8 - (In)Civility

Summary

Commentators from all sides bemoan the loss of civility, seeing it as the glue that keeps divided political societies whole. We have become distrustful and contemptuous of those we don’t see eye to eye with.¹ No environment is apparently immune from our “incivility epidemic” (the metaphor of virology is apt, since, researchers found, “catching rudeness is like caching a cold,” namely, contagious²): social media, college classrooms, bedrooms, family gatherings, workplaces, and politics itself are compromised. Online trolls are not the only ones feeding the incivility beast. Political representatives and authority figures exacerbate the problem. In the United States, Rep. Ted Yoho’s vulgar and misogynist comments to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Capitol Hill, Brett Kavanaugh’s angry testimony during his Supreme Court nomination hearing, and, most of all, President Donald Trump’s own divisive and inflammatory rhetoric model a kind of unbridled incivility that coarsens politics and degrades public discourse.