They are affected by physical proximity, eye contact, body language,
tone of voice, even smell.
They lack the courage to be hostile to strangers who may possibly
retaliate with physical force.
Deeply entrenched socialisation and group norms operate mostly
on the inter-personal, face-to-face level.
These controls are so strong that people are quite unable to
dehumanise others when face to face. See Andrew Kimbrall's 2000
Schumacher lecture [1] (in particular the story of the pilot shot down
in Vietnam).
Mass communications technology really requires we relearn our entire
stack of socialisation skills using different signals and different
brain faculties. Nobody is taught that. Nobody today has time for
that.
There's a few reasons:
These controls are so strong that people are quite unable to dehumanise others when face to face. See Andrew Kimbrall's 2000 Schumacher lecture [1] (in particular the story of the pilot shot down in Vietnam).Mass communications technology really requires we relearn our entire stack of socialisation skills using different signals and different brain faculties. Nobody is taught that. Nobody today has time for that.
[1] https://archive.org/details/cold_evil_kimbrell