Seated next to Neuhaus was a clean-cut, nicely dressed, well-spoken young man. Following the speech, the young man said of Falwell: \u201cHe\u2019s a very great man, and often he\u2019s very vulgar. I would be more hopeful about America if we had more vulgarity like his.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Neuhaus\u2019 account, the young man went on to paraphrase (with a smile) a quote attributed to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels \u2013 \u201cWhen I hear the word civility I reach for my gun\u201d \u2013 and to argue: \u201cTheir way of doing things means they continue to be in control. We mean to take over \u2013 nicely, if possible, but if that\u2019s not possible, well, civility is not the highest of the virtues.\u201d<\/p>\n
This argument is evergreen on the left and right, because it is less of an argument than a temptation \u2013 the temptation to see politics only as a matter of achieving certain policy outcomes, rather than the expression of certain underlying moral commitments. Why value civility if it doesn\u2019t immediately serve the cause of virtuous change? Why honor pluralism if it doesn\u2019t result in the triumph of our version of good and true?<\/p>\n
The debate on these questions has been recently renewed by a group of bright, articulate and morally adolescent social conservatives who have adopted their own version of being \u201cwoke.\u201d Politics, they seem to have discovered during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, is war. And war is hell. Which makes civility a form of disarmament. The objective of politics, in this view, is not the building of coalitions around the common good. It is, as conservative writer Sohrab Ahmari describes it, \u201cdefeating the enemy and enjoying the spoils in the form of a public square reordered to the common good and ultimately the Highest Good.\u201d<\/p>\n
This viewpoint may be perennial, but it is also perfectly suited to the Trump era: Persuasion, compromise and politeness are for losers. Do unto others as they have done unto you. And worse.<\/p>\n
Those disturbed by this attitude but not entirely sure why should read Peter Wehner\u2019s new book, \u201cThe Death of Politics: How to Heal Our Frayed Republic After Trump.\u201d Wehner \u2013 who is the successor to Neuhaus in the moral vigor and clarity of his arguments \u2013 makes a strong case for civility as an indispensable democratic virtue.<\/p>\n
First, according to Wehner, \u201ccivility is central to citizenship.\u201d It is the strong force that makes civic cohesion possible. \u201cWhen civility is stripped away,\u201d he argues, \u201ceverything in life becomes a battlefield, an arena for conflict, an excuse for invective. Families, communities, our conversations and our institutions break apart when basic civility is absent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Second, a commitment to civility is an expression of our respect for other human beings. \u201cUndergirding this belief for many of us is the conviction that we\u2019re all image-bearers of God \u2013 \u2018a work of divine art\u2019 in the words of theologian Richard Mouw \u2013 which demands that we respect human dignity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Third, civility allows us to discover the elements of truth that may reside in someone else\u2019s version of it. We should not assume, says Wehner, that \u201cthose who hold different views than we do have nothing to teach us.\u201d Civility is one expression of an appropriate epistemological humility. This does not mean that truth is relative. But it does mean that elements of the truth are more broadly distributed than we sometimes imagine.<\/p>\n
None of this, in Wehner\u2019s argument, means that people should lack conviction or passion. \u201cOne can be a vigorous and forceful advocate for justice without being uncivil,\u201d he argues. Wehner cites Martin Luther King Jr. as an example and quotes Yale professor Stephen L. Carter: \u201cThe true genius of Martin Luther King, Jr. was not his ability to articulate the pain of an oppressed people \u2013 many other preachers did so, with as much passion and as much power \u2013 but in his ability to inspire those very people to be loving and civil in their dissent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those who see politics only as a method to defeat enemies and advance favored aims have lost sight of something important. We should honor democratic values such as civility, not only because they make our system function, but because they make our system noble. We should treat our fellow citizens with respect because we share a role in, and responsibility for, an experiment in self-government that remains the last, best hope of Earth.<\/p>\n
Michael Gerson is a columnist for The Washington Post.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" next to Neuhaus was a clean-cut, nicely dressed, well-spoken young man. Following the speech, the young man said of Falwell: \u201cHe\u2019s a very great man, and often he\u2019s very vulgar. I would be more hopeful about America if we had more vulgarity like his.\u201d In Neuhaus\u2019 account, the young man went on to paraphrase […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5758,6040],"tags":[],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-93570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columnists","category-michael-gerson"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93570\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93570"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=93570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}