The temper of the Republic

I turned on the news last evening just at the moment Wolf Blitzer on CNN was setting up the next guest with an intro, and all I heard was ‘and that’s another slap at the president…’ My instant reaction was ‘why are so many people taking “slaps” at others in American politics?’ Who wants to be slapped around? What have we devolved to in our public discourse?

That’s a question I’ve explored with guests on my radio show ‘The Right Questions’, and I’m still really interested in pursuing the topic of how we engage each other in speech. We’re so familiar with ‘scorched earth’ politics, the ‘politics of personal assassination,’ and the supposed merits of ‘in your face’ boldness that they’ve made their way into regular news reporting and commercial advertising.

Who wants anybody in their face? And yet, that’s supposed to be ‘cool.’

Well anyway, the news segment on the slap at the president made me recall a couple of stories I’ve seen recently, and I offer them here, for us all to consider. Politely.

First, anger in politics.

So the Democrats won the election. Is there any less anger in our politics for that? Not as far as I can tell. To be sure, you’ll find some relief on the Left, and a bit of smugness as well (the latter stemming more from our troubles in Iraq than from the election itself). But are we back to sweetness and light, say, on the web? I don’t think so. That is exactly why Peter Wood’s new book, A Bee in the Mouth: Anger in America Now scores a direct cultural hit. America has entered an enduring age of anger, and Peter Wood is the able (and unruffled) chronicler of that epoch.

I doubt that even Barack Obama can save us from our anger now. That’s because the anger that lately pervades our politics is more than just an aftereffect of six years of Democratic setbacks (although the strikingly angry Democratic response to their six bad years does call for an explanation). Our political anger is only the most impressive expression of a much wider cultural transformation. In politics, in music, in sports, on the web, in our families, and in the relations between the sexes, American anger has come into its own. Wood says we’re living in an era of “New Anger,” and regardless of who becomes our next president, New Anger isn’t going away anytime soon.

What’s “New Anger”? The EPPC piece takes a look at “Old Anger” first.

Before we lionized all those angry anti-heroes — from Jack Nicholson in the movies, to John McEnroe on the tennis court — Americans admired the strong silent type: slow to boil, reluctant to fight unless sorely provoked, and disinclined to show anger even then. Gary Cooper in Sargent York comes to mind. Old Anger was held in check by ideals of self-mastery and reserve. As Wood puts it, “Dignity, manliness, and wisdom called for self-control and coolness of temper.” The angry man, Wood reminds us, was once thought a weak-minded zealot, bereft of good judgment and prey to false clarity. Above all, Americans (especially women) kept anger at bay “lest it overwhelm the relations on which family life depends.”

Okay. Can we get back to that self-control, that sense of dignity and good judgment? This piece from The Economist (subscription required), a couple of weeks ago, explores a great related topic, ‘The art of conversation.’

The principle that it is rude to interrupt another speaker goes back at least to Cicero, writing in 44BC, who said that good conversation required “alternation” among participants. In his essay “On Duties”, Cicero remarked that nobody, to his knowledge, had yet set down the rules for ordinary conversation, though many had done so for public speaking. He had a shot at it himself, and quickly arrived at the sort of list that self-help authors have been echoing ever since. The rules we learn from Cicero are these: speak clearly; speak easily but not too much, especially when others want their turn; do not interrupt; be courteous; deal seriously with serious matters and gracefully with lighter ones; never criticise people behind their backs; stick to subjects of general interest; do not talk about yourself; and, above all, never lose your temper.

Probably only two cardinal rules were lacking from Cicero’s list: remember people’s names, and be a good listener. Each of these pieces of advice also has a long pedigree. At a pinch you might trace the point about names back to Plato. Both found a persuasive modern advocate in Dale Carnegie, a teacher of public speaking who decided in 1936 that Americans needed educating more broadly in “the fine art of getting along”.

And perhaps now more than ever.