DiaryDad is disappointed in the lack of civil discourse in politics, so he is going to try to teach his kids to do better.
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We are less than a year away from our next presidential election here in the good ol’ U.S. of A. and I am already fed up of the childish behavior of politicians, news personalities, and just about everyone else who has anything to do with these elections. I’m fed up with them because I can’t use them as role models or guides to teach my children the art of civil discourse.
“we need the ability to talk about the affairs and issues in our civil life without being reduced to our lowest form of behavior.”
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That’s right, you read that correctly, the people running for President of the United States of America, the news organizations that cover them, and the people running their campaigns are poor examples of civil discourse.
John Locke in book III of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding described civil discourse like this:
“I mean such a communication of thoughts and ideas by words, as may serve for the upholding common conversation and commerce, about the ordinary affairs and conveniences of civil life, in the societies of men, one amongst another.”
I like that definition and it is something I am trying to instill in my boys. We are all a part of the societies of humankind and as such we need the ability to talk about the affairs and issues in our civil life without being reduced to our lowest form of behavior. Each of us have belief, opinion and a stake in how we approach and manage the great moral issues that we face, and because of that we need to practice and perfect our ability to have open conversation about these issues.
In high school, I was a member of my school’s debate team. Every debate meet I attended I faced other debaters who had varying degrees of preparation and varying degrees of understanding on the topics we debated. As I faced them during the course of a meet I was not allowed to resort to name calling or whining about the topics. I was not allowed to complain about the judges or their criteria. To be successful I had to respond to the arguments that my opponents put forward with patience, integrity, humility, and respect for each team I faced and our judge. I had to openly disagree with other debaters while proving my case and maintaining a civil respectful stance with my opponents.
- Listen with patience – The only way I could be successful was to listen with patience and understanding to another person’s position as they put it into their own terms. This has been an invaluable skill for me, it has helped me be empathetic when I need to and it has helped me recognize when continuing a conversation will be fruitless and a waste of my time.
- Be willing to be wrong – I also needed to be open to new arguments and ideas I had not yet heard. Doing so caused me to check my opponents facts as well as my own and verify them. It meant recognizing when I was wrong and accepting that. It meant changing position and not continuing to use information that had been shown to be invalid in the future.
- Respect opposing views – I had to respect my opponent. While disagreeing with what they said, I had to show respect for their right to propose a different position on the topic at hand. I had to honor their right to hold a contradictory position and have a respectful discourse about the merits and flaws of our differences.
“I will show them that we can disagree without disassociating ourselves from those we disagree with.”
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These are things I want my children to understand. These are skills I want my children to have. Sadly, I will have to use the people running for the highest elected office in the United States as an example of what not to do.
Instead I will teach them through example. I will show them that we can disagree without disassociating ourselves from those we disagree with. I will show them how to be open to new information and how to be wrong gracefully. I will teach them how to be thankful for another person’s point of view.
I will do these things because we have big issues facing us today, and they will be the voices of the big issues to be faced in the future. They need to be ready to engage others in the art of civil discourse and I want them to be positive facilitators and contributors to that process. I want them to join in fully with others from all walks of life and lend their voices and minds to social and political conversations that seek to solve the problems facing their world.
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Eric Bennion can be found writing about fatherhood at diarydad.com and Tweeting @diarydad.
Photo Credit: the author.
I agreed that the American public is pretty ignorance about what is happening in the USA and the rest of the world; however, it was the Republican Party campaign mangers like Lee Atwater and Carl Rove and the corporate media help to polarizes politics plus the Republicans have been saying that they will not work with a Democratic president and they have been saying that since the Clinton era. In addition, the CEOs of America have always demonizes the American workforce since the end of the Cold War and they are not going to treat the American worker as an… Read more »
Civil discourse have been going downhill since the day Reagan came into office, the rise of Fox News, people like Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, rise of right-wing evangelists, and due to the de-regulation of the economy for the last 35 yeas, CEOs feel that they can do anything they want and demonizes anyone who calls them out on it.
Thanks for the comment and taking the time to read my article. I agree with what you are saying, however I don’t think this is limited just to those with right wing ideology. I think the polarization of politics, the sensationalization of the news, and the ignorance of the general population to U.S. and World History all play a part in exacerbating the problem. Critical thinking requires that we entertain the notion that we may be wrong about a position or belief we hold, and that we must put ourselves through the same level of scrutiny as we put others.… Read more »