Erosion of Civility in an Era of Fear
by Deborah Brasket, SB CAN Executive Director
Recently, I wrote a column on progressive values to help clear up some of the misconceptions we hear in the media. Too much political rhetoric today is spent demonizing the other side, and too little on articulating our core values, many of which we share across political lines.
Unfortunately, even when I write about fairly noncontroversial issues like waste management, my online critics attack me as a communist, a crackhead, or a clever mouthpiece for a sinister agenda. One critic claims my advocacy for community planning is really a diabolical plot against humanity. According to him, the word “community” is code for “Communist worker’s paradise,” and “planning” means we want to gain “control over life itself all over this planet.”
And all this was in response to my column about reducing waste in our landfills.
This might be laughable, if it weren’t so widespread. The same kind of fearful response to progressives was heard at the Conservative Political Action Conference last month, when keynote speaker Glenn Beck called the concept of “community” a “cancer” and said progressives must be “eradicated” from the nation.
Around the same time, the Republican National Committee advised using “extreme negative feelings toward the existing administration” — depicted as “the evil empire” — to motivate small donors.
Fortunately, there is growing pushback on both sides of the political aisle against this kind of fear-mongering. Last year, Mark DeMoss, a conservative evangelical who campaigned for Mitt Romney, launched a Civility Project to help reduce some of the uncivil political discourse.
“It’s harder and harder,” DeMoss says, “to win a debate on the strength of your ideas and words. That’s a dumbing-down of America and political discourse. I’m anything but an academic elite, but Obama is not the antichrist, nor is every Republican a saint.”
This January, a new grassroots movement was launched to help counter some of the hostility seen at Tea Party rallies. A key difference between the Coffee Party Movement — already 52,000 members strong — and the Tea Party is the “emphasis on the democratic process, on respectful and civil engagement with one another,” according to founder Annabel Park, who promotes “a more inclusive message based on shared values rather than shared fears and phobias.”
President Obama said it best in his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast last month:
“Divisions are hardly new in this country ... But there is a sense that something is different now. ... At times, it seems like we’re unable to listen to one another; to have at once a serious and civil debate. And this erosion of civility in the public square sows division and distrust among our citizens.
“It poisons the well of public opinion. It leaves each side little room to negotiate with the other. It makes politics an all-or-nothing sport, where one side is either always right or always wrong when, in reality, neither side has a monopoly on truth.
“Challenging each other’s ideas can renew our democracy. But when we challenge each other’s motives, it becomes harder to see what we hold in common. We forget that we share, at some deep level, the same dreams — even when we don’t share the same plans on how to fulfill them.
“But progress doesn’t come when we demonize opponents. ... Progress comes when we open our hearts, when we extend our hands, when we recognize our common humanity. ... That we might do so — that we will do so all the time, not just some of the time — is my fervent prayer for our nation and the world.”
Amen.
Posted in Editorial on Friday, March 12, 2010 12:00 am
http://santamariatimes.com/news/opinion/editorial/article_4cd27238-2daa-11df-99a2-001cc4c03286.html
Date:
12 Mar 2010 - 1:28pm