Parker: Time to burnish the Golden Rule
Kathleen Parker is a syndicated columnist for The Washington Post.
Can civility be saved?
That's the question du jour among scholars, journalists and others who fret about such things. As a nation, we seem to want to be a more civil society, which is laudable if perhaps unlikely.
Inevitably, discussions about the current state of civility begin with acknowledging that Americans have always been a bunch of rowdies and rascals. Previous eras have made current incivility look like a (real) tea party that erupts into a food fight of crumpets and scones.
A perennial favorite was the caning administered by South Carolina Rep. Preston Brooks upon Massachusetts Sen. Charles Sumner over a disagreement about slavery and a question of honor. And, of course, there was that little episode known as the Civil War.
Are we less civil today than in the past? Not really, though thanks to the pervasiveness of media, it seems so. And, thanks to the general coarsening of the culture amid the breakdown of traditional institutions, not to mention families, decorum has suffered.
Even the imperative to improve the tone of our interactions is a constant. Sometime around age 16, George Washington transcribed a slim volume called "Rules of Civility & Decent Behaviour In Company and Conversation," which covered everything from how to spit to how to speak in public. The 58th rule reads: "Let your Conversation be without Malice or Envy, for 'tis a Sign of a Tractable and Commendable Nature: And in all Causes of Passion admit Reason to Govern."
Ahem, yes, well, tell that to a certain congressman from South Carolina. We should all write Joe "You lie!" Wilson a thank-you note for creating a contemporary standard by which to judge public expressions of incivility. We might also stamp a letter to the congresswoman from California, Maxine Waters, who recently described House Republican leaders as "demons."
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.
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 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 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 our social media and other means of instant, often 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.
The clearest solution -- tamping down speech -- would be unacceptable to most of us. Better that incivility be revealed in the light of day than be forced underground to fester while the underlying sentiments grow. Change -- if we really want it -- has to come from within, each according to his own conscience. In the main, the Golden Rule works pretty well. Best taught in the home, it could use some burnishing.
