Rough Draft of Research Paper

A Country of Growing Incivility

            Newspapers, news programs, media, and all forms to transfer media show the growing trend in the United States for incivility. This is demonstrated in Congressmen being at each other’s throats over differences in opinion, the tragic shootings at public schools that have happened in the recent past, as well as the simple case of road rage. Incivility is found in all facets of American society and daily living, but what exactly is incivility? To understand what incivility is, it is necessary to understand what civility is. Sarah Sobieraj and Jeffrey Berry say in their article, From Incivility to Outrage: Political Discourse in Blogs, Talk Radio, and Cable News, discuss the definitions of civility and incivility, and of civility they say that, “Civility has been defined many ways, but is understood by us in this context as political argumentation characterized by speakers who present themselves as reasonable and courteous, treating even those with whom they disagree as though they and their ideas are worthy of respect.” However Sobieraj and Berry quote another source that qualifies incivility to involve, “gratuitous asides that show a lack of respect and/or frustration with the opposition,” (Sobieraj). This concept of incivility is especially true politics. The candidates name calling and mudslinging, congressmen shouting at one another, this is a catalyst for what incivility is passed on to the general public for their daily lives. Incivility in politics and incivility in America is a cyclical problem, one that feeds into the other to make incivility an increasingly noticed part of society. Now with the understanding of what incivility is defined as another question remains. When did incivility begin, what are the factors that have contributed to the decline in civility, especially in politics, and what consequences are there from that decline?

            Despite the popular opinion, incivility in the United States’ politics is not a new trend. There are examples of incivility begin early in the United States’ history, consider, “the warning the Connecticut Courant issued about the consequences of a Thomas Jefferson victory in the presidential election of 1800: “Murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest will be openly taught and practiced. . . . The soil will be soaked with blood.” Or the taunt in 1884 arising from allegations that Grover Cleveland had had an affair with a young widow and fathered an illegitimate child: “Ma, Ma, where is Pa? Gone to the White House, Ha! Ha! Ha!”” (Lindberg). Incivility is shown through the actions of the people who are unhappy with the current condition, whether it is because of wanting the position of a presidency, or just to make another person seem better than another for future benefit. The reason to be uncivil is seen to win the argument. Popular cultural beliefs reinforce incivility that it is a sign of personal weakness if a person is civil to another. Instead civility and incivility are used as appeals. Regarding Sarah Palin’s attempts to defend herself from claims of being uncivil and Obama’s speech at University of Notre Dame in 2009 as dipping with civility is said that respectively “civility and incivility [were used as] rhetorical moves with consequences,” (Perrin). This is especially true when it comes to politics. The leaders of a society are involved in politics and will demonstrate incivility in their debating tactics. As Benjamin DeMott asserts in his article, Seduced by Civility, the leaders in the society determine the degree of civility in society by their actions, and that as such people will generally follow the actions of the leaders. These actions affect the perception beliefs, morals and values play into the integration of either civility or incivility into society, and popular culture has much to do with the acceptance of such factors of determining civility or incivility.

                Since incivility is not a new ailment of society, it did not just magically appear within the last few campaign and election cycles, the change is that now the average American has taken notice of the growing decline in civility, particularly when it comes to incivility in politics. Validating this concept, a person said that, “from time to time, I go back to find the golden age of civility and it has proved elusive,” (Shea). A survey of American’s quality of life’s data shows American fears of daily living becoming worse as a result of incivility and the related issues. The data showed that 89 percent of Americans think that incivility is a “serious problem,” and 79 percent of Americans feel that in the past 10 years the problem of incivility has worsened, (Marks). This explains the discrepancy between when incivility began, and the general public beginning to notice incivility more in isolated events, especially because of the new media available to inform the average American about the political occurrences that involve incivility. However, incivility in politics has many factors that one would not necessary anticipate to correlate with the increasing problem of incivility politics.

                 Schools play a role in the development of a person’s learning of civility or incivility. As a rule, parents and teachers from each end of the country “complain of the lack of civility among children and the disrespect they show their elders.” Unfortunately, this of a lack of civility and disrespect toward elders is a “problem [that] cuts across all class and racial lines.” Further, it was noted by a survey by the American Association of School Administrators that the golden rule, (of do unto others as you would have done unto you,) is at a high demand to be taught to students in schools due to the rising numbers of students being uncivil (Marks).  Is it the role of schools to teach civility to students? Is the growing rate of incivility in politics due to the politicians learning incivility throughout their childhood and teenage years?  Is the rising rate of incivility in politics due to the fact that generations have been brought up lacking the learned trait of civility? While these questions do not have answers in the various possible forms of data, surveys, studies, or other such, they do present a dilemma for the problem of incivility in politics. However, schools are where children learn physical incivility, such as shoving, and are exposed to rumors, gossiping and bullying. Some of things very things are seen in the tactics of politicians in trying to discredit their opponents or to make them appear better than the other candidate for whatever purpose. One student’s comment about incivility in the hallways of his school is a perfect parallel between incivility in schools and incivility in politics, he said, if someone’s coming your way, you should move “because if you don’t, they’re just going to take you down and keep going,” (Marks). Same concept with politics, stay out of the bigger politicians way and there will be no need for the use of incivility, however, if the bigger politician feels inconvenienced they will show that through their uncivil actions.

                People do not watch the words that proceed from their mouth, “self-scrutiny doesn’t exist,” (DeMott). The words in which people choose to use determine the meaning in which other people give them.  How then do people not think before they speak, especially in a public position of being in politics? Does the position in which a person is elected to mean that they have the right to choose the degree of civility or incivility they use? In some cases, yes, there are no legal rules to compel delegates, politicians, or congressmen to conform to a politeness scale in their speeches, debates or discourses. However, just because there are no “legal sanction[s] for speech mostly doesn’t exist in America, social sanctions do continue to have great effect in forestalling incivility,” meaning that if public, (or widely seen), political discourses were subjected to the same limitations of private, (interpersonal conversations), that political discourses and politics itself would become more civil (Lindberg). However, one such legal sanction to prevent raging incivility is that of the decision of the Supreme Court to not have the First Amendment protect certain words. These are known as “fighting words” and their sole purpose and what they are defined as are words “that by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace,” (Lindberg). However, a more aggravated form of incivility exists in the political world; this is termed as “outrage.” Outrage is more than incivility, outrage is a “reference to a particular form of political discourse involving efforts to provoke visceral responses (anger, righteousness, fear, moral indignation) from the audience through the use of overgeneralizations, sensationalism, misleading or patently inaccurate information, ad hominem attacks, and partial truths about opponents,” (Sobieraj). Outrage is incivility left unchecked, and outrage only came from the words of a person who thought more of how to accomplish their agenda than to scrutinize the words they chose to use.

                Popular culture and the ideals of it are a factor in the decline of civility. Movies, video games, books, songs, and other forms of popular culture promote the ideal that the most masculine man resorts to violence or incivility and is rewarded for that through the that portrayal. With that concept a man named, Ron Faucheux, who is a  political consultant and who is the former publisher and editor of the political consulting industry’s Campaigns and Elections magazine, argues “there is a declining sense of civility in our politics, an abandonment of standards . . . It’s an abscess that has oozed its toxin throughout the political system. And it’s getting worse,” (Brooks). Unfortunately, those violent concepts will sometimes take root in the actions of people who are not lead by the moral compass of civility, a recent story about a health care bill in Tampa Florida demonstrates this concept of active violence taking place in politics:

“In early August, for instance, a health-care town hall was held in Tampa, Florida. It was sponsored by Democratic representative Kathy Castor and Florida state representative Betty Reed. A massive crowd, upwards of 1,500 people, packed the meeting room and spilled into the street. As Castor began to speak, scuffles broke out as people tried to get into the meeting room. Her introductory remarks were drowned out by chants of "Read the bill, read the bill!" and "Tyranny!" An event organizer came to the microphone to admonish the crowd: "If pushing and shoving continues, we will have to clear the room. The police will make the decision if it is still safe." At one point, a freelance videographer was pushed to the ground. Another man was treated for minor injuries after a scuffle left his shirt partially torn from his body. "That's the most violent anyone has been towards me," noted the man. "It was surprising, to say the least,”” (Shea).

Obviously this is an extreme case, and would be considered just an anomaly in actions in society; however, many other cases like this exist and have been acted upon in many different ways. Fights breaking out in the delegation rooms of congress, threats of violence, riots, and other forms of violence are in the shadows of politics and as a result of that, violence is also in the shadows of societies. Positive values and beliefs in civility are the strands that hold the fabric of society together, without them civil society will be easy torn apart by the inherent incivility in people, especially that of incivility regarding political topics, debates or political endeavors. Incivility in politics and popular culture of societies, “avoids basic elements of civility such as considerateness, modesty, faith in the rough rightness of democratic values-items readily comprehensible and well suited to plain speech,” (DeMott). In fact, Susan Herbst views incivility in politics as just a, “strategic weapon,” to be used at the whim of the person who employs the use of incivility in political discourse. If it is truly the case that incivility is used as a tactic for achieve one’s goals in political discourses, why does it then have a greater effect on the general public than just allowing the person to win their own agendas?