Vitriol vs. Civility

I am weary of the wholesale vitriol that dominates the public arena today. In the past couple of years, I have gone from a person who loved nothing more than to watch CNN, Fox, and MSNBC battle it out on the air waves to one who can hardly bear to watch any one of those networks. It's not that I don't like to hear all the different sides of an issue, because I do. In fact, that's why I used to watch all three in the first place. What I don't like is the constant bickering, back-biting, and downright rudeness that now prevails.

I used to watch the Sunday news programs, Meet the Press and This Week with George Stephanopoulos (now Christiane Amanpour) religiously. Both are still a main source of political news for me, as I find them a little less objectionable than the malignant trio listed above. But oh, how I miss Tim Russert! That man knew how to fight fair and keep an argument civil.

There was a time when the folks in Washington DC could keep an argument civil as well...at least, civil enough to get something done for our country. Personal attacks via the media still occurred, but they were more the exception than the rule. Today the rule is to hit your opponent with as much garbage as you can put your hands on and see how much of it will stick. (What doesn't stick, stinks, and so do the hands of those who throw it.) A conversation about ideas should not be punctuated with pestilence.

Of course, it isn't just Washington that demonstrates the lamentable lack of civility in public discourse. All you have to do is walk through a mall, a high school, a city council meeting, or even a neighborhood. People don't know how to talk to each other anymore, and affording every individual the basic respect his humanity demands is a fading concept.

Respect for the rights of others is the cornerstone of democracy, and such respect cannot occur in a vacuum. We need to hear each other out with civility, acknowledging that those who disagree with us (no matter how strongly) are still entitled to their opinions, and that not seeing eye to eye with our political or other positions does not a character flaw make. The character flaw is all in the delivery, on either side.

As is true with most other things, it begins in the family. If we will model and teach respect for others (along with courtesy of speech and action) to our children, we have reason to hope that the snowball of civility will keep rolling. Those seeds of respect are engrained early, and planting them deeply appears to be something of a lost art. My childhood friends and I, for instance, would never have considered setting one foot on a neighbor's property without permission, nor would we have called that neighbor by his or her first name. The language we used was carefully monitored, not just by our parents, but by every adult who came into contact with us. In fact, there was a cooperative effort by adults to raise children who treated others as they would wish to be treated themselves, and it seemed to work rather well. By small and simple things are great things brought to pass (Alma 37:33), and the small and simple things we've abandoned seem to be having as great an effect in their absence as they did when we embraced them. Unfortunately, that effect is tipping us in the wrong direction, but it's never too late for an about face. The forward march will be worth it.

In the meantime, it is our responsibility to let elected officials know (with our votes, with our letters, and with our personal behavior) that we have expectations beyond their political views. If they are going to be successful in serving our nation, they must transcend their own inadequacies and put the nation's concerns first, above their own. Senators and congressmen/women must be willing and able to work with opposing factions to find solutions that will bring some degree of relief to both sides. In the final analysis, the name of a winning political game must be compromise, and it won't happen without respect. It can't, because being willing to compromise requires a belief that people who don't agree with us have rights, too...and that liberty and justice for all is not the same as liberty and justice for people who see all things our way.

Put simply, it's not my way or the highway; it's our way or the tollway. And the longer America's leaders take to recognize the inalienable rightness of that truth, the higher the toll our country will continue to pay.