So, can we have some civility now? 11 Jan 2011 Now that a lack of civil discourse has contributed to yet another act of righteous violence – and let’s not pretend that it hasn’t – it seems that we can justifiably raise the question of civility elsewhere, surely. The sort of marginalisation of those who differ is one of the factors that encouraged the assassination attempt on Rep. Giffords (and another is the elephant in the American room – allowing citizens to carry weapons for no justifiable reason in civil society, but that’s another rant). If we should not tolerate such behaviour in that arena, why should we tolerate it in any other? Why should we marginalise those who have religious beliefs if we do not think it is right to marginalise those who are atheist or agnostic? The Civility Wars will not end now, but if history teaches us anything at all, it is that without civil discourse, humans resort eventually to violence. I would think that reasonable people understand this. Rant
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I’m not sure what kind of civility is at stake. In the political case, there has been a lot of explicitly violent rhetoric. Palin’s ad with opposing politicians in cross-hairs, lots of expressions about watering the tree of liberty (in reference to Jefferson’s advocation of violent revolution from time to time), etc. Some of these are more borderline, like lists of people who are perceived as enemies — or at least bastards. I’m not sure what I think of the tone wars, but I do think there is a significant difference between calls for violence and publishing enemies lists on the one hand and calling someone names in a one-on-one debate on the other.
I agree with Jonathan. There’s a big difference between civility and violence. The USA is a much more violent society than, say, France, but the levels of political rhetoric aren’t much different. In fact, I dare say that the vocal disagreements between French politicians is much less “civil” than anything in the United States. In the aftermath of the Tuscon shooting there are calls for more civility and bipartisanship in the USA. I think this is part of the problem and not part of the long term solution. They are trying to make vocal disagreement socially unacceptable. This is exactly the opposite of what they should be doing, in my opinion. They should be promoting the idea that disagreement, even uncivil disagreement, is quite normal and even desirable. The average American citizen needs to learn to respect those who disagree with them – no matter how vocal the disagreement – and not treat them as enemies that need to be eliminated. They also need to learn that government is not evil. Prominent TV personalities who promote the idea of vast governmental conspiracies should be challenged and discredited.
I suppose Toronto is sufficiently distant from the USA that one could be excused for thinking average American citizens need “to learn to respect those who disagree with them.” But Larry needs to get out more, or learn to use terms like ‘average’ a bit more carefully. I trust he will not find this criticism disrespectful.
Calls for both the left and the right to tone down their rhetoric are predictable, useless and unfair. However pleasing symmetry may be to centrist pundits, it’s not a salient feature of American political discourse. Eliminationist rhetoric and references to violence (“Second Amendment remedies”) ought to be condemned. We have bumper stickers reading “It’s your country. Take it back”, implying that the country is in the hands of Them, not Us the real red-blooded Americans. Perhaps not everyone expressing such sentiments is racist, but certainly racists find it congenial.
No, but do it without trying to exclude fundamentalists from civil society. Do it without suggesting that they get beat up, prevented from speaking and so on. In short, use common sense and civility. Otherwise they will tend to get more and more extreme in their actions and rhetoric as they find they are unable to take part in their culture. Of course, they are hardly as isolated as, say, an atheist in the midwest, say, in Minnesota, but they are a larger and less self-reflective community, and hence more likely to lash out. I think that the best way to engage in the culture “wars” (more violent metaphor) is to discuss and continue to make your point in public. Abusing entire communities will tighten them up and make them more militant, incrementally.
Arizona Sheriff Dupnik’s comment about the level of vitriol in political discourse here has struck a chord, I think. I know that my wife and other Americans I have spoken to have noted much the same. From my perspective, while neither side is blameless, it appears that the majority of it is coming from the right. I believe it stems from an excessive entanglement of the Republican Party and right-wing evangelical Protestantism. This has led to some sections of the party becoming infected with the belief that only it has the God-given right to govern with the corollary that believing in and voting for anything else is tantamount to blasphemy and treason. The Tea Party movement has been spawned by the dissatisfaction of the party’s parochial and bucolic base with a Republican establishment which is perceived as insufficiently enthusiastic about campaigning for their presumed right to be the permanent party of government. The problem with what amounts to a crusade against a demonized enemy is that, while the vast majority will restrict themselves to verbal sniping, there will be a few who feel that this cause entitles them to reach for their guns and begin shooting for real. For this, those politicians who have jumped on this bandwagon and are urging it forward must bear some responsibility. There is a need for someone to introduce a new tone of mature, responsible and civilized discourse in to the debate but I don’t see it coming from anywhere. It should be coming from the President but I’m sorry to say, while he may be a competent administrator, he seems to lack the power to inspire and lead from the from that is so badly needed now.
*** In case you hadn’t guessed, that last line should read “inspire and lead from the front that is so badly needed now.”
Paul Krugman today: “It’s important to be clear here about the nature of our sickness. It’s not a general lack of “civility,” the favorite term of pundits who want to wish away fundamental policy disagreements. Politeness may be a virtue, but there’s a big difference between bad manners and calls, explicit or implicit, for violence; insults aren’t the same as incitement.”
Righteousness, from the English World dictionary: morally justifiable or right, esp from one’s own point of view. Here lies the essence of the trouble: if a person is absolutely certain (with no recognized possibility of doubt) that he is right, and if he has a very low capacity for understanding of accepting other points of view, then violence against “the infidels” might follow. Luckily for us, infidels, that emanation is rare.
Well, that certainly explicates the pertinent sense of the word “righteous.” I guess my understanding of it was more old-fashioned. It seems that the degraded use of the word “righteous” to mean “self-fancied as righteous” has become so widespread that it is now recognized in dictionaries. Such a slide into subjectivism has already afflicted the word “pious,” now commonly used to mean “sanctimonious”; “refute,” now commonly used to mean “deny”; and “know,” now commonly used to mean “believe that one knows” (as in “Everything that you know about X is wrong”). I think that it is unbecoming of a philosopher to abet that slide. Just as intellectual cleanliness in epistemology requires a distinction between knowing something and merely thinking that one knows it, so in ethics does it require a distinction between being righteous and merely thinking that one is so. Matters of verbal usage aside, I quite agree with your point, Omer.
Gotta wonder about the religious right. Righteous Glock handgun sales have more than doubled, since this event. I wonder if Jesus would carry a Glock or watch Fox news if he were walking on the earth today. Blessed are the peacemakers. Judge not that ye be not judged. Condemn not that ye be not condemned. Forgive that ye may be forgiven.
Blessed are the peacemakers. Sure is, pard! Ain’t no one gonna tangle with you if’n yer totin’ a hawg-leg!
Insofar as bad ideas should be marginalized and insofar as it is difficult to shield proponents of bad ideas from feeling bad about criticism of their ideas, one can’t criticize bad ideas without appearing “uncivil” without quite a bit of circumlocution. This is true of everything. Sometimes, when a biologist makes a mistake in reasoning (perhaps in unintentionally presenting a teleological hypothesis), the clearest way to correct that problem is simply to point it out, even if doing so is humiliating. (I’ve seen that happen at conferences. It seems uncivil because we are emotional animals. The actual context of the discussion was rather mundane.) Similarly, pointing out that accepting Adam & Eve, Noah’s flood, the Exodus, etc. as more truthful than Greek myths isn’t warranted isn’t exactly a rude thing to do on the merits of the argument and the evidence. But it is “uncivil” in that being forced to address such a juxtaposition strips the believer of the socially sanction usually accorded such belief. This can be humiliating or infuriating. But it is only “uncivil” if we agree that such social sanctions are reasonable. Given the conventional nature of such sanctions (and the lack of evidence for the belief systems that they support) I don’t think that such sanctions are reasonable.
Step back a bit from the immediate cause of the debate. In the Western world, particularly the USA and the UK our daily discourse has become ‘violent’. You can argue the reasons for this, but I expect there is no single cause but many interweaving threads – all the more insidious. So while it is on the face of it overblown to blame ‘violent’ video games alone, taken together with: a) adversarial legal systems b) ‘dynamic’ headlines (Cops Smash Vice Ring!!) c) emotionally dense films (‘Empire Strikes Back’ rather than ‘Empire sits down with a nice cup of tea to discuss alternatives with people who disagree with its long term astropolitical goals’ ) d) we don’t know people as neighbours like we used to, and are less likely to make allowances for their peculiarities e) the outbreak of warfare metaphors (damn, got me doing it now) f) 24 hour news which makes everything more immediate and emotionally charged… I’m sure you can add your own examples. We’re working ourselves up to a frenzy. I’m not sure how we can back away from the highly charged world we live in. It is so tempting to live on the emotional high, ‘slashing back’ at our enemies. The only thing I can think of is for all well intended people, of all beliefs/political/national persuasions to take more time before responding to their opponents, and reply with reasoned moderate language. Even if the others are shouty evil bastards. Especially if the others are shouty evil bastards. It would be a tough discipline to follow.
A number of people have already pointed out that, no, “a lack of civil discourse” as such did not contribute to the attempted assassination of Rep. Gifford. What contributed was eliminationist rhetoric, violent political imagery, delegitimation of political opponents and the government in general, the celebration of unlimited weaponry, as well as commonplace, uncorrected and unabashed fabrication. For those who do such things as routine, lack of civil discourse is merely one of a toolkit of rhetorical methods – much as Erick Erickson and Andy Breitbart, when interviewed outside their coven, are the politest, butter-mouthed young men yuh all ‘ll ever find; that too is another method. It’s explicit in most American commentation that Keith Olbermann’s jackass rants are equivalent to the Right’s Grand Guignol. That is the David Broder Hallucination, and it will do no good to be drawn into it. We should avoid too much uncivil discourse because we should avoid too much uncivil discourse, but there is no balance of incivility we may promote using niceness as a confidence building measure.
I am all in favor of civil discourse, but that had little or nothing to do with this particular assassination attempt. The perp was simply a nutcase looking for notoriety (NPR had a nice piece discussing this). A real lesson to take from this is that we need to renew the assault weapons ban – let’s at least limit clips to ten rounds. You don’t need a 30 round clip unless you are a terrorist. As someone said, how would you feel if it was your nine year old relative that got killed by the fifteenth bullet.?
Lost in all this talk about the crime in Tucson is the sad state of mental health care in the U. S., which had more to do with the tragedy than violent rhetoric and weak gun control combined. The same was true of the shootings at Virginia Tech and others of recent memory.
So Sorry All but I have to disagree with most of the premises here on a number of levels. 1st the actions of a poorly behaved individual with a genetically induced brain chemical imbalance has absolutely no relation to political discourse and posturing and everything to do with biology. 2nd Homo sapiens is inherently a violent species judging from our history, a species which lives in an inherently violent world. Get over it. 3rd ALL humans societies to date use recourse to violence as a means of individual control without exception. I fail to see how any of this reasoned discourse will do to reverse points one two and three. Thanks very much