After a rancorous election season, many public figures and intellectuals are dismayed at the low state of American public discourse. There has been a call in recent months to restore civility to the body politic.
A panel of UTM faculty and students met to address that question over Zoom on Feb. 5 in the semester’s first Engage the Times discussion. Participating in the panel were Dr. Chris Hill, associate professor of English, Dr. Margaret Lewis, associate professor of History, Dr. Aaron Rowland, assistant professor of Sociology, and finally Casey Ruggiero, a junior International Studies major from Arlington, Virginia. Moderating the panel was Merry Brown, lecturer in Philosophy. They met alongside a sizable crowd of around two dozen students and faculty to present what they saw as the key to bringing civility back into the mainstream of American public life.
Much of the discussion hinged on the precise meaning of “civility,” who calls for civility, why the call is made and what that means in concrete terms.
Dr. Hill, drawing on his studies of England during the 16th century, suggested that one must be careful about calls for civility, given that in many cases those who call for “civility” are those with power. He also suggested that maintaining civility among members of the public required certain disciplines and civic virtues. Finally, he ended his opening remarks by warning against the outsized influence of social media like Facebook and Twitter to control the national conversation.
“I tend to think of it, in my own personal experience,” said Hill, “as a matter of internal discipline. To be civil with other people requires that I exercise certain virtues in my own life: the virtue of humility, the virtue of compassion, the virtue of recognizing that it is okay for people to say things that I don’t particularly like.”
Dr. Lewis, drawing on Hill’s introduction to the issue, spoke of civility in a different way. While recognizing that one aspect of civility is being open to other viewpoints, she maintained that a tolerant society shouldn’t have a place for intolerant ideas.
“Being civil does not mean accepting intolerance,” she explained. “We can’t be so tolerant that we just allow any kind of nasty invective that’s out there. So I think we need to start from the perspective that we are all humans…, but if you don’t accept my humanity, you can’t expect me to engage with you on a civil level.”
Dr. Lewis suggested that this is clear in hot-button issues such as transgenderism, where she affirmed that part of civility was to recognize, for example, a person’s preferred pronouns. She also argued that complaints of rudeness or lack of civility can negatively impact women and minorities, and that the normal behavior of such groups is sometimes labelled beyond the bounds of civility to minimize such voices and perspectives.
Dr. Rowland, largely agreeing with Lewis, suggested that the greatest threat to civility was political radicalism. In his analysis, he explicitly named the 20th century philosopher of science, Karl Popper, and his famous maxim that “the tolerant cannot tolerate intolerance,” which became a major theme of the discussion. Rowland further pointed out that, in the case of extremism, social research gives a clear path to moderating the discourse.
“Part of engaging in civil discourse is, if you really want to engage with what they’ve said, you can’t start off with: ‘Well, you’re wrong and here’s why.'” Rowland added, “You have to start with a softer and more humble, caring tone… Even if you think you’re right, at least try to bear in mind that you might, in fact, be wrong.”
The point of civil discourse, according to Rowland, is for factions to hear one another, and that requires a listening stance. At base, Rowland argued, civility is predicated on “mutual respect” between persons.
Finally, Casey Ruggiero took the mic to share a student’s perspective on the issue. She began her slot by asking the simple question of how people should approach the task of dialoging with people with whom they disagree.
“I think once there is a realization that humans function in different psychological realities, even though we exist in the same physical world, it gets a whole lot easier to work towards mutual and empathetic understanding,” she argued.
Ruggiero went on to argue that because America is a diverse place with a tradition of freedom of expression, we are going to encounter all kinds of diverging viewpoints and even extreme positions, but that can, in some cases, be a good thing. Ruggiero argued that maintaining civility was “paramount” in maintaining a society with diverse viewpoints, focused on empathy and mutual understanding.
Panelists took questions from the audience on a wide range of issues, mainly intended to carve out the exact contours of where the lines of civility are drawn. One audience member asked, for example, whether traditional religious views about morality or human anthropology ran afoul of civility, given the definitions cited by some of the panelists. Discussion on that point was largely mixed. Other questions addressed were on the nature of intolerance as well as what we mean by terms like “rude” and “tone-policing.”
A follow-up discussion will be held on Feb. 19 entitled “Can You Be Civil and Offensive? The Problems of Just Being Nice,” and is meant to address the same topic in more detail. On Feb. 12, Engage the Times will hold another panel entitled “Is the American Prison System Unjust?”
All Engage the Times panels are on Fridays at noon. More information on times and how to attend can be found here.
