Civility Linkblogging: Campaigning, Gossip, and Respect

ByAdam Zolkover

This post is part of our ongoing effort to highlight discourse about civility around the web. Our articles for civility linkblogging come from a wide cross-section of blogs and newspapers, magazines and other websites, from the United States and abroad.

Of note this week is an article about New York Times columnist David Brooks, and his recent remarks to MATRIX:MIDLAND, an event in Midland, Michigan. There, he called civility a moral issue. We live he said, too much in a culture that affirms external virtues; good grades, financial success, fame. And as a result, we undervalue intangible qualities like strength of character that are necessary to lead, or govern, or discourse civilly with one another.

Civility Linkblogging: Classroom, Internet, and Transit

ByAdam Zolkover

This post is part of our ongoing effort to highlight discourse about civility around the web. Our articles for civility linkblogging come from a wide cross-section of blogs and newspapers, magazines and other websites, from the United States and abroad.

This week’s post focuses on what we might call small civilities — etiquette on trains and parking lots, civility in online gaming communities and student evaluations. But as these articles all make clear, small civilities add up. Teaching evaluations in college classrooms may mean a venue to vent for disappointed students, but for instructors, they are a measure of continued employment. Crowded trains may seem like mere inconvenience, but as Dr. P. M. Forni says, in a close-quartered bus or train, you have in action two of the main incivility-causing factors. These are anonymity and stress. And in combination, they can escalate into violence.

Civility Linkblogging: Accountability, Gemeinschaftsgefuehl, and Bush 41

ByAdam Zolkover

This post is part of our ongoing effort to highlight discourse about civility around the web. Our articles for civility linkblogging come from a wide cross-section of blogs and newspapers, magazines and other websites, from the United States and abroad.

This week’s post features a story about the civic consequences of uncivil words. After Frazier Glenn Cross shot and killed three people outside of two Jewish community institutions in Overland Park, KS, Marionville, Mo. Mayor Dan Clevenger spoke out in the killer’s defense. And in the process, he made his own anti-Semitic views clear. But the Marionville town aldermen would have none of that. And standing up for a culture of civility and respect, they forced Clevenger to resign.

Ranked Choice Voting and Civility?

ByAdam Zolkover

A new study, conducted after the 2013 elections by the Eagleton Poll at Rutgers University, suggests that ranked choice voting (RCV) may offer some positive potential in generating more civil outcomes in American elections. In a report released by FairVote [PDF], a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that advocates for electoral reform (including RCV), municipal voters in cities with ranked choice elections were significantly more likely to perceive candidates’ campaigns to be less negative than in previous years. And candidates were significantly less likely to perceive themselves — or their opponents — as having propagated negative personal attacks.

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The Importance of Congressional Student Forums

ByInstitute Staff

Some people think it never happens. They think that Republicans and Democrats cannot work together, or even have a civil conversation. But those people are mistaken. It does happen – and could happen more if more people would speak out for civility.

For years the Institute for Civility in Government has sponsored Congressional Student Forums. These bring two members of Congress from opposite sides of the political aisle together on college campuses around the country in order to model civil and respectful conversations with students and faculty on whatever issues the students bring to the table. The conversations are lively and informative. And they are critically important to our civic process.

Two Congressional Student Forums, This Week

ByAdam Zolkover

This week, the Institute for Civility in Government is holding two Congressional Student Forums: one will be today (Monday, April 21) on the campus of the University of Missouri, Kansas City; and the other will be tomorrow (Tuesday April 22) at the University of Texas, San Antonio.

For those who do not know, Congressional Student Forums are hour-and-a-half programs featuring two U.S. Representatives, one Republican and one Democrat, who dialogue (not debate!) about current issues. In this format, it is the university students who set the agenda through their questions to the members of Congress, allowing them a particularly empowering opportunity to interact directly with their elected officials.

Civility Linkblogging: City Government and Bangladesh

ByAdam Zolkover

This post is part of our ongoing effort to highlight discourse about civility around the web. Our articles for civility linkblogging come from a wide cross-section of blogs and newspapers, magazines and other websites, from the United States and abroad.

This week, we delve into civic politics from Tallahasse, Florida, to Buffalo, New York, to Columbia, South Carolina, noting especially a thoughtful piece by Columbia mayor Steve Benjamin, who begins with the story of an old man’s words to his grandson: