THE UGLINESS COMES FROM BOTH EXTREMES

I looked around the crowded room and knew there was no way everyone was going to agree with what I had to say.

In fact, a few of them told me so before I even stepped up to the lectern.

“Sometimes you make me mad,” one woman said. The man behind her nodded his head.

Not one of them was under sixty. A good number of them were probably over seventy. Some of them, I was sure, would disagree with me on abortion or gay rights. Others might argue with me about Wal-Mart or the war in Iraq. Chances are we wouldn’t even agree on who should be allowed to vote.

We knew what we were getting into, but we agreed to come together anyway on a rainy afternoon in May because we also knew we’d find plenty of the common ground you stumble on whenever you go looking for reasons to like another human being.

Anyone taking a stand is someone willing to care, and it was our mutual interest in the state of the world that carried the day. We didn’t part in total agreement, but we didn’t leave screaming either, and that was a nice break from the vitriol that is so pervasive these days.

The path to common ground isn’t that long of a hike, but lately it sure seems to be sprouting a lot more weeds. So many detours, to the left and to the right, where lines are drawn and paths never cross.

I used to blame the far right for most of the decline in public discourse. Not long after I started writing a column, I discovered they could be a mean, ugly bunch.

The hate mail was fast and furious, often clearly organized and frequently personal, or as personal as you can get when you’ve never met the person on the receiving end of your malice. They were especially keen on attacking my appearance, my faith, and my children. When it came to spewing venom, the far right could spit for miles.

Lately, though, I must admit the far left can be just as mean and ugly. I learned that firsthand after writing about a young wife who was worried about her husband, an Army Reserve captain stationed in Afghanistan during the recent riots there. She was angry at Newsweek for any role it may have played in sparking the riots after publishing a story it later retracted, and she wanted journalists to please be careful with their facts.

I spent the next two days weeding through mostly anonymous calls and e-mail accusing me of selling out to the Bush administration. In a heartbreaking moment of clarity, I had to admit these messages were just as awful as the ones I often get from the right.

I was a moron for focusing on the suffering of one military wife instead of the massive casualties of war. I was an idiot for not stating the obvious, that it is this awful war, and not Newsweek, that has damaged the U.S. image abroad.

Where was my heart? My conscience? My soul?

It didn’t matter that I opposed this war from the beginning. It didn’t matter how often in the past I’ve championed so many of the causes dear to the left, either. What mattered was that, on that day, in that particular column, I didn’t say what they wanted me to say.

Lost was the message that this young wife’s anguish was a human face on the pain shared by so many who grab for the nearest railing every time bad news from the war reaches home. Lost, too, was my belief that liberals are always a kinder, gentler folk.

People yell when they feel they aren’t being heard. But if righteous rage is our only tongue, our reach never stretches beyond our own small tribe. Think back to the last time someone’s screaming and name-calling inspired you to listen.

That’d be a big, fat never, I suspect.

Are we meaner than we used to be? Or do we simply have more outlets for the unnamed rage we used to just take out on the kids and the family dog?

The anonymity of voice mail and e-mail now allows us to live in absentia, like bomber pilots who never see the shells land or feel the flames rise.

We need that crowded room, where little by little, we soften in the listening.

And little by little, the flames die down.