Goldberg vs. Cole: Sign of the Times?

The Belmont Club has up a piece about the flare up between left and right and how the current spat between Goldberg and Cole represents the changing political discourse. For certain, the rhetoric has always been sharp between left and right. But the writer makes a useful assertion:

But it was the declining vigor of Marxist thought coupled with new conservative ideas that poured the most fuel on the flames. Discourse between Left and Right could only remain civil for so long as Conservatives remained meek or had no counter-pulpit. The weakening of the traditional media and the stresses caused by war have created a kind of 'play' in the system which now allow unchained weights to crash about. In that sense, there is nothing surprising about Juan Cole calling Jonah Goldberg names. One gets the feeling he has been calling people names all his professional life; and I think Mr. Goldberg can handle it. What has changed is that, with the decline of the MSM, there is nothing which prevents incivility from becoming a two-way street. And I'm not sure either the Left or the total system can contain the stress.

For the sake of our national future, I hope and pray that incivility does not become the norm. But I fear that it will. It's much easier to call people names, to mock, and to attack. But it doesn't build our nation and it distracts from the real work that needs to be done. It also separates us further and the divisions can only hurt us.