Arizona Shooting Ignites Discourse Debate

by Jonathan Merritt

When Sarah Palin's team of marketers ill-advisedly placed a few crosshairs on a map of Democratic districts that included U.S. Congresswoman Gabby Gifford's, they probably hoped to invigorate their base and rally some support. They couldn't have known that within a few months a crazed Jared Loughner would open fire on Arizona innocents, critically injuring the Congresswoman. Regardless, the Palin team's map took a six-person killing and breathed life into a national debate about public discourse.

A New York Times editorial recently declared, "We live in the age of opinion." And with so many opinions bathing us on a daily basis, it is often the most ridiculous, most inflammatory, most contentious perspectives that rise to the top. As a result, we also find ourselves living in an age of incivility. Sniping pundits crowd our airwaves while the mouths of politicians are filled to overflowing with personal attacks and heated rhetoric.

Take, for example, the king of vitriol himself, Glenn Beck. I used to generally enjoy watching Glenn Beck. Not because he is a great intellectual -- he isn't -- but because he is a decent entertainer. When I decided to stop watching and listening to Beck several years ago, it had nothing to do with his political ideology -- which I often find couched in revisionist history and absurd by turns -- but rather it was because of his extreme language.

In 2001, Beck said he wanted to beat-up U.S. Representative Charles Rangel with a shovel. Just six years ago, he joked about killing Michael Moore:

I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out -- is this wrong? I stopped wearing my What Would Jesus -- band -- Do, and I've lost all sense of right and wrong now. I used to be able to say, "Yeah, I'd kill Michael Moore," and then I'd see the little band: What Would Jesus Do? And then I'd realize, "Oh, you wouldn't kill Michael Moore. Or at least you wouldn't choke him to death." And you know, well, I'm not sure.

Of course, Beck is not specifically to blame for this and neither is Palin. And, I might add, neither are the spinsters on the other side of the aisle who are just as bad, if not worse. This was the act of a loon, a crazed madman with a clinical disorder. And yet, the sum total of our words and actions and imagery are a petri dish that, when laced with the spores of aggression, can mature into the fungus of violence. In that sense, culpability rests on all our shoulders.

[Check out Os Guinness's book, "The Case for Civility"]

Americans are fed up with such rhetoric. Even before this tragedy, a Public Agenda Research Group poll showed that almost 80 percent of Americans said that lack of civility is a "serious national problem." More than six in 10 agreed that social behaviors were ruder than in the past. These trends are stunting an already violent society and continue to coddle a culture that produces road rage, sports fan rage, cell phone rage, and yes, even raging maniacs like Jared Loughner.

As I've spoken with other Americans -- especially young ones -- it seems many have grown weary with explosive arguments that fail to get to the heart of substantive issues. Americans desire what John Murray Cuddihy called a "culture of civility." They long for the day when the American public square will be a place of passionate but reasonable discussion -- more like the Greek agora than the Roman Colisseum.

The reasons people crave a civil society are both personal and pragmatic. Personally, people feel the offense of harsh words even when they are directed at others. I had beefs aplenty with President George W. Bush when he was in office, but I bristled when I heard Senator Harry Reid called him a "liar." I winced when Al Gore growled, "He betrayed this country" before a rally of Tennessee Democrats. There is a reason that picking on someone for long enough, even if they deserve it, will make you a bully and your opponent a martyr.

[Mark Demoss on Politico: "Don't Expect Civility"]

Additionally, a coarse culture is an unproductive culture. Especially in a democratic society that runs on compromise and coalition building. When incivility reigns, progress is stymied and compromise is replaced by stalemate. Judiciousness is eminently practical in such a system. As Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson ?writes, "On the whole, people drawn to a cause like to feel that those representing the cause are both amiable and peaceable."

The Arizona shooting is an unmitigated tragedy, but if this event can fuel a transformation in our public discourse, it will be a small glimmer on a dark moment in history. Not only will a more civil public square yield less violence, it will hopefully produce more substantive solutions in a political environment where solutions are noticeably absent.

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In your opinion, is culture too coarse, too uncivil? What's the best way to begin infusing civility into public discourse?

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Editor's note: This article was originally published on The Huffington Post.

Comments

Jennifer Crumpton

For more Christ-centered commentary and conversation on this issue, on how the word of God gives us guidance,see the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good's blog "Uncommon Voice for the Common Good" at http://www.newevangelicalpartnership.org/?q=node/100 />
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Gene Haas

I agree that public discourse -- political or otherwise -- needs to become more civil. But there is no evidence that Jared Loughner was motivated by any political position whether conservative or liberal. So, it is unfair to draw the connection with Sarah Palin, or a map on her web site, to the shootings in Tucson.

The more important question is: Why has public discourse grown increasingly uncivil? It is not merely the lack of etiquette. I wonder if it is not the increasing fragmentation of western society, so that there is no common worldview nor moral framework that unites us as citizens. The result may be that true unity of purpose and practice is no longer achievable. You are merely left with the option of attaining power (through election, achievement or connections), and using that power to promote the desired objectives of yourself and like-minded people. If it is only about "the will to power," then public life is about achieving the objectives of you and your fellow-travelers by whatever means at your disposal. Given the ubiquity of the media, the use of language and images becomes the main means of achieving your goals.

If we cannot find a common purpose at the level of our deepest beliefs, then we are left at the mercy of the fragile unity of an agreement on method of interaction and process. That is a fragile peace, indeed.

Justin Salters

I would definitely agree that culture is far too uncivil these days. We have chosen ignorance, name-calling, and idiocy rather than civil intellectual discourse. I think our top need is for a dose of humility: neither side has all of the answers and solutions worked out perfectly. Until our culture arrives at this realization I am not sure what else we are capable of doing. It is quite pitiful.

@justinsalters

Fredrick Hearn

I agree with what you said about public discourse, but the shootings here in Arizona had absolutely nothing to do with that. What happened in Tucson were apples and you are talking about oranges. If this guy had not shot a congress women he would have shot someone at his college evetually. This discussion should be on mental illness not politics.

Thomas Heard

I agree with Fredrick that politics in not a part of the discussion in the shooting. But, I also agree that civility is lacking in this country. What I don’t like either is that folks will complain that both sides are to blame, but the right is the one that is exemplified over and over again. If Palin and Beck are the only one’s discussed specifically, and the left is just broadly mentioned, as if a footnote, then I don’t think the discussion as worth having because there is already bias implied. While this article did give examples of the left, Reid and Gore for example, the discussion of Obama’s campaign words "If they bring knives, we will use guns" seems left out too often as a point of discussion. I did not take Obama’s words literally and just took its meaning in context, but others may not have heard it that way. Though not found in this article, the civility complaints are far too often leveled against the right specifically, and the glossing over of the left’s vitriol makes me suspicious that the left really believes that they are contributors to the problem.

Jonathan Merritt

Gene,

I never said Loughner was motivated by political propaganda, from Mrs. Palin or otherwise. What I stated was two facts: 1) Mrs. Palin's people placed a map with crosshairs online 2) This has facilitated a larger conversation on public discourse in light of the shootings. Neither of these things are disputable or controversial.

Jm

Michael

Jonathan is in many ways an eloquent writer with frequent insights. But here he appears blind to his own innuendo and implicit connections. The whole piece finds its basis in some connection between incivility and the tragedy which happened. In other words, the political propoganda partially helped fuel someone like Loughner to do something like this. WIthout this implicit assertion, the article makes little sense. Jonathan would do himself a favor to at least own up to this intended connection.

Gene and Thomas are correct. There is an attempt at moral equivalency here, but the attempt fails. The crass examples (which themselves are not defensible) are all exposed from people on the right, and little is said about the incendiary commentariat on the left. It's in vogue for young, Christian intellectuals to distance themselves from the supposedly ignorant conservative positions. Jonathan, if you wish to hide your political leanings and attempted "above the fray" perspective, more effort is needed.

wes

Although I missed the initial reports of the weekend shooting, I did gather some early info which has been lost to the discussion of civility in the political and public space and a concern over the availability of guns. It is my view matter lost is of greater importance by far then either of the two concerns mentioned above. The matter lost is at the core of civility. It is how society provides and cares for those who suffer from various forms of disability. As I understand it the state of Arizona has reduced financial support for those suffering from various forms of disabilities.

We had the opportuntiy to adopt a girl over sixteen years ago. We discovered before the adoption had been finalized that Rebekah had seizure disorder. Although not by external obilgation, we as parents realized everyone regardless of their challenges have the need to be loved and belong. We adopted. We entered a world in that decision that has informed us in every aspect of one's life.

Rebekah has multiple challenges physical, neurological, and cognitive. It is from this exposure to living with and supporting a person with various special needs the discussion of the civility culture takes on new a dimension. Although the loss of life is very tragic and for a liftetime will impact the community and the families who experienced the tragedy. The story of those families who will continue support and care for persons with various special needs and disabilities without adequate funding will likely run below the headlines.

We live in Canada and the struggle of funding inadequacies and cultural ignorance to those needs are largely the same as those in the US. I was 'born in the USA' and so I attempt to stay abreast of what occurs in my land of birth. From my perspective the protestant church has largely failed to address meaningful ministry to those of disability and their familes. In Canada, the Roman Catholic church does much better than any group I know to minister to such people. I believe it has to do with their high value of humanity and the image of God in the person.

I am given to understand that at least one of the early reformers (Luther if I recall correctly) believed persons of at least mental disability were without a soul and beyond hope.

Although civility in the political and public space is in this shooting tradegy, I believe the back story (the cut back of funding) is the of greater concern and is better measure of the civility of our culture.

Mike Waggoner

Without a doubt, our society is totally without civility. The "coarsening of America" began about 20-25 years ago when certain words that used to be forbidden on TV & radio, entered the regular vocabulary of script writers. So many times I have heard things said that made me wince, mainly because it was totally unecessary to the dialogue.

Then, came the constant back & forth bickering on sitcoms...and like it or not, our culture does not live by the "art imitates life" but rather the opposite is true.

This generation of Americans have become more of social televisions than any generation before. Technology has allowed this because everything that we would have been sheltered from in our adolescence is available with the click of a mouse.

With that being said...no one is to blame other than Loughner himself.

Randy Heffner

Yes, incivility is rampant in American political discourse — and American discourse generally even, say, on movies: On IMDb I often see uncivil comments about films and filmmakers. In the comments above, we've noted some possible contributing factors: lack of a common moral framework (Gene), lack of humility (Justin), bias (Thomas), language in media (Mike). I think an important question to address is which of these (and others) are cause and which are effect. In the 1940s, in http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1609421477?ie=UTF8&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1609421477&tag=piertothehear-20" target="online_refs">The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis offered some very important and still quite relevant analysis, sparked by an observation he made in the realm of education (BTW, if you know the book, there's a priceless cover on the edition I linked to).

Still, understanding the cause provides, at best, insight for a course of action, it does not prescribe one. Jonathan asserts, that "Americans are fed up" with all this, yet there are plenty enough people to commercially sustain vitriolic venues of expression, plenty ready to condemn those of other viewpoints (versus engage in extended exploratory dialog about differences), which seems to belie both the generality of the assertion and the statistic on which it's based. As a course of action, we must deal with our "yum-yuck" culture, in a sense, on its own terms, while ensuring that we do not fall into the causes of cancerous discourse ("shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves").

Humor is a major attraction in our culture: What if we created a humorous show that shrewdly exposed the shallowness in vitriolic humor? Headline-grabbing exposé garners media attention: What about an exposé on a "red+blue conspiracy to abolish thinking"? A tongue-in-cheek "documentary" film about our failure of discourse? There must be better ideas than these, but I'm hoping the idea comes through.

And of course we should continually embody healthy public discourse — and this by both impression and intent. IOW, even when someone misses our intent, instead of tersely and defensively correcting them, we should take responsibility for the impressions we create and humbly talk of ways we might have communicated better.

We hope to be individually salt and light, and I believe these are best embodied in an indirect approach. For example, rather than hitting the issue head on by directly critiquing someone for harmful or shallow discourse, perhaps we find a probing question or alternate perspective. Rather than arguing the point, perhaps we reframe the discussion (but it must be a relevant and compelling reframing). Too often, with a direct approach, we become pepper rather than salt: We just sit on the top and irritate. Instead, a winsome and wise and patient approach seems best.

Gloria Spielman

F. Hearn is right. the shooting in AZ ought to have triggered a discussion about mental illnesses in America. For believers, what is our role in this? Mental illness was something Jesus dealt with in compassionate, healing ways. He never got ensnared in political rhetoric or spin. Neither should we. when asked 'who sinned?" Jesus refused to take the bait. the 'bait' for us is too appealing and ought not be. We aren't here to engage in pinger pointing, condemnation of political sides or shaming, as much fun as this is for both political sides. We are counter cultural, remember? We have a much better way to deal with the human tragedy of mental illness. Lets engage rightly.