One simple rule would greatly reduce the hostility in this polarized country of ours: Require that all social media postings be written out in longhand cursive.  

I’ve had recent experience in this medium while exchanging letters with a 90-something-year-old young lady in South Carolina. She wrote in refined cursive and it seemed crude not to answer in kind. Let me tell you, it has been a relearning experience.  

So, how would this work for defusing the fly-off-the-handle hatefulness of social media? Well, take this possible insulting reply to a Facebook post: “Go fly a kite, you moron!”  

On a keyboard, it is a matter of a few keystrokes, two or three seconds of effort and very little thought – possibly no thought at all. 

Now, give it a shot in cursive. Unless you were trained better than I was and have kept in practice, you aren’t going to get that capital “G” on the first try. At least it won’t be a capital “G” that looks like it was written by somebody who ought to be listened to. And your troubles are just starting. That small “k” that is necessary for “kite” has never looked right to me – it’s just like an undersized capital “R” wearing a rounded top hat. It’s not difficult, but it can shake your confidence and plague you with self-doubt as you move on to bigger challenges.  

That won’t take long. I defy anybody to write a lowercase, three-humped “m” that doesn’t look like a mistake, especially in a word that has a lowercase, two-humped “n,” such as “moron.” You are liable to end up calling the target of your insult a “mormon” or some word that comes out looking like “neuron.” 

An “e” and an “l” are essentially the same shape, differing only in the size of the loop and how far over it is leaning. And most people have handwriting peculiarities to deal with. If I get going too fast, my little “g’s” start to lean over and stretch out into letters that can be mistaken for “f’s.” 

It’s a lot to think about, and that’s what we’re looking for. When the writer has to carefully consider the construction of each of the letters contained in an insult, there is a chance that he or she might reconsider the insult itself and whether or not to hurl it.  

The keyboard is the equivalent of an automatic pistol. It’s liable to go off in your hand, doing serious damage that wasn’tintended and possibly injuring bystanders. Cursive is like those old muskets carried in the Revolutionary War. Before firing, the powder had to be measured out and poured in, wadding and ball tamped down, other powder poured into the firing mechanism and then a spark had to be struck. It gave the person a lot of time to think things over before he took a shot.  

To continue this metaphor, those old muskets were so inaccurate that the target might not even realize he was being shot at. There is a parallel here, too. 

Remember, there is no “erase” function with a ballpoint pen. A post that was intended to be a hateful smackdown loses a little of its thunder when it starts with three comically misshapen capital “G’s” that have been scratched over. When the message goes on to apparently say, “Go gey a rite, you neuron,” the likelihood of retaliation has been greatly reduced.  

Argument over, no hard feelings. Of course there would be no real communication, either, but from what I have seen on social media, that wouldn’t be much of a loss.