What’s Deplorable Is The Prospect This Might Catch On
The latest threat to free expression comes not from those “censors” at Wal-Mart who refuse to sell blatantly obscene compact discs, but from a cadre of good-government politicians and academics who are devising ways to combat incivility.
Today’s civility peddlers are right to point their fingers at our coarsening public culture. Americans should be ashamed - if we still know what that word means - of the rudeness, violence and profanity that ooze out of every pore of our popular culture.
But these purveyors of politeness throw all “incivility” into the same bag, lumping together outspoken politicians like Jesse Helms with abortion clinic bombers and misogynistic rap stars. They also fail to recognize that, by turning America into a patchwork of competing victim groups, modern liberalism is at the root of the collapse of civic virtue.
“What we need to do is have a civilized conversation and civilized disagreements, all with a commitment to solving problems and not winning points,” Pam Solo, the head of a group called the Institute for Civil Society, told USA Today in a recent front page story about this new social crisis.
Sounds great, but I’d like to hear her definition of civility and her plan for policing uncivil speech.
There’s no reason, of course, that a member of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals can’t have a polite chat with a hog farmer. But it’s ridiculous to believe such an encounter would resolve the animal rights issue. And it’s naive to believe that only incivility stands in the way of our solving America’s crucial problems.
Though it has an air of futility about it, the civility movement may be around for a while. It already has spawned its share of think tanks, such as the National Commission on Civic Renewal; the Penn National Commission on Society, Culture and Community; and the New Century/New Solutions Project.
These commissions probably won’t do much more than keep the fax machines humming with the latest school-marmish pronouncements about the awfulness of modern American life. But the civility mongers already have had some success influencing public debate.
Polls show a majority of Americans concerned about incivility. USA Today reports that congressmen from both major parties now attend retreats to “get to know each other better.” Groups like Common Ground bring together opponents in the abortion debate to find - well - common ground.
As much as the purveyors of civility talk about reforming our culture and rebuilding communities, they have a strange fixation on Washington politics. Yet the real work of societal reform won’t take place in the halls of Congress but in families and communities across our land.
It’s telling that Rep. Patricia Schroeder, the retiring Colorado congresswoman not known for her kid-glove treatment of political opponents, is in on the act. She will lead a $5 million program to push politicians beyond ideological skirmishes toward what is called “binary thinking.” The idea is to transcend the politics of left and right and chart a new course that eschews the so-called politics of extremism.
It is hard to miss what this unrepentant leftist is up to: using civility to shame conservatives into silence. Schroeder would replace heated, principled debate with a bipartisan consensus to promote the big-government and social-libertarian status quo.
The issue of civility also offers liberals what many cherish most: an opportunity to instruct and improve their fellow man, and to feel more civil, moderate and tolerant than the rest of us.
The civility crusaders are selective when they point to uncivil public behavior. I didn’t hear much outrage when Congressional Black Caucus member William Clay of Missouri recently called defeated black Republican congressman Gary Franks a “Negro Dr. Kevorkian, a pariah, who gleefully assists in suicidal conduct to destroy his own race.”
Compare that to the fury that Republican Dick Armey endured after he referred to avowed homosexual Rep. Barney Frank as Barney Fag.
It’s no surprise that civility emerged as a full-fledged media issue after the GOP takeover of Congress in 1994. Before then, few liberals cared about the casualties of ideological battles because they fought on the winning side.
Now we must endure their high-minded concern about politically motivated congressional investigations and the unfairness of special prosecutors. Where were these people when President Reagan was on the hot seat? Why do they now consider civil disobedience at abortion clinics to be beyond the pale of civility, while they still celebrate the halcyon days of civil rights and anti-Vietnam protests?
On a recent TV news special, reporters covered the ongoing abortion controversy in Pensacola, Fla. as a backdrop to what they described as the everyday incivility of American life. If only the pro-abortion and anti-abortion forces would put aside the vitriol, the show concluded, they would see each other’s humanity and learn to “dialogue” in a calm, constructive manner.
There’s much to be said for treating your opponents with decency. But it’s not hard to understand that abortion rights advocates benefit most from any truce in this divisive battle. Sure, put down your signs and your anger and we can talk, as long as aborting one’s child remains a cherished right.
The TV report’s most revealing moment came when an Episcopal minister on the front lines of Pensacola’s fight against incivility referred to his fundamentalist opponents as “Bubbas.” Why am I not surprised that those who preach civility the most often practice it the least?
America doesn’t need more self-appointed Speech Police to monitor debate and chill legitimate discourse. Those concerned about civility should spend their time acting more civil.
As for me, I’m still searching for the rudest way to tell the civility nannies to go jump in a lake. i
MEMO: Steven Greenhut is editorial page editor of the Lima News in Ohio.