National Endowment for the Humanities Chairman Jim Leach

I applaud Chairman Leach's efforts to foster civil discourse and civility in general within public life. I teach conflict management at Granite State College and stress the importance of the relationship when engaged in a dispute. Hostile language, over the top sarcasm, threatening and intimidating language are conversation enders; preventing us from fully exploring and working toward resolution of the issues and interests that are at the root of conflict.

Regarding the question: are we less civil now than in the past (considering Aaron Burr /Alexander Hamilton, other past examples of worse civility)?

I would argue that actual uncivil, unsuitable, and even dangerous language may not be worse now but that it is much more pervasive and so damaging.

200, 100, even 50 years ago the most heated exchanges took place between relatively small groups, often with long lag between response if the communication were through written means such as newspapers. Public forums were only as large as the physical meeting space. Observers were not so much part of the debate or exchange due to physical isolation. The majority of the population had no direct engagement with the process.

Cable tv hosts now agitate millions in real time, as do web sites dedicated to providing red meat for their base. Across the country, discourse has devolved to disruptive harangues- not debate.

The effective result is we now have a much larger, more hostile divide, driven by incivility.

I am a contributing author to the book "At War with Words". My chapter addresses discursive construction of group identities, that is, how language can be used to manipulate and divide, especially in politics.
I first became aware of the power of language as a graduate student in linguistics in Germany, where I studied extremist language of both the far left and far right in German history.
Many of the same strategies are now being used on American political talk radio and TV, though it is my personal view that they have been discovered through an entrepeneurial process, rather than in an orchestrated fashion. But the polarization of tone, emphasis on ideology, scapegoating, stereotyping and the use of dehumanizing vocabulary used by hosts do manipulate listeners and it is dangerous, as history has shown that this can radicalize the ethical climate and unleash aggression.
Jim Leach is one strong voice, but every conscientious citizen should be speaking out about this threat to our democracy. The answer to propagandistic speech is not censorship, but more speech.