Internet can disconnect us, too

By William McKenzie

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Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner is gone from Congress, so perhaps we'll stop hearing so much about his Internet habits. But his distribution of a lewd photo and online sex talk with women other than his wife does leave behind ethical issues for the rest of us to ponder.

Jesus said to look at a woman with lust was like committing adultery. Applying that standard to the Internet, what happens online “counts” as much as what happens physically between two people.

But sexual ethics and blackmail are hardly the only ways the Internet is forcing a rethinking of ethical issues.

Social networking is, by nature, hyper-democratic. People tweet. They Facebook. They blog. In each case, the individual is supreme.

There's much to like about that democratization, especially when individuals take down unjust, tyrannical regimes. But society also is atomizing because of the Internet.

That's not all good. If the only standards are the ones we define for ourselves, we risk having no community mores. And that opens the door to social chaos.

William Lawrence, professor of American Church History at Southern Methodist University's Perkins School of Theology, seized on this point during a recent discussion of the Weiner case by Texas Faith panelists: “Precisely because these new forms of social media are so highly atomized and individualized, we run the risk that every writer and every reader is the creator of her or his own ethical standards. When that happens, social media are not managing to connect us as a society. Instead, they are managing to disconnect us from one another.

“It is not simply that new ethical standards need to be written in our age. It is also that we need to determine how to establish ethical standards that apply to more people than solely the individuals who write them.”

Absolutely. And there is no wand to wave here. Making sure that tweeting, Facebooking and blogging does not dumb down shared standards requires a renewal of an old-fashioned virtue: restraint.

The good news is that we're human beings with free will to make choices. Making the right calls on the Internet starts with thinking before we send.

Another point to consider: The Internet keeps alive our “sins” long after they are over. Cynthia Rigby, Professor of Theology at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, noted: “The limits of space once ensured that not everyone would find out, that even widespread gossip ... would eventually come up against a perimeter. The Internet scoffs at such limits.”

Just ask Weiner.

William McKenzie is an editorial columnist for The Dallas Morning News. Comments: wmck

enzie@dallasnews.com