Novojustice

Kathleen Parker, Washington Post:

“Like so many things, civility is in the perception of the beholder, but we at least can agree on a definition. Civility is courtesy in behavior and speech, otherwise known as manners. In the context of the public square, civility is manners for democracy.

Unquestionably, our manners have deteriorated since Washington’s time, increasingly so in recent years. Manners have become quaint, while behaviors once associated with rougher segments of society have become mainstream.

During my own childhood, even private cursing was rare, and the third finger was something only the crudest people used to express themselves. No one I knew ever dropped the F-bomb. The worst children heard was an occasional “hell” or “damn,” usually following an incident involving a badly aimed hammer.

Given that manners have faded in our interpersonal relations, it shouldn’t be surprising that bad habits would bleed into the public square. Add to the equation our social media, Internet access and other avenues of instant and, importantly, anonymous, communication, and the bad habits of the few become the social pathology of the many. As we further balkanize ourselves, finding comfort in virtual salons of ideological conformity, it becomes easier to dehumanize “the other” and treat them accordingly.

Whom to blame and how to fix it? It is tempting to blame “the media,” especially television, for the degradation of civility. Obviously the food-fight formula that attracts viewers to cable TV isn’t helpful, but we may protest too much. We can always change the channel, but people arguing passionately are more entertaining than solemn folks speaking in measured tones about Very Important Issues. Conflict and spectacle sell (see WWE and its distant ancestor, the Colosseum). The attraction is tied to our sporting spirit and the lure of the contest.

The clearest solution would be unacceptable to most of us. That is, the tamping down of speech. Better that incivility be revealed in the light of day than that it be forced underground, there to fester and the underlying sentiments to grow. Change — if we really want it — has to come from within, each according to his own conscience.

The most that media can do, meanwhile, is strive to be honest, accurate and fair, and reward the coarsest among us with scant attention. The greatest threat to civility isn’t the random “You lie!” outburst. More threatening to our firmament is the pandering to ignorance, the elevation of nonsense and the distribution of false information.

In the main, the Golden Rule works pretty well. Best taught in the home, it could use some burnishing.”

Relevant: UMass-Boston Forum on Political Civility and “What Happened to Civility?”