At 5:00 pm today, I will participate in a panel discussion at the McKinney School of Law (my alma mater), focused on whether the Free Speech protections of the First Amendment tend to promote incivility.
Back in the day, when I was Executive Director of Indiana’s ACLU, I mounted a campaign through the organization’s newsletter to promote civility. That campaign caused consternation for some members, who worried that an emphasis on civil discourse somehow undermined, or was evidence of less than robust support for, Free Speech.
They missed what I believe to be the central point.
Philosophers from John Stuart Mill to Alexander Mieklejohn have argued for protection of speech and the free exchange of ideas; they have seen the “marketplace of ideas” as the absolutely necessary foundation of the search for truth. (As Mieklejohn famously said, People who are afraid of an idea—any idea—are unfit for self-government.)
The nation’s Founders understood that all ideas, no matter how noxious, should be available for discussion. They certainly didn’t protect speech because they underestimated the danger ideas could pose; they knew how powerful –and damaging–ideas could be. They protected free expression because they understood that giving government the authority to decide which ideas are acceptable—what sort of speech should be permitted– was far more dangerous.
But that is where civility comes in. If free speech is to achieve its purposes—if it is to encourage us to consider and vet all ideas, consider all perspectives—we need to listen to each other. Insults, labeling, dismissing, racial “dog whistles”—all those hallmarks of incivility—distract from and derail the kinds of genuine conversation that the First Amendment is intended to foster.
Screaming invective across political or religious divides undermines the purpose of the First Amendment’s Free Speech provisions. Is such speech protected? Absolutely. Is it useful? Not usually.
In yesterday’s Star, Matt Tully reminded readers of a longstanding problem in the Indiana General Assembly–the multiple conflicts of interest that influence lawmaking in the Hoosier state, and the disinclination to do anything about it.
In fact, if quotes from state lawmakers are any indication, we’ve elected a fair number of people who wouldn’t recognize a conflict if it bit them on the you-know-what.
City government is evidently not exempt from that problem.
City-County Councilor Christine Scales has raised an question about the ethics of a proposal that certainly deserves more consideration than it has gotten thus far: a pending ordinance would require property owners to purchase smoke alarms with non-removable, non-replaceable “sealed” batteries with a ten-year life. On the surface, this is a reasonable safety measure, since many homeowners fail to replace shorter-lived batteries, and are thus unprotected if a fire occurs.
However, according to Counselor Scales, not only are the smoke alarms in question relatively expensive, the technology that would be required by the ordinance (a) has some safety issues of its own, which have been the subject of previous televised investigative reports; and (b) is proprietary to one company, which means the ordinance would have the effect of giving that company a monopoly on sales in Indianapolis. It further appears that the company in question has promised IFD “free smoke detectors, payment for TV and radio public-service announcements, press events and donations to IFD-favored charities” in exchange for IFD’s support for the ordinance.
I know absolutely nothing about smoke alarm technology. Perhaps the Councilor’s safety concerns are unfounded. But the ethics questions she raises are troubling and entirely legitimate, and deserve airing, and they aren’t being addressed. Instead, she reports that her questions have been met with stonewalling and silence.
Is Marion County proposing to hand a manufacturer a monopoly in return for a quid pro quo?
One of the consequences of publishing a blog is that people send you information–sometimes to share, sometimes requesting comment, often just to commiserate about a particularly depressing bit of news.
The other day, a friend shared a particularly offensive comment by one of our less-enlightened politicians, and asked the recurring question: what is wrong with people like that? It is a question I am totally unable to answer.
I can understand differences of opinion among people trying to solve problems (people of good will trying to improve education can argue over the school reforms most likely to achieve that goal; people all of whom genuinely want to see the economy improve may disagree on the role of government debt, etc. ), but I simply can’t fathom what drives the naysayers and haters–the people who simply oppose efforts to provide healthcare to the uninsured, or reduce poverty, or insure that citizens are treated equally. It’s one thing to argue about the wisdom of the means being chosen, it’s another thing entirely to reject the legitimacy of the effort, to insist that nothing should be done.
It’s sort of like theft and vandalism: I “get” theft—it’s unacceptable, but I can understand the thief’s motive; he wants something he doesn’t have, so he steals it. It’s comprehensible. What I can’t understand, and have never understood, is vandalism—destruction for destruction’s sake.
Right now, we have people of good will who are arguing–as people have always done–over the best way to conduct the nation’s business. Citizens can and do disagree about policy, and are often disagreeable about it, but that sort of political conflict is unavoidable. And comprehensible.
What isn’t comprehensible (at least to me) is another contemporary phenomenon–one that is different in kind from the normal political fights of the past: behavior that can appropriately be described as civic vandalism. It’s as though a significant percentage of our political class is throwing a prolonged tantrum, with no purpose other than expressing rage and preventing the rest of us from conducting the nation’s business.
It’s beyond troubling–and beyond my feeble attempts at understanding.
If my blog posts have been somewhat erratic over the past three weeks, it is because my husband and I have been traveling in South America, a continent we had never before visited. We began in Buenos Aires—an absolutely delightful city—and proceeded via ship through the Chilean fjords, around Cape Horn and Ushuaia (the southern-most city in the world—self-proclaimed “City at the End of the World”) and along the Pacific Coast to Valparaiso, Chile.
Very few Hoosiers know that Valparaiso, Indiana, was named for Valparaiso, Chile—an intriguing bit of history shared with us by a very cheerful Assistant Pastor of the Lutheran Church in Valparaiso, Chile, when we wandered in off the street. Admiral Porter—for whom Indiana’s Porter County was named—changed the name of Porter County’s town, formerly Porterville, to Valparaiso in recognition of the only naval battle he ever lost—in Valparaiso, in the War of 1812. It was a classy gesture.
Our cruise concluded at Valparaiso, and most of those who disembarked went straight to Santiago and its international airport, approximately a two hour drive. We elected to stay a few days to explore the quirky, art-filled city that is now a World Heritage Site.
It was well worth the exploration. Valparaiso is unlike any city we’ve visited anywhere. Santiago, which we briefly toured on our last day, is a vibrant and beautiful metropolis, and Vina Del Mar (virtually next door) reminded us of Miami, with its high-rise condominiums and beachfront cafes, but Valparaiso didn’t remind us of anywhere else; it’s one of a kind.
Only 3% of Valparaiso is on flat ground; the rest is built, haphazardly, on thirty-plus hills. Very, very steep hills that overlook the sparkling bay and ocean.
Virtually all of the structures in the city look like flimsy shacks. Most of the siding used is painted corrugated metal, of the kind commonly seen on shipping containers. When we saw our hotel (this is the upscale part of the city? It looks like a slum!), we wondered what we’d gotten ourselves into, but the ramshackle exterior was a shocking contrast with the sleek, modern interior. We soon found that this contrast between interior and exterior was common—that preservation of the original architecture is strictly enforced, and any “rebuilding” or modernization occurs inside.
Art and art galleries are everywhere, as are museums—far more than might be expected in a city of 300,000. There are murals on the retaining walls, flowers painted on the light fixture poles. Restaurants showcase art.
Everywhere, too, are impossibly long and steep staircases built into the hills–stairs that allow people to reach the homes and shops scattered willy-nilly on the steep slopes—many of which are accessible only by those stairs and through neighboring properties. (I can’t imagine what aged or disabled folks do…)
While we were there, the city was rebuilding the streets in two of the “Cerros”—neighborhoods, or hills. They completely dug up the original streets, poured concrete, then laid granite blocks in sand/mortar on top of the concrete. The rebuilt streets will last a century or more. (Not exactly the way we do it here in Hoosier-land….)
Everyone we met was helpful and friendly (few spoke much English, and of course, being the Ugly Americans we are, we spoke no Spanish. Why didn’t I pay attention in my college Spanish class!?) The weather reminded me of San Francisco’s micro-climates. We were told that the city is generally temperate—they get very little snow and ice, and summer highs rarely reach 80.
Politically, the current issue appears to be a debate between members of the City Council who want to allow construction of a shopping center on the waterfront and those who are—as we were told—philosophically opposed to the notion of shopping as entertainment (we saw no malls or shopping centers—just small shops, galleries, cafes and street markets).
Europe is closer to the U.S., both culturally and geographically, than South America, and that’s probably the major reason we had never previously traveled to our own Southern Hemisphere. This trip was a revelation, and well worth the ten-hour flight from Dallas-Ft. Worth. Admiral Porter was onto something.
Enough travelogue; tomorrow, I’ll return to our originally-scheduled programming.
There’s been a lot of discussion about Paul Ryan’s racially-tinged dismissal of inner-city poverty as evidence of a cultural deficit. As Timothy Egan’s recent column in the New York Times reminds us, there’s a particular irony in Ryan’s appropriation of an argument that used to be mounted against his own Irish forebears.
“We have this tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work.” In other words, these people are bred poor and lazy.
Where have I heard that before? Ah, yes — 19th-century England. The Irish national character, Trevelyan confided to a fellow aristocrat, was “defective.” The hungry millions were “a selfish, perverse, and turbulent” people, said the man in charge of relieving their plight.
You never hear Ryan make character judgments about generations of wealthy who live off their inheritance, or farmers who get paid not to grow anything. Nor, for that matter, does he target plutocrats like Romney who might be lulled into not taking risks because they pay an absurdly low tax rate simply by moving money around. Dependency is all one-way.
We humans evidently have a deep-seated need to distinguish the virtuous “us” from the undeserving “them.” As Egan demonstrates, however, the identity of “us” and “them” is anything but static. Many upstanding Americans can trace their roots back to a once-despised “them.”
