By Tom Burke
Civil discourse isn’t. Not any more. Today, civil discourse is more akin to civil war or civil unrest than civilized dialogue.
Last week I wrote about the President’s new budget. It was not laudatory, but it was accurate. I also commented on his seeming inability to discern fact from falsehoods in his public utterances. That too was critical, but also accurate. (“You could look it up,” as Susan Sarandon said in the movie “Bull Durham.”)
Not everyone agreed. And, as it was an opinion piece (mine) other folks offered an opinion (theirs) when they disagreed.
These exchanges are healthy, enlightening and ardently encouraged. Spirited debated, in politics, philosophy, or even sports (should Russell Wilson have given the ball to Marshawn Lynch in Superbowl XLIX instead of passing for an interception and losing the game?) is the basis of intellectual growth and, in the end, clear thinking and good government (and Super Bowl victories).
Unfortunately, especially in this age of the anonymous internet, civil discourse has degenerated into name-calling, ad hominem attacks, trolling, and downright disgusting, mostly truth-free nastiness. (And yes, cable news and its ratings-driven/ad-revenue-hungry-commentators greatly fuel the fire.)
Which leads me to some of the comments I received about my last column.
In short, some folks liked it, some folks didn’t; some made me laugh out loud and some depressed me.
The one that caused the most mirth and the greatest sadness was from “Brian” (the writer’s identity is being disguised). Their first response was, “seven (7) more years, suck it up dingleberry!!!!!” To me, that didn’t leave a lot of room for a considered and heartfelt reply. So I just sucked it up.
Later, I got another missive from him (or her), “IDIOT!!! NO, YOU ARE A STUPID, ***KING IDIOT!!!!” At that I laughed so out loud my wife yelled from another room, “What’s so funny?” I read it to her and then, on reflection felt depressed.
Was Brian so angry about the past eight years or how he or she perceives America today that the ability to express an opinion in anything other than juvenile name-calling been lost?
Was Brian so distraught that facts are flying in the face of what he or she so desperately wants to believe that the angst is displaced onto someone else?
Has a constant diet of echo-chamber cable news so blinded Brian as to even consider another point of view?
Is he or she so disappointed the president has so abandoned his campaign promises and is ignoring the voters who put him in the White House that striking out against the people pointing this out is better than admitting the president’s failure?
Uncivil discourse isn’t new. Andrew Jackson was alleged to be a murder, adulterer and his wife a bigamist (she wasn’t). Rutherford Hayes’s successful presidential campaign accused Samuel Tilden of having syphilis (he didn’t). Lyndon Johnson said Barry Goldwater was going to nuke the world (he wouldn’t have). Joe McCarthy called innocent people communists and ruined their lives (he just made the stuff up). Spiro Agnew said journalists were “nattering nabobs of negativism” (a precursor to “fake news?”) and a new word was introduced into the lexicon after presidential candidate John Kerry was “swiftboated.”
There are, fortunately, milestones in American history that shine (to mix a metaphor) such as the Pamphlet Debate prior to the Revolution (1764-1776 between Thomas Paine, Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke and John Dickinson among others); the Federalist Papers (debate over the U.S. Constitution in 1787-88), the Lincoln-Douglas debates (1858); the first televised presidential debate; and the letters to the editor page right here in The Herald.
George Washington, yes, that old, dead white guy, warned America of the dangers of doctrinaire politics in his farewell address to the nation way, way back in 1797. He warned how partisanship could destroy all he’d sacrificed for when he said, “The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism.”
We seem to be in an age of Washington’s “frightful despotism,” at least in the arena of political discourse, if not actual governance. Old Georgie was a pretty smart guy and he had a lot to say that was amazingly prescient. I’ll probably write a bit more about him in the future. But for now perhaps we can all aspire to the civility he was so famous for; and yes, he was very famous for his civility, if for nothing else. You could look it up.
Tom Burke’s email address is t.burke.column@gmail.com.
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