The Death of Civility?

Yesterday, after months of wrangling, behind-the-scenes deal making, and striking partisanship, the House of Representatives passed the long-awaited health care reform bill. It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t pleasant. From the moment the president explained what the bill would and would not do, the spin began. If I hadn’t heard the speech and actually understood it, I might have been confused by what opponents were claiming. I might have even believed some of the rhetoric. But it was so inaccurate and distorted, I dismissed it out of hand.

Almost everything the president said was somehow flipped on its head and came out upside down and backwards. It would have been amusing if so many people hadn’t bought the upside-down version. By the time the bill was passed, few Americans seemed to know what it was designed to reform.

To say this was a divisive piece of legislation would be an understatement. Once again, the country seemed to split in half over a single issue. Congress certainly did, since not a single Republican voted for the bill. There was no room for dialogue or rationality. One was either for it or against it … with dramatic and deafening oratory.

OK. I can live with that. This is a country where we get to have our points of view and defend them or oppose them. But something seems to be happening lately that goes far beyond disagreement. Civil discourse has been replaced by mean spirited harangues.

In the middle of the president’s State of the Union address, a congressman yelled, “You lie!” At recent town hall meetings, representatives were shouted down and insulted. As the members of the House were voting yesterday, on the lawn outside the building, people were demonstrating with signs and epitaphs that were beyond bad taste, sometimes egged on by members of Congress. And, inside the House chamber, there was shouting, name-calling, and a complete absence of decorum.

What have we become? Where are our manners? What happened to restraint? It’s fine to have strong views and to stand up for them. It’s acceptable, even necessary, to debate. But in my view, the behavior of opponents to just about any issue has become deplorable and frightening. We are not a third-world country. We are not children. We do not call names and shout insults. It is not worthy of civilized adults and citizens of a democracy.

There is much to worry about these days, but this breakdown of civility in our society has reached the top of my list.

The Cynical American

NPR drones on with hourly updates of late breaking catastrophes and endless commentary on what each one means. It is the background music of our lives, or at least the lives of those of us who consider ourselves progressives or liberals or Democrats or blue. The other half — the Christian right, conservatives, Republicans, and red— are getting the same messages but with a different spin on Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and AM talk radio. It’s as if we look at the world through opposite colored screens and, thus, we are not seeing the same picture. There seems no way to bring these opposing views into focus.

But whatever world we are seeing, I think both sides would agree that it’s an unmitigated mess. If it can go wrong in this country it has. We seem to go from one crisis to another with the president telling us we are on the brink of disaster, congress running around like a bunch of sheep with no border collie to guide them, and the media pushing the latest message, which is almost always incomplete and distorted.

One day we are told the sky is blue and cloudless; the next day it is falling. The enemy is Osama bin Laden; no, the enemy is Sadam Hussein. The economy is sound; the economy is falling apart. Mission accomplished; we’ve won the war. Well, on second thought, we haven’t won, and this is going to last far into the future. The US has the best health care money can buy; unfortunately, 47 million people don’t get to use it.

CEOs are making enough money to fund small countries; yet, every day thousands of people are losing their jobs, their homes, their retirement options, and any hope of financial security. Scandals are commonplace in congress, corporations, and Wall Street. And the beat goes on. I am no longer shocked at anything I hear. First, I am numb; second, I don’t believe a word of it.

It’s the lies that have made me a cynical American. I don’t know if the people who routinely stare into cameras and lie with perfectly straight faces even understand the concept of truth. Perhaps they did as children, but obviously the memory has faded. I have a sense of unreality, as I find myself living in a bad dream, unable to wake up.

I am frightened for my country, which I no longer recognize. I am frightened for my children and everyone’s children who will inherit the heap of debt, inequity, and decaying planet we are leaving them. I am frightened for myself because somehow I have to make it through the next 20 years. But being frightened is exhausting.

I need a paradigm shift, an aha moment, when I suddenly see how to negotiate the path through this tangle of deception, power struggles, discouragement. I need to wake up from this dream. But at this moment I have no idea how to do it.