New Center Urges A Return To Civil Discourse In Politics

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Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., center, ignited calls for more civility in public discourse after yelling "You lie" to President Obama during a 2009 address to a joint session of Congress. (AP)

Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., center, ignited calls for more civility in public discourse after yelling "You lie" to President Obama during a 2009 address to a joint session of Congress. (AP)

Harvard's John Stauffer on civil discourse

It was not so long ago that Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., called President Obama a liar during a joint session of Congress in 2009. And that’s just one of a myriad examples that the political rhetoric in Washington is not always polite. But is extreme rhetoric actually poisoning political debate and threatening democracy?

A new academic center in Boston thinks so. It’s called the Center for Civil Discourse at the University of Massachusetts Boston, and on Friday it will be hosting a national forum on “Civility and American Democracy.” Those titles speak for themselves. (Full disclosure: WBUR is a forum partner.)

So does there need to be a reset in how we respect one another in the public square? Or are there issues of such importance that being civil is simply beside the point?

Guests:

  • Ira Jackson, advisory board chair, Center for Civil Discourse at UMass Boston.
  • John Stauffer, professor of English and African American studies, Harvard University.

More:

  • Anonymous

    This will work as well as Obama’s numerous and futile attempts to be bipartisan with McConnell. 

  • Anonymous

    Which side is causing the disfunction?  It is mostly the Republicans.  Newt is to blame for most of this and now he is spreading his cheer to the Republican party too.

  • Kathy

    The problem is the Republican party being hijacked by the extreme far right. They have no compunctions about attacking the center and left because they honestly believe they have a monopoly on morality and patriotism. On the center and left, the problem is that to tell the truth about the Republican party sounds hyperbolic because the truth is that the party is far outside of the American mainstream. Calls for civility therefore end up largely as center/left self-critiques and unilateral capitulation to the far right.

  • Anonymous

    Both sides can be uncivil but it is not done equally.  Pretending it as both sides makes this endeavor fruitless. 

  • Akfaka

    This Congress is perhaps the rudest, most reticules Congress I have ever seen. It shows no respect to the Precedent. I wider if they will do the same to a precedent who is not black?

  • Anonymous

    It wasn’t a senator but a representative who caned Sumner.  The current batch of representatives from South Carolina are slightly more civil and only yelled at Obama.

  • CL

    To quote a famous saying: “We have met the enemy, and they are us”. Show me a case where one of the “culprits” on incivility (on any side) face consequences for their actions. To the contrary, in general they are rewarded by their base, or their advertisers for their stance. And that is the problem. These are public creatures we have cultivated, motivated by rewards that start with attention and support from the public. Trying to go against the grain of this reward system is futile.

    If we want more civil public discourse, then the only way to get it is for “us” to punish those who do not.

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