Separate Spheres

The internet gives Joe Schmoe, sitting in his living room in Peoria, IL, the ability to have a conversation with Jane Doe, surfing on her blackberry in Miami, FL. They, along with John Q. Public, John Doe, Tom, Dick, and Harry, can gather to discuss politics, hobbies, celebrity gossip, sports, whatever. The town meeting is dead, but these online virtual communities allow the sharing of ideas and opinions. Technology rejuvenates democracy.

Of course, as we all know, the internet is just as likely to polarize as it is to unite. Though some people enjoy flamewars, most like to remain among likeminded types and get really pissed when someone introduces a topic of real contention. The idea is to keep the various spheres of life separate to maximize agreement and minimize disruption.

I see this most of the time on sports sites; a post that slams Bush quickly earns a pro-Bush rebuke, followed by whiny calls to "take this somewhere else" and to "stop injecting politics."

Apparently, the desire for homogeneity goes the other way as well.

After St. Louis won the world series, Josh Marshall posted a seemingly benign congratulations ("How 'bout them Cards") on his site devoted to progressive politics. Soon enough the critics came out:

Update: We have some sour Tigers fans out there. From a TPM reader:

I don't want to hear about the Cards or any other baseball team on TPM. Let's keep the topics related to politics and skip your sports boosterism. It's annoying and guaranteed to bother all the Tiger fans, like me. I'll tune into a sports website for stuff like this. Thanks.