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It is possible to have civility in politics, says Doctor Strachan of the Bliss Institute at the University of Akron.

Ten years ago, political scientists sounded alarms about the rudeness in politics, but it has only gotten worse.

My guest for this discussion is Dr. Cherie Strachan, director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute at the University of Akron.

She says she has been concerned about this incivility for the last decade.

What we are going through and what we've been through in the last few years does not seem possible to go back and be civil in politics.

Do you think it is possible, Dr. Strachan?

- I don't think it will be easy, but I do think it's possible.

And in fact, it's necessary if we're going to survive and remain a democracy.

- How can we go back?

- The way that we go back is that we realize the reason why political issues are political for a reason.

There's negativity, there's disagreement, a clash of values, different worldviews and preferences.

Politics is how we're supposed to manage that difference of opinion and preference without resorting to violence, right?

We invented politics and political institutions to manage that disagreement, you know, without resorting to nastiness.

but it's the electorate that holds elected officials accountable.

So the more people who want civility and deliberation and bipartisanship and discussion, the more of us that are alienated from the rudeness, the more rude it's going to get.

The solution lies with ourselves and holding people accountable for their behavior.

And refusing, you know, people who are more moderate or people who you know, might have strong preferences but demand civility, refusing to be alienated from the process and seed the ground to people who will be rude or, you know, rude or worse.

- So civility doesn't mean you can't talk.

It's not silence.

- Absolutely.

You know, civility in the public sphere is the equivalent of politeness in the private sphere.

Who are you most typically polite to in your personal interactions?

More consciously polite to, is typically someone who you want to maintain a relationship with, but with whom you disagree.

Right?

It's a tool that we've invented, right?

You know, who are you most rude to?

I'm probably most rude to my husband because we know we love each other.

And if I've had a bad day and sometimes you slip, you know it's not going to damage You know, I know it's not going to damage that relationship.

I can come back and apologize or we just let it go.

But if someone already doesn't like me and we need to be in a relationship to make something happen, right?

whether it's a political decision or if it's who gets to be invited to Christmas dinner, we have invented these rules of politeness, which we use in the private sphere.

they're really important when we disagree with each other in the public sphere, when the stakes get a little higher, or we want a little bit more formality, we refer to it as civility.

And when the stakes are increasingly high, when it's, the stakes of going to war or not, we refer to it as diplomacy, and it becomes even more ritualized.

So civility is actually a rhetorical tool for maintaining a relationship, especially when you disagree.

- Okay.

How did it become so different?

- So what happened in late 1960s, early 1970s America, up through that point in time had been referred to as a nation of joiners.

We were all very active up until that time in an organized public sphere.

We belonged to organizations that brought us, and we disagree about a lot more than we, you know, think we do.

and brought us into the organized public sphere, whether it was unions, churches, Kiwanis, Masons, rotary, all of these organizations brought us into the public sphere where we engaged, and they were mass membership organizations.

Oftentimes they had a federated structure.

and we had to realize that we'd pay dues We wanted to do good things for our country or for our, communities.

And we had to learn how to use deliberation and civility to make decisions with one another in the process.

It also cultivated this, you know, awareness of how to use bylaws, awareness of process and procedure, like really strong civic skills, right?

Knowing “Robert's Rules” and how not to offend someone at a meeting.

But it also cultivated a really strong sense of self-interest Rightly understood, right?

That we all do better when we all participate a little bit, and we should all read the newspapers and participate in talking about politics and solving things, and vote, right?

Vote because you felt like that was your obligation and you're supposed to do it.

Right?

- Once women got the the right to vote.

- Absolutely right.

And so after, post the late 1960s, early 1970s, we've had an erosion in in the organized public sphere, like asking people whether they belong to something where they have to pay dues and go to a monthly meeting.

Not very often.

And so the notion that this intrinsic sense of civic identity, where people feel guilty, basically if they're not paying attention to politics, political issues, civic, public life and voting, has been eroded over time.

Politicians still need people to vote, right?

So politicians reaction to, people who are not paying attention to politics, right?

Not living up to their civic obligation by paying a lot of attention and being involved.

How else do you get people to vote?

You scare them, right?

Right.

People vote either because they have intrinsic civic identity and they think they're supposed to.

And in an uncontested election for dogcatcher, they're going to show up because that's what we do, right?

That's who we are.

And I'll be judged as not a good citizen, not a good person by my peers who I'm in regular contact with, If I don't do it.

that's been eroding.

Politicians still need, you know, first past the post elections.

If you mobilize the most voters, you still win.

So when people aren't paying attention and participating on their own, we see a spike in negative political advertising.

We see a spike in fear appeals.

We see a spike and an escalation in the rudeness and the nastiness, and willingness to just scare people.

It's a zero sum game.

If you let the other side win, this bad thing is going to happen, right?

They're the enemy.

They're not real Americans, right?

so we've had that for several decades.

And as a result, it has become politics.

- Normal.

- It's become normalized.

- Do you think the different media have anything to do with it?

- I do.

So at the same time that the organized public sphere was eroding and people were joining and participating less, one of the ways that it made it, you know, politicians were frustrated about like, “where do I give a speech where there's 50 people in the audience?” Right?

“How do I connect?” at the same time, that was happening, there was a rise in mass communication or a rise in communication technology that increasingly allowed politicians to narrow cast their messages.

Right?

So instead of having, you know, all the people in the community face to face, then we have television, which is broadcast, at least it's a mass audience, and they're all going to hear the same thing.

But then we start to get, oh, cable TV, oh, radio stations where only certain people listen, you know, now they can shape the pop up ads.

They collect enough data, they’re increasingly able to shape the pop up ads based on individual level data.

Like, You know, you swipe your card at Kroger's, they know your grocery list, they can purchase it.

or if your phone is turned on as you're driving, they know what billboards you passed on the way home, and they can shape advertising that pops up on your computer to like your actual like where you traveled, what bus ads you saw today to reinforce them.

- We, listen and watch only those channels that agree with us.

- Absolutely.

Yes.

and self-selection.

Absolutely.

you know, the people who are interested rather than people who are interested in being public spirited, in making sure that they are truly well informed and truly, you know, getting information from all the legitimate sources that they can, what we have are people who have heard those fear appeals and become emotionally invested in their side, winning because they're afraid and they don't want to hear.

They just want to get get more mobilization and more heated up by listening to what they already believe.

And absolutely, so they self-select I mean, you all know, the cable TV channels, that which ideology listens to, and you know what, internet sites and news sources, people self-select into, to hear what they want to hear, to maintain that angriness.

- Can we set standards for civility?

- It's hard to set standards for civility when we have a First Amendment.

And when we have a First Amendment, and when politics is inherently, oftentimes negative.

There are civil ways to express disagreement and negativity.

But where are you going to parse the line?

Who's allowed to say what?

So, my preference, rather than regulation and regulating free speech, is better political socialization.

So my hope lies in particular with young people.

I mean, seems a natural place for me to go.

I work with young people every day.

and if we can provide better political socialization for up and coming generations, and provide political socialization that replaces that public spirited civic identity, that they will not want to turn.

They will not want to be misinformed, in order to be angry.

They will want real information so that they can make the best choices.

And so we have to do a better job with political socialization.

- Wouldn't that be wonderful?

- I'm trying every day.

Every day.

I'm trying.

- I'm here with Dr. Cherie Strachan, who is the director of the Bliss Institute at the University of Akron.

And I hope that we can do something about civility in politics.

That's the topic for today.

The standards that you believe in, I think are listen, show respect, And those are self-evident.

Seek truth.

Can you explain that?

- So if you are being public spirited, and you truly want to be a good citizen who that doesn't mean we don't have different reactions to accurate information.

People have different lived experiences.

People have different religious values, different cultural values, and they will react differently.

That's why politics, right?

Exists, right?

Because we will actually have different reactions to accurate information.

But we will never actually solve the problem, Right, we can come together, use civility and dilberation to go, “here's the problem.” We won't understand how other people are reacting to factual information unless we actually deliberate.

But if we don't have the same set of factual information and believe things that are untrue, and both camps believe things that are untrue.

It won't get resolved.

So you have to be public spirited enough to deal and grapple with reality.

- And another one is, words matter.

and that is pretty self-evident as well.

- Right.

Well, at its core, politeness, civility and diplomacy, at its core is respecting other people as autonomous actors.

I should not use, rhetorical tactics that deny you your autonomy.

So I have to engage in reason giving.

and I have to listen and be willing to be persuaded myself.

But I have to engage in reason giving.

So there are other ways to stop someone else who you disagree with from being persuasive.

An ad hominem attack, for example.

I can call you a crazy insert your preferred pejorative.

Right?

And then I'm telling other people, don't listen to you because it doesn't matter what you say.

It's not legitimate because you're not a real American or you're not a you know, you're not a true patriot or you know, whatever.

You know, whatever nasty thing you want to say.

Those are probably nice compared to the things people are calling each other.

and so, or interrupting and talking over someone.

Right?

Not giving them space to explain, not inviting them into the process.

So, at its core, both politeness and civility rely on recognizing that other people have autonomous free will.

They have just as much right as you do to react to information and make their own preferences and choices.

And it might not be what I would conclude.

And that's okay.

And you have to live with that and the other thing about democracy is, you have to be okay with losing sometimes.

Right?

But nothing is permanent in a democracy.

If you lose a policy debate or a policy issue, you can organize with people who, you know, agree with you and come back and run for election another day, right?

Or bring a new law forward.

Or if you’re in the legislature, put pressure through a social movement.

Right?

To change something.

So at the end of the day, right.

Democracy is open ended.

And even if you lose, you can always come back.

And the most important thing to preserve a democracy and not fall into sort of authoritarian or violent means of getting your way, is to recognize that other people have every right to make different decisions than you do.

Sometimes you might lose.

but you can come back and fight another day.

- Okay.

And act with integrity.

- Right, yeah.

I think I kind of touched on that with the last, answer is act with integrity, is that you focus on your reason giving focus on your persuasiveness.

I shouldn't want to dominate you because I tricked other people into thinking you're a bad person.

I should want to win because other people have been persuaded by my reasons.

Right?

So, you know, and if you're not persuading people with your reasons, come up with a better argument.

- And appreciate differences.

You've said that numerous times.

Everybody has the right to believe something different.

- Yes.

And we actually make better, more effective policies When we listen to people who are different.

We will not know how other people are affected.

Who have, you know, different come from different places.

We won't understand how they're being affected by a social issue or a public issue of concern that we're trying to solve.

You don't know how people are experiencing it.

Or how they're reacting to it, until you listen.

And when you listen and put everyone's input and concerns into the mix, you're actually much more likely to produce an effective policy.

- Seek constructive engagement.

What does that mean?

Part of the problem that we're in this mess is that people pulled back from public life, right?

People pulled back from willingness to participate in organizations that had meetings or time commitments.

and there's a whole host of reasons why that are, you know, it takes two people working to stay in the middle class.

Right?

And so do you want to both work if you're a married couple, you know, come home, have dinner and go to a meeting, or do you want to like, you know, spend time with your kids or you know, some of the organizations that we're talking about up through the 1960s had exclusionary male only or Protestants only.

You know, we have a Knights of Columbus because we wouldn't let Catholics through the door.

African Americans launched their own Masons organization because they wouldn't let African Americans through the door.

and so there's reasons why some of the older organizations, even when they changed their policies, membership policies, it wasn't fast enough.

People remembered the history of exclusion.

That's part of the reason, why they fell apart.

but instead of fixing them, we abandoned them.

Right?

Instead of fixing them in the late 60s, early 1970s and saying “it is still of such value to come together.” And you know, “work together in civic organizations.” Not necessarily government, right, but in civic organizations that paralleled and had similar practices and bylaws and deliberation like meaningful commitments and values to our community.

We're not going to fix it until we figure out how to replace that kind of political socialization.

- And base differing opinions on common facts.

- Yes.

- How about that one?

- I read a variety of different newspapers, and this is my job.

So I'm not saying everyone has to do this, but I read a variety of different newspapers every single day to make sure that I am not, you know, if I've read The New York Times and the Washington Post one day I'm going to go read the Wall Street Journal the next.

Right?

I want factual information from real news sources.

If a newspaper is known to have even their op eds are known to have a particular flavor, I make sure I mix it up.

So that I'm trying to get real information.

Don't self-select into these places.

That only feeds you what you want to hear.

- You work with students to ask them to come up with a plan on managing conflicts.

Do they accept that?

They do.

One of the things that we launched, I'm starting my third year as director.

So one of the things that we launched when I came in as director of the institute, we have some funded master's students.

And so we have them facilitate deliberative discussion sessions in our Intro to American Government class.

So students who maybe just take that class for a general education requirement, they might not realize how important it is, Right?

For them to cultivate this intrinsic identity and be involved.

So we talk about, a controversial political issue across the course of the year.

They meet four times and talk about it until they can come up with a consensus policy.

and they're graded, their policy, as long as it's reasonable, I don't care if it's conservative.

I don't care if it's liberal, I don't care if it's pragmatic.

Whatever they come up with is theirs.

And they own it.

They are, my grad students have a grading rubric where they grade the students on their ability to talk about a controversial political issue, and they're graded on civility and deliberation.

And there's, you know, the students are told, you know, civility requires no interruptions, no ad hominem attacks, right?

It requires reason giving.

And, you know, respecting people's autonomy, and inclusive listening with a willingness to be persuaded and not just so you can reject someone else's position.

So we have a whole rubric, and we grade them and they're very nervous.

The freshman, the very first day that they come in and the first day and we're doing this on Friday, by the way, we're talking about immigration policy.

and they will be very nervous when they come in, first of all, because so much of the way education is structured is that there's one right answer, and they will be convinced that they need to learn the right answer from the grad student.

Like they will turn to the graduate student and say, you know, “what am I supposed to put down on this piece of paper?” And it's like, “Here's the rubric where you have to talk to each other and you have to be civil and you have to deliberate.” And then the other reason they're hesitant is that they are afraid that other students who disagree with them will call them names.

You know, or that it'll be ugly, Right?

And so then again, we have to come back to the rubric and go, “you're absolutely expected to disagree with one another.

It would be unusual for us to put undergrads in a room.

And have you all agree with each other.” Right?

Randomly assigned.

And so they'll be very nervous the first day once they realize that there are guardrails on this conversation, right?

That the other students are going to play along by the end of the semester.

Every semester I have students who come to me and tell me thank you, because they did not think they would be able to manage a conversation about politics with strangers.

And have it be a comfortable space.

- They learn to do that.

- and they’ve learned to do it.

- I love it, I love it.

Do you have any examples of politicians who have managed to run their campaigns the way that you're talking about?

- I mean I did an experimental design a couple of years ago where we were looking at undergraduate students reactions to rude and civil behavior.

so we randomly assigned them video clips, you know, watch these politicians be civil, watch these politicians be rude.

And then we had a post-test.

It was a lot easier to find the rude ones, let me be honest - Of course.

- I'm on YouTube looking for like examples of rude behavior.

you know, I had a plethora to pick from, right?

but I did find, absolutely find examples of people being civil.

There's a wonderful example of, Dick Durbin and John McCain before he passed away, being purposefully demonstrating and kind of making a little joke about it.

They disagreed with each other on some issue, and they were like, you know, you said this and I'm going to say this, and this is how our colleagues on the floor of the Senate should behave.

it was one of the clips that I used.

- Uh huh.

- And I had a second John McCain clip.

This was back when, he was at a rally.

This is some time ago, but he was at a rally and this was in the public.

He was at a rally and someone got the mic and said, “well, you know that Obama, he's you know, he's this, he's that.

He's not a good person.” - Oh, yes.

- And John McCain took the mic back and said, “no, ma'am, he's an American citizen.

No, ma'am.

He's a good man who loves his family and cares about America.

I just happen to disagree with him.

And I think about X, Y, and Z, and that's why I think I would be a better president.” Right?

Classic.

- That's a beautiful example.

- Classic example.

- Yes.

John McCain was noted for being, upright and for understanding both points of view.

Thank you, Dr. Strachan.

I hope we have influenced our listeners and our viewers, to be civil to one another.

- Fingers crossed.

- Again, Thank you so much.

- Thank you.

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