The "Someone Else" Solution to Incivility

Just look at the things that -- over the past few months -- have been proposed as solutions to incivility or things that will prompt more civil discourse and debate:

=> There was Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, held in October 2010 at the Washington Mall;

=> Also in October, 2010, the Nancy and Paul Ignatius Program hosted a forum addressing incivility in our public discourse called "Governing across the Divide";

=> We've had the launching of the No Labels Party in December 2010;

=> We've had a deadly shooting in Tucson, Arizona, in January, 2011, followed by a presidential speech on the importance of civil discourse;

=> We've had bipartisan seating arrangements during the President's most recent State of the Union address;

=> And we've just created the National Institute For Civil Discourse to be housed at the University of Arizona (in the home state of Gabrielle Giffords).

In truth, lots of this stuff has happened or been tried before. We've had plenty of calls for civility, presidential speeches, forums, bipartisan events, acts of political violence, etc., in the past. Has any of it resulted in greater civility?

No. Well, then, what actually works to promote civility?

How about trying something different, like having someone set a good example for the rest of us to follow? We haven't had that. In particular, we haven't had anyone who points out bad behavior so people know what to avoid doing.

It's not enough to give a speech -- as presidents and politicians routinely do -- saying that we should be civil. That's like telling children "be nice" when they already know that they're supposed to be nice. What they really need is to know how to be nice. They need to know what things they shouldn't be doing, what things count as not nice.

Similarly, it needs to be pointed out -- in an unbiased way -- what counts as incivility, so that we can know what sorts of things to avoid.

Otherwise, we get episodes like what we saw in Bill O'Reilly's pre-Super Bowl interview with President Barack Obama on Fox News. Obama and O'Reilly discussed the media's role in promoting incivility, but neither of them acknowledged their own contribution.

O'Reilly insisted, "I don't think I'm a personal attack guy. I call it the way I think it should be called". But he's caricatured the progressive agenda as "do whatever you want". O'Reilly has said that liberals and progressives "don't want a stable society", that they want power and control and will do "anything" to get it, including smear and "destroy people". If someone caricatured O'Reilly similarly, would he accept the "Hey, I'm not attacking you, I just call it the way I see it" defense?

Meanwhile, Obama tried to push the job of civility onto O'Reilly, saying that he should "start the trend". But Obama has caricatured conservatives as Social Darwinists, and said that Republicans don't have a sense of neighborliness or community and aren't willing to help people who are vulnerable. So the President is likewise guilty of incivility, but refuses to acknowledge it. Why won't Obama start the civility trend, by owning up to his own misbehavior?

This selective blindness is par for the course. Political leaders and pundits keep talking about the need for civility, but they always seek some solution from outside, something other than personal responsibility and behaving better. They only bring up specific examples of incivility if it makes their political opponents look bad. They never specifically criticize their own failings, or the incivility of their political allies. They leave the impression that it's really only someone else -- say, their opponents -- who is guilty of incivility.

In other words, talking about incivility has been twisted into yet another way to demonize and caricature opponents! And then we all wonder why the problem of incivility doesn't get better.

As much as politicians talk about civility and how we shouldn't demonize our opponents, they routinely talk about civility in a way that demonizes their opponents. Nothing will change on the civility front until Democrats admit and rebuke acts of name-calling and incivility by Democrats, and Republicans admit and rebuke acts of name-calling and incivility by Republicans.

Until that happens, no amount of presidential speeches or forums, no amount of Democrats and Republicans sitting on one anothers' laps, no amount of musical numbers by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, and no amount of 9-year-old girls getting shot in the head is going to make incivility go away. That's just not how it works.

So, what on Earth can make Democrats own up to Democratic misbehavior, and Republicans own up to Republican misbehavior? Maybe pointing out in one place when each side is doing it will help. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Missouri) has suggested establishing a "civility watchdog", to which I say, "Woof".

Starting this week I'll be publishing a weekly account of acts of incivility with the aim of correcting our uncivil servants and media pundits.