A Shameless Barroom Brawl

A few days ago, the first of three Presidential debates in the United States occurred. Most people who watched that event concluded that it was mostly an exchange of insults, sometimes of the most personal and vitriolic character. Some commentators compared it to a playground fracas or food fight. More aptly perhaps, it mimicked a barroom argument, where two tipplers try to shout each other down. My sports team, city, or neighborhood is great. Yours is incompetent, weak, and evil. And you are stupid for holding the views you do.

Unlike the examples just provided, the discussion at issue was of the greatest consequence for the nation. How should we collectively move forward in the years ahead? What specific strategies does each candidate propose? Which person—and party—is best suited to lead us? At this debate, at least, the audience likely learned little of these matters. A deeply partisan nation, like the fans of two rival sports teams, claimed only that their champion was a victim of vile assaults and yet had prevailed.

I might offer an opinion about which candidate seemed to be the instigator, and more grievous offender, in this process. But that opinion would mean nothing to those who hold the opposite view.

Instead, I want to discuss what seems to be a transformation in the character of political discourse in this nation, and of public discourse more generally. Ideally, people communicate to mark out what they hold in common and, on that basis, to differentiate themselves as holders of separate identities, interests, and commitments.

Let us declare first that we are people who love our country, who support its founding principles, and who wish all our fellow citizens well. Let us observe these commonalities and shake hands to show our respect for one another as honest, decent persons. Then, let us disagree on the questions of which issues matter most and of how our society should allocate its resources to address them. At the conclusion of our disagreement, let us shake hands again. All in attendance must be clear that the nation as a whole matters much more than politicians and their proposals.

After this week’s performance, such ideas seem outmoded, even quaint.

How did we come to the current impasse, when people steel themselves in their resolve to oppose one another, to give no quarter, to find no common ground?

One answer, perhaps the simplest, is that there has been an erosion of public civility. To be sure, most of us know how to behave ourselves in public, or so we claim. We are polite enough to a store clerk; we accept the restrictions of our place in a line; we smile and give deference to someone in a crowded stairway or elevator. After all, we consider ourselves “decent” people, and such courtesies cost us little.

However, we are less generous toward individuals who seem to block our path or toward groups who behave in ways we disapprove of. Even more freely do we condemn abstract others, individuals, and groups we do not encounter face-to-face. All too easily, we impute that those strangers, whoever they are, have ways of living—and political agendas—that differ from our own. Their behaviors, based on what we gather from media sources, are perhaps acceptable if they remain confined to their own group or locality and do not entail requests on governmental (and thus our) coffers. However, make no mistake: Those faceless strangers are suspicious characters, surely up to no good.

Add to the mix various organizations and interest groups. Lawyerly in their objectives and procedures, these collectives are the pit bulls of unseen others. They do not represent “our” interests; indeed, they wish us harm.

By degrees then, we have become a lurking, accusatory society, which divides people into those who are like us and those who are not, those who share our interests and views of life and those who oppose them. This, I would submit to the reader, is a very sad state of affairs.

It is also a condition that politicians can exploit. The politician thinks: Let us make the current electoral contest a choice between “us” and “them.” Indeed, let me be your hero who will lead our forces (of light) against their forces (of darkness). May I become the instrument of your desires, the symbol of your hopes. I promise you this: I will crush them and you will be more comfortable after their demise.

Such is the rhetoric of a partisan society, where people imagine themselves to be on one side or team rather than the other. We are at war, or so we hear, not with some foreign adversary but with other citizens. The only thing that matters now is victory.

Of course, partisan bickering of this sort is not new. Neither is incivility, in the broadest sense of that term. Twenty-five hundred years ago, Plato criticized the sophists, the philosophical tradition that preceded Socrates and his followers. Hired by prominent and wealthy people to defend their interests, the sophists would use every rhetorical trick to win their case. Obfuscation, bamboozlement, and deceit were the order of the day. Ad hominem arguments (“you’re stupid”) were part of the package. Facts (perhaps “alternative facts”) were concoctions that suited the arguer’s purposes.

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For his part, Plato argued that truth is a more stable, universal thing that is accessible to human inquiry. As entertaining as oratorical flourishes and emotional outbursts may be, logic-based writing is a more precise and permanent form of expression. We must hold people accountable for what they say and do. To be a citizen is to acknowledge common laws and common social responsibilities. People are entitled to their “perspectives” on what is right and wrong, but prerogatives of person, family, and ethnic group must subordinate themselves to the public good.

All these years later, I think most of us would acknowledge that civilization means abiding by publicly created, commonly applied law. The powerful do not get to act just as they wish (although Nietzsche, invoking the pre-Socratic world, later suggested the merits of just such prerogatives). Leaders have to accept the proposition that they are merely the temporary representatives of their people. Might does not make right. The regimes of braggarts, bullies, and dictators cannot hold.

All this raises a question. In a partisan world, are people capable of feeling embarrassment, guilt, and shame—of acknowledging that they have failed to meet general standards for civil conduct? Can leaders, in particular, admit they are wrong?

To be sure, in our ordinary affairs, that is, in personal and interpersonal behaviors, we may have this awareness. We are embarrassed if we fail in some situation, perhaps hitting a mailbox while driving inattentively or falling off a barstool after too many drinks. We may feel guilt if we hurt a friend with a stupid remark or if we are caught betraying someone we love. Those missteps may resound within us as the more deeply assessment of shame.

But, in the wider political realm, we are more obdurate. With regard to our opponent, no insinuation, meme, joke, cartoon, or political broadside is beneath us. Neither can we admit any reservations about the rightness of our cause. There are no general standards. There are only the standards of our group.

If shame exists in such a context, it is the shame that one has been less than the noble warrior, that they have lost in a situation where they might have won. The only shame it seems comes from being weak or feckless. Let us appear powerful, at all costs.

The other day at a grocery store, I saw a fancy car with the bumper sticker “Deplorable and Loving It.” I have since learned that there are many other commercial presentations of this (mugs, yard signs, tee shirts, and so forth). A response to Hilary Clinton’s 2016 attempt to condemn a certain set of conservative voters, the motto proclaims that one resists shaming by someone who holds rival values. More than that, it suggests that the bearer enjoys the status of villainy (again, by an outsider’s standards) and of living in self-chosen ways. In the fashion of wrestling’s anti-heroes, junkyard dogs, outlaws, and rebels, there is pleasure in being scrappy, unconventional, and if necessary, rude. You cannot shame me. I live on my own terms.

Romanticized in our media, nonconformity and resistance remain elements of the American tradition. However, isolation and obstreperousness are not solutions to the issues that confront us all. Somehow, we must relearn the importance of working together and of trusting those who stand behind solid, honest information. That willing recognition of joint purpose is the essence of civility. For leaders, as for ourselves, the only shame is in denying that spirit of reconciliation and public resolve.