In the United States of America, we have a participatory form of government, meaning that citizens have a voice in making our laws and policies. Ours is a representative form of democracy on a national, state, and local level called a federal republic. Any form of citizen self-government requires open discussion of issues, citizen to citizen, citizen to representative, and representative to representative.
These discussions may or may not cause people to change their positions on issues, but they can provide a deeper understanding of those issues from differing perspectives. If successful, there is at least an understanding of how and why others’ opinions may differ from mine.
To make laws, regulations, or policies, there needs to be productive debate, compromise, and even collaboration among legislators. This may sound easy enough, but the issues for which laws are made can be difficult and complex. They usually require negotiating the rights of various people. These can be things like immigration, abortion, gun ownership, pandemic regulations, taxation, and social programs. These are issues for which many citizens have deep concerns and opinions because they are, or feel they may be, directly affected by laws governing them.
To have a productive discussion, there needs to be a sense of equality and even unity. We can start with what we have in common. We both care about a problem, even if we have different opinions about how to solve it.
We’re both citizens of this country and want what’s best for the country. We respect each other; therefore, we want to know more about each other’s perspectives. We will learn things from each other and possibly find ways to compromise so we each get perhaps most of what we want. Whether we get what we want or not, we’ll continue to respect each other and our right to our own opinions. In a word, this is civility.
Civility is powerful. It’s not just being polite. It’s finding ways to connect with other people. It’s understanding other people have something of value to say, even if I don’t agree with it. I’ll consider what they have to say because I expect they’ll consider what I have to say. Civility is not easy, especially if one is passionate about the issues being discussed. It’s much easier to dismiss opinions different from our own, but that behavior can deadlock a discussion, a community, a state, and a country. We owe it to ourselves and future generations to listen to each other and to do the hard work of self-government.
Can you imagine how engaging, enlightening, and productive a town hall meeting, a school board meeting, or a debate in Congress would be if everyone were civil? I think our founders did.
Our founders set our democratic experiment in motion in the Constitutional Convention of 1787. It seems we’re failing to achieve their aspirations. We have two major political parties that, along with the news media, social media companies, and ourselves, have turned the important business of self-rule into sports entertainment.
Each of the political parties has developed opposing extreme platforms, with no desire to compromise, collaborate, or solve problems. The parties only endorse and fund candidates who adopt their platforms. The parties aren’t interested in helping candidates find ways to solve problems for the country. They’re interested in attracting donors and voters to their ideologies.
The news media are funded by advertising, and advertising is supported by viewership. To attract viewers, the news media sensationalize everything, including the important business of running our country. They use headlines and short clips taken out of context to get our attention 24 hours a day, regardless of the newsworthiness of their reporting.
The news media have abandoned objective reporting, by choice. To attract and retain an audience, the various news media outlets have divided up the American people by political ideology. So now, rather than getting unbiased news with which to form your own opinion, you must decide through which of the ideological lenses you want to receive the news.
Social media companies are also funded by advertising, but they’re even more culpable than the traditional news outlets. The traditional media attempt to adhere to some form of truth and integrity, even if biased. Social media companies provide a platform to allow anyone to report anything they want, regardless of truthfulness. Worse yet, these companies have developed algorithms that — based on what one posts and reads — recommend similar content and subscribers. The result is worldwide echo chambers in which like-minded people reinforce their own opinions, regardless of truth.
There is also sinister misuse of social media by foreign actors to destabilize our country. By representing themselves as US citizens concerned about the well-being of our country, they post false content with the specific intent to undermine our government and cause hysteria.
Lastly, there are the American people (including members of Congress) who accept all this sensationalized, biased, and false information without questioning its validity and react without civility. We call each other names. We vilify anyone with a different opinion. We attack and retreat into our self-selected echo chambers to rearm ourselves for the next attack.
Where I live in northeastern Connecticut, there is a crumbling foundation problem. The foundations of a significant portion of the single-family homes, condominiums, and apartments built in the early 1980s are falling apart. Some of these structures are literally caving in on themselves. A particular quarry from which stone was used to make concrete contained a mineral called pyrrhotite. When pyrrhotite is exposed to oxygen and water, it reacts with the other minerals in concrete. After 20 to 30 years, the concrete disintegrates. The only fix to save the structure is to lift the building off its foundation, remove the old concrete, and install a new concrete foundation.
Our lack of civility is pyrrhotite to our country. Ben Franklin probably couldn’t have imagined social media or maybe even pyrrhotite in concrete, but I believe it was our potential lack of civility to which he was referring when he said, “You have a republic, if you can keep it.”
Let’s go about keeping it. The only fix to save our country is to reinstall civility in our foundation.
Warm welcome to BizCat Donald
Multiplied thanks to Dennis and the BizCat team for enlarging the think tent & Friendship Bench
I read your thoughtful article and the comments.
It seems one thing never changes:
Jesus explained in Matthew 13 the dilemma about people
“Though seeing, they do not see;
though hearing, they do not hear or understand.”
I spent 10 years in the wilderness.
The Lord taught me many simple truths during my time of captivity .. here is one
Physical problems require physical cures
Spiritual problems require spiritual cures
In truth the root of the problems multiplying around us is spiritual
Heart-attitude is a compass in life.
How often do people stop to consider that the condition of their heart affects their ability to see & hear?
The Lord himself pointed out how vital to LIFE is the condition of the heart.
The heart of the matter IS the matter of the heart”
https://us.bebee.com/producer/the-heart-of-the-matter-is-the-matter-of-the-heart
Changing the human heart is what transforms. People & cultures.
That transformation begins with the rebirth of the spirit
You say:
“We’re both citizens of this country and want what’s best for the country. We respect each other
My Hemingway response;~)
“Isn’t it pretty to think so”
By my observation there is great disregard for “what’s best for our country”
There is a great lack of “respect” or civility
You say rightly:
Each of the political parties has developed opposing extreme platforms, with no desire to compromise, collaborate, or solve problems
This posture reflects the heart-attitude of “We the People”
A spiritual truth .. the spiritual root
The Separator .. separates
.. separates people from God
.. separates people from each other
.. separates people from knowing their true identity
How precious is Truth
How precious is Wisdom
“Half a truth is often a great lie.” – Benjamin Franklin
The world is drowning in half-truths
Thank you for the comment Jim. I agree it is a significant challenge to get people to engage in productive conversation, but it seems to be our only reasonable course of action.
“We’re both citizens of this country and want what’s best for the country. We respect each other; therefore, we want to know more about each other’s perspectives.” This seems to be the premise for the civility you hope will be the end product. I’m Canadian and an outsider, but very interested observer of the American landscape but from what I have observed, I have very little faith in this actually coming about. The divide between Democrats and Republicans is massive. I believe that almost every Democrat would agree that this is the good way forward. But by the same token, I think that you will be lucky to find even 10% of Republicans who are willing to sit down and have a productive, non-partisan conversation about the future. I maintain that these people have been fed enough hatespeak, especially over the past 6 years, that their minds are pretty much closed. I applaud the modus operandi you are proposing and wish all my American friends a lot of luck going forward. But the closed-minded segment of the population, I fear, is nothing more than an albatross around the neck of progress and true democracy. That is not to say it can’t happen. America has proven time and again that almost anything is possible.
Thank you for the comment Ken. I agree it is an uphill struggle, but it seems the only option is to do my best to be civil and to encourage others to do the same.
Thank you for your comment and recommendation Danny. I will check it out. I usually find historical perspectives reassuring, because my assumption is that our situation is worse than it has ever been, and then I learn that things have been worse, and we have persevered.
You are “spot on” Don in your observation. I highly recommend “The Dying Citizen” by Vitor David Hansen who does an in depth analysis of our society from a historical perspective to our present time.
Well, Don, that pretty much sums up our mess. Of course, the ultimate question is how do we fix it? Can one person do it? No, cetainly not. True, if there are enough people to be “the one person” then perhaps progress could be made. The problem with that is getting enough people willing to bang their heads against all the stone-walled opinions and hidden agendas and ulterior motives that have to be delt with. I see that as a dubious likelihood.