I. Name Calling Hosts

A well-known radio talk show host suggests that a young woman who testified to Congress about insurance coverage for contraceptives is a “slut” and a “prostitute.”

             A TV news commentator refers to the President as a “retard.”

             A different TV commentator refers to a different President as “a rube” and “a yokel.”

            An afternoon talk show host calls a former governor “an idiot” and suggests someone should defecate into her mouth.

            Welcome to 21st Century America where rudeness, incivility, and outright nastiness are as a commonplace as gamblers in Las Vegas. Although the examples above are drawn from America’s political landscape, incivility is all too easy to find in other areas of our society. Turn on a daytime television show and you are likely to see ordinary people hurling insults, accusations, and sometimes fists at each other. Take part in an online discussion and you may find yourself ridiculed and mocked by those who disagree with you. Go for a drive and you may be the target of expletives uttered by a fellow motorist who thinks you are moving too slow.

            As a child, I received firm instruction on good manners; as a student, fair and effective communication received strong emphasis in my education from high school through graduate school. So I view the decline of civility with both regret and a sense of loss. Perhaps not coincidentally, the decline of civility has been paralleled by a paucity of persuasion, at least outside the world of commerce and sales. Few people want to take the time to persuade those who disagree with them. You seldom hear someone say, “You should change your mind to my position, and here’s why.”

            In the political realm, the decline in civility seems to have started in the 1990s and early 2000s. Incidents such as the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal, the disputed 2000 Presidential election, and the second Iraq War both polarized American voters and left many of them embittered. The recent 2016 election clearly only added fuel to the fire.

     The loss of civility among the general population is harder to figure out, but I would argue that the emergence of social media has facilitated it.  Social media – Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, on-line chats, etc. – does not lend itself to persuasion. That’s because persuasion takes time. You need to present evidence, make reasoned arguments, and explain your line of thinking, and these measures can seldom be accomplished with 140 figures or on a Facebook post.  But insults and name calling can be done quickly; the same is true of a personal attack on an individual or a sweeping generalization about a whole group. Even worse, on-line chats can be done anonymously with monikers that don’t often reveal the true identity of the people involved.  Here are some excerpts from recent online discussions over President Trump’s travel ban and his nomination of Betsy DeVos for Education Secretary:

     “Try North Korea…you should like it there.” 

     “You are a disgusting slob.”

     “Fat poor people vote.” (Explaining how Donald Trump became President.)

     “Repugs have such horrible nominees…”

     “Every Democrap Senator…should be hung.”

     “It’s the clueless woman again.”

     “Get back under your hood.”

     It’s not as if reasoned arguments couldn’t be made against the DeVos nomination. Douglas N. Harris, professor of economics at Tulane University, took aim at her advocacy of the Detroit charter school system. Writing in a New York Times op-ed, Harris noted that DeVos was partly responsible for “what even charter advocates acknowledge is the biggest school reform disaster in the country.” In the National Assessment of Educational Progress, Detroit had the lowest reading and mathematics scores “by far” over any city participating in the evaluation. She designed a system with no oversight, said Harris, and where schools that do poorly can continue to enroll students.

     In the second part of this essay, I will look more closely at the problem of overgeneralization, which is a big reason behind the incivility we see throughout society. I will also share the three principles that guide my own behavior toward others and (I hope) keep me from adding to this incivility.

II. Decline of Civility: More Proud of My Country

Michelle Obama, campaigning for her husband during his first run for the Presidency, beamed at an audience of supporters in Milwaukee. “For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country,” she told them. Some people wondered if she meant what she said. Had there been no time prior to that day when she was proud to be an American? Her conservative critics assumed the worst.

            “She was an adult when we won the Cold War without firing a shot,” noted one columnist. “She was an adult for the last 25 years of economic progress…. I don’t think the American people think on the whole that the last 25 years of American history is a narrative of despair and nothing to be proud of.” Another pundit asked, “Can it really be there has not been a moment…when she felt proud of her country?” Other critics weighed in with harsher judgments, accusing the future First Lady of being unpatriotic.

            But then Mrs. Obama received help from an unexpected source. Laura Bush, the First lady at the time and a Republican, refused to see something sinister in Mrs. Obama’s words. “I think she probably meant I’m ‘more proud,’ you know, is what she really meant,” Mrs. Bush said and went on to point out that “being the spouse of the President…everything you say is looked at and, in many cases, misconstrued.”

            Laura Bush did something that is rarely seen in political circles today; she gave Michelle Obama the benefit of the doubt and attributed good motives to her rather than negative ones.  Far more often, we see political adversaries doing the exact opposite to each other. Someone speaks against Black Lives Matter and is denounced as a racist; someone speaks in its favor and is accused of being a cop-hater. Someone advocates gun control and is accused of subverting the Second Amendment; another person opposes gun control and is accused of contributing to gun violence in the country.

            Not only do we not give our political opponents the benefit of the doubt, we assume the worst about them. We assume that if people have lifestyles or political views different from ours, they must be nasty, corrupt, arrogant, or otherwise bad human beings.  To put it another way, we overgeneralize about the behavior of people with whom we disagree.

            During the 2016 campaign, a young African-American man went to one or more Trump rallies and offered hugs to the people attending. A camera followed him as he opened his arms to men and women alike. In the video shown on The Huffington Post, the Trump supporters rejected this man’s advances; one even threatened to punch him. The same man went to a Sanders rally, again offering hugs to the people attending – and received friendly embraces from them all. The article that presented the video pointedly asked: “Do you want a world filled with love or a world with pre-judgment and hate speech?”

            The most-obvious problem here is the possibility the video was edited to omit positive behavior by Trump supporters or negative behavior from Bernie Sanders’ fans. Indeed, in the article, the man admits he received warm welcomes from some people at the Trump rally, but the video left them out. A bigger problem is the answer begged by the article’s question. Based on a handful of examples, we are asked to conclude that Trump supporters are filled with prejudice and hate. It isn’t just a matter of them having uninformed opinions or poor judgment. They must be reviled as malicious, bigoted individuals who seek to harm people different than themselves.

            Coincidently, as animosity in the 2016 campaign increased, a man in the high-profile world of professional sports found himself attacked for a controversial decision. Colin Kaepernick, quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, refused to stand for the national anthem at an August pre-season game and stated he wouldn’t be standing during regular season games either. “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” he said in an interview. “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way.”

            While some supported Kaepernick’s right to remain seated during the national anthem, many others attacked his character. He’s a “whiny, indulgent, attention-seeking crybaby,” declared one critic while another denounced him as an “uneducated idiot.” Even those who begrudgingly acknowledged his right to protest assailed him for ingratitude. A New York Times letter-to-the-editor writer identified Kaepernick as one of numerous celebrities and pro athletes “who do nothing to improve conditions, putting down the country that has given them the opportunity to get to where they are.”

            Like The Huffington Post article about Trump supporters’ hostility to the “hugger,” Kaepernick’s critics want me to overgeneralize; they want me to believe the man is stupid, ignorant, and ungrateful based on one decision he made on one issue. By the way, although the quarterback’s no-stand decision apparently stemmed from recent events, it might also have tied into Emmet Till’s murder, Jim Crow laws, lynchings of helpless African Americans, and other tragedies that are a sad part of America’s racial history.

            I would like to conclude this essay with some sound advice on how to reverse the types of behavior discussed in the previous paragraphs, but the best I can do is cite the three guiding principles that guide my own behavior toward others.

• I never make a public statement without signing my name to it or otherwise identifying myself as the author.
• I try to treat others as I would like them to treat me.
• Unless the person is a close friend or family member, I don’t presume to know the motivations behind his or her behavior.

            These principles have served me well. They may do likewise for you.