Maine Archives - The Institute for Civility in Government

Civility Linkblogging: Traffic, Facebook, and More on Tom Schweich

March 23, 2015 Adam Zolkover 2

This post is part of 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 week’s edition of civility linkblogging is somewhat eclectic. It includes a follow-up to last week’s post about the suicide of Missouri state auditor Tom Schweich. But it also includes an article about parenting that reflects on how to teach children about dealing with incivility. It includes some advice about Facebook. And it includes a reflection on the relative success of civility and community-mindedness in San Diego, California.

If you have an article that you think would be right for future civility linkblogging posts, please do not hesitate to email it to us at [email protected]. Include the title, url, and a short summary, and we will gladly review it for publication.

Now — the list:

Practicing Civility in an Uncivil World
Posted by Elisabeth Fairfield Stokes at The Washington Post, February 25, 2015

I have always made an effort to put things in context for my children, when they have been sad about mean behavior on the playground or as they start to become aware of larger truths about suffering in the world, but I had not been doing that for myself, I realized, not really. I was protecting myself with anger, too.

I now turn and look at people when they’re rude to me, not afraid, I hope, to show them that they’ve hurt me just a little, and let them see that hurt, not the anger and ugliness that we so often put up in front of our pain. Maybe their pain will see mine, and we’ll recognize something in each other that reminds us that being a little kinder is the only rule we ever need to know.

Three Ways for Facebook Users to Handle Offensive or Abusive Content
Posted by Amina Elahi at The Chicago Tribune, March 3, 2015

Facebook policy prohibits harmful or hateful speech, including that which glorifies violence or threatens others, [Monika] Bickert said. She said the company relies on community members to report abuse, which staffers review and deal with accordingly.

“We want to give people a variety of weapons,” Bickert said.

She outlined the different ways Facebook users can handle offensive or abusive content.

Civility: An Impressive Regional Achievement
Posted by Malin Burnham and Steven P. Dinkin at U-T San Diego, March 5, 2015

San Diego has been blessed with a regional trait that makes those advantages possible: We share a belief in the power of “community before self” and we know how to cooperate in pursuing common goals and building a stronger society.

Over time, our regional culture of collaboration has been tested by a series of political and economic challenges here at home and on the national stage, and it has proven resilient at every turn. We think it’s important to keep that in mind as we prepare for a new election season and confront the complex issues impacting our community.

After Tom Schweich’s Suicide, Kansas City Council Urges Political Civility
Posted by Lynn Horsley at The Kansas City Star, March 5, 2015

In the wake of Missouri Auditor Tom Schweich’s suicide, the Kansas City Council on Thursday adopted a resolution urging civility in politics and in the coming council elections.

Councilman Ed Ford was the lead sponsor of the resolution, which got unanimous council support. He said it was prompted in part by Schweich’s untimely death in the midst of an apparently vicious whisper campaign about his candidacy for governor.

“The eloquent words of (former) Sen. (John) Danforth at his funeral put a lot of things in perspective,” Ford told his colleagues.

The resolution cites Danforth’s eulogy at Schweich’s funeral, in which he said, “Words do hurt. Words can kill.”

Civility in American Life isn’t Dead, But it’s in Decline
Posted at Lehigh Valley Live, March 8, 2015

Let’s be clear: Civility isn’t the fuel of democracy, it’s the primary lubricant. You can conduct business at full throat and invective; it just doesn’t work very well, and the gene pool for good, interactive government shrinks. It confirms the growing sense in American politics that common ground is unobtainable, even undesirable. It’s for wimps, and no one ever accomplished anything through reason.

You can go online and see what good-public-manners advocates say about civility. A public relations firm, Weber Shandwick, tracks people’s opinions on this. It comes as no surprise that a large majority of Americans says we’re getting more ornery every year. Yet to do anything about it risks the likelihood of being shouted down.

It’s like we’re feasting on our ability to listen.

Civility Linkblogging: Small Towns, LDS, and the Internet

February 3, 2014February 3, 2014 Adam Zolkover 2

This week’s linkblogging segment is anchored by two articles about small towns — one extolling the value of civility for economic development, and the other lamenting its absence, suggesting that municipal politics can be seen as a microcosm of the nation. Willie Weatherford, outgoing mayor of Manteca, California, tells his local newspaper that an increase in civil dialogue has been the greatest accomplishment of his tenure in office. While Telly Halkias, writing in Portland, Maine, regrets the ease with which New Englanders become part of the problem.

Now on to the list:

Mayor: Civility Brought Good Things
Posted by Dennis Wyatt at The Manteca Bulletin, January 2, 2014

Willie Weatherford is in his final year as mayor. … Looking back, he sees the establishment of civility and business-like council meetings as elected leaders’ biggest achievement over the past 11 years.

“With have learned to disagree and still get along,” Weatherford said. “Council meetings are designed to take care of the city’s business and we are doing that.”

Because there is decorum and a business-like approach to city matters at the council level Weatherford believes the city has been able to do what it has done while many other communities struggled.

Keep On Tweeting, There’s No Techno-Fix For Incivility Or Injustice
Posted by Even Selinger at Forbes, January 2, 2014

As a philosophy professor who regularly assigns students complex texts that take patience to read and that require consideration of provocative views (sometimes quite unlike their own!), you might think I’d endorse this recipe for civility: mix time with depth and considered argumentation and out comes charitable interpretations and proportionate proposals. But while thoughtful reading most certainty can lead to thoughtful behavior, that’s not the end of the story. By themselves, books aren’t a magic technology that can transform impatient character and tame the passions through regular consumption. Like the mistaken conviction that “to know the good is to do the good,” equating literary fiber with a moral diet is a rationalist fantasy.

Political Civility: Not Even in Small Towns
Posted by Telly Halkias in The Portland Daily Sun, January 2, 2014

Ten years later and hopefully a sliver wiser, I’m disappointed that as a group we didn’t keep our cool. I’d even go so far as feeling embarrassed when looking back at some of the crowd behavior that night.

This wasn’t an earth-shattering coast-to-coast forum with partisan tempers raging. Yet one can appreciate today’s large-scale social rancor by seeing how easily a few dozen folks in rural New England turned into a rabble.

First Amendment: Let’s Try That Free Speech Option Called Civility in 2014 in Public Life
Posted by Gene Policinski at GazetteXtra on January 2, 2014

Our nation’s Founders were no strangers to rude, callous and raucous debate in public life and to vicious commentary, even by today’s “anything goes” online standards. Sex scandals, infidelity, personal weaknesses and even religious differences were exposed, debated and mocked in public life and in the newspapers of the day with personal glee and political purpose.

The self-governing system eventually created for the United States depends on vigorous public involvement and debate, but it also depends on a measure of what we call today “civility” to function. Not civility in the sense of polite nods and watered-down language—that’s not “free speech” in any sense—but rather a thinking response and respect for robust debate over ideas and policies.

Church Instructs Leaders on Same-Sex Marriage
Posted at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Newsroom, January 10, 2014

While these matters will continue to evolve, we affirm that those who avail themselves of laws or court rulings authorizing same-sex marriage should not be treated disrespectfully. The gospel of Jesus Christ teaches us to love and treat all people with kindness and civility—even when we disagree.

Civility Linkblogging: Maine, Palestine, and Conservative Publications

January 2, 2014 Adam Zolkover

Welcome to the first edition of Civility Linkblogging of 2014.

Civility Linkblogging is an ongoing segment in which we search out news and discussion from around the web that highlights issues surrounding civil discourse, or that considers principles of civility. We gather 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 abroad.

This week’s segment covers the very busy month of December, which saw several developments related to education: new rules instituted by the Indiana State School Board to curb incivility in meetings, and a serious discussion of cyber-bullying — both directed at middle- and high-school students, and directed toward school officials — in Michigan and Maryland.

Here, however, we are covering the inaugural event of Choose Civility Portland, an organization devoted to enacting respectful dialogue in Maine. We are covering approaches to civilizing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — as it plays out among students at San Francisco State University. And we are covering two very different calls for civility from two conservative news sources: The Washington Times and The American Conservative.

Now on to the list:

Portland Campaign Promotes Civility, Tolerance in Public Discourse
Posted by William Hall at The Forecaster, December 3, 2013

Civility means manners, but Choose Civility is not just about etiquette lessons.

“To maintain a level of openness and inclusion in our community, we have to have some level of civility,” said Kimberly Simmons, the library’s Choose Civility coordinator. Civility calls for respecting others and their opinions, she explained, even if they’re unpopular.

A Call for Civility in Leadership
Posted by Jennifer Olney at SteamFeed, December 3, 2013

We forget that long before “civility” became a buzzword, leaders built genuine relationships in work life. The organization in the past was based relationship-centered, mission-focused, and valued based. Good manners were common, not uncommon. Civility was not something that had to be mandated rather it was the norm. Organizations didn’t have to have training in civility, rather, it was a given. Our society has changed and our organizations and leaders are now having to be retrained in civility.

To Counter Courseness, Choose Civility
Posted by Ben S. Carson at The Washington Times, December 17, 2013

Civility and honesty are highly desirable traits, which should be imparted to our children both through example and planned lessons. This teaching should begin in the home, but certainly teachers, school administrators and other responsible adults should take every opportunity to facilitate the learning process. On the other hand, we must not fall into the trap of being so concerned about innocent words and deeds that we destroy people while worshipping ill-conceived rules of speech and behavior.

SFSU Student’s Call for Civility Starts With ‘I Feel Your Pain’
Posted by Ryan Ariel Simon at JWeekly.com, December 19, 2013

At the heart of this issue, and the pain of my community, is the inability and refusal to recognize or understand the pain of the other. This is a symptom, I believe, of the larger issue of the lack of empathy in the Israel-Palestine debate in general.

It is what scholar Herbert C. Kelman calls “the interdependence of Israeli and Palestinian national identities”: One group sees the recognition of the pain of “the other” as negating its own pain, its narrative.

How Snark & Smarm Fall Short
Posted by Gracy Olmstead at The American Conservative, December 21, 2013

Smarm is bad. But the way in which we gleefully suck up snark’s sneering jabs is equally detrimental to society. Public discourse, in both cases, is more concerned with personal loftiness than truly elevating the needs and concerns of the public. Truth, one would hope, could offer us a different course: one in which “civility” is not saccharine, and “truth” is not nasty—a discourse in which mercy and truth can meet together.