Civility Linkblogging: Tom Ridge, Rick Scott, and Convicted Civility

Civility Linkblogging: Tom Ridge, Rick Scott, and Convicted Civility

Civility Linkblogging is an ongoing series that highlights discourse about civility from around the Web. We glean the links in this segment from as broad a cross-section as we can manage of blogs, newspapers, magazines, and other online venues, from the United States and around the world. This installment is largely eclectic. It features former…

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and David Brooks on the Dangers of Single Storyism

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and David Brooks on the Dangers of Single Storyism

New York Times columnist David Brooks offered his readers a gift, recently, when he pointed out a 2009 TED Talk by Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie called “The Danger of a Single Story.” In that talk, Adichie discusses globalization, colonialism, and the mutual cross-cultural misperceptions brought about – as Brooks puts it – by what…

Point Taken from PBS Offers Debate with a Side of Civility

Point Taken from PBS Offers Debate with a Side of Civility

Television reviews are not usually within our purview. But this month, happily, something interesting is happening in public broadcasting that invites some civility discussion. PBS, together with Boston’s WGBH, have premiered a new show called Point Taken that’s a version of a panel debate. But far from the Crossfires of the world, this debate isn’t…

Civility in Nebraska’s Effort to Reform Redistricting

Civility in Nebraska’s Effort to Reform Redistricting

Because the national press hasn’t picked it up, you may not have heard the story. But there’s some very interesting civility news going on right now in the state of Nebraska. On Wednesday, Nebraska’s legislature passed a bill that would reform the state’s redistricting process, taking it largely out of the hands of the legislators…

Supreme Court Nominee Merrick Garland’s Pattern of Civility

Supreme Court Nominee Merrick Garland’s Pattern of Civility

The Institute does not endorse candidates or policies, and it certainly doesn’t endorse nominees for judicial appointments. But from time to time, as we read the news, we’ll see something from a public figure – or about a public figure – that’s profoundly heartening. It has happened over the past several months with both Bernie…

Anaheim, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Problem of Escalating Violence

This past weekend has, once again, provided a sad example of the urgent need for civility – not as a means of policy negotiation or a form of politeness, but as an antidote to hatred and violence. This is what happened: last Saturday, at Pearson Park in Anaheim, California, members of the Ku Klux Klan…

Antonin Scalia’s Indelicate Brand of Civility

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who died unexpectedly this past Saturday, is not someone whose name we usually associate with civility. Reflecting on his life for The New York Times, Bruce Allan Murphy, law professor and author of Scalia: A Court of One, writes that he changed the United States Supreme Court… more than President…

Recent Poll Confirms: Civility Matters

We here at the Institute all already knew it was true, but it’s confirmed: Americans do in fact care about civility. According to a recent poll conducted by communications firms Weber Shandwick and Powell Tate, with KRC Research, the great majority of likely voters in the upcoming Presidential race say that they care about the civility of…