spurious logic of simpletons crudely disguised as the thoughts of the profound (traits that the astute reader will recognize in a snap as the life force behind the average candidate for elective office), persons who are, in other venues, too timid to articulate with firm conviction a preference for paper or plastic, or to telegraph their recent ascension to the ranks of the self-congratulatory reusable set, assume, on-line, a persona of intellectual invincibility tinged with a condescending loutishness they would not dare display in the flesh. As we now know, anonymity breeds contempt.

In all but the rarest of instances, spelling, syntax, grammar, and cohesive thematic structure are to be sacrificed on the altar of electronic humiliation when it comes time to taking down an author or fellow reader by one or more pegs.  What matters most is tone – the more strident the better.

100 days from now, social scientists of the future, attempting to decipher how various populations of our current era treated one another,  may review the billions of on-line posts, comments, texts, tweets, and talkbacks preserved for posterity and conclude: “Well, it all depends on who you ask.”