
{"id":1250,"date":"2007-11-07T17:16:53","date_gmt":"2007-11-08T01:16:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2007\/11\/07\/for-the-record-the-lost-art-of-civility\/"},"modified":"2007-11-07T17:16:53","modified_gmt":"2007-11-08T01:16:53","slug":"for-the-record-the-lost-art-of-civility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2007\/11\/07\/for-the-record-the-lost-art-of-civility\/","title":{"rendered":"For the Record: The lost art of civility"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It would be a lie to say that civility is the answer to all the ills of modern politics \u00e2\u20ac\u201d local, state, national and global. But damn folks, now that this election is over, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s give it a whirl.<\/p>\n<p>I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve covered a lot of governmental boards, commissions, councils and what-have-ya\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s and have witnessed decent behavior most of the time. And while there have been disagreements and arguments, they seldom break down into full-fledged feuds.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>From my experience, when things do get ugly and stay ugly it usually starts during an election, when emotions and stakes are high. People running for office lay awake at night and do a lot of wondering \u00e2\u20ac\u0153what if.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And sometimes, especially in more partisan contests in more polarized places, that means that two people who are miffed at each other have to share a very public space at regular intervals.<\/p>\n<p>I once was assigned to cover a school board (in another state) where one board member sat with his back to the others. And though the individual was outnumbered on the board, he had his supporters in the audience who coughed and jeered and stared down the other members.<\/p>\n<p>It was a lesson in civics from hell, and while I was initially repulsed \u00e2\u20ac\u201d along with being initially baffled since I hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t covered the election that led to it \u00e2\u20ac\u201d I came to believe that every kid in the district ought to have had a chance to witness what happens when adults go feral.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the time, lines are crossed in elections not by a candidate but by a zealous supporter, and the wrong is that those actions aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t repudiated, or not with enough force, to satisfy the offended party. Add to such insult the enormously complex and pressure-filled task of running \u00e2\u20ac\u201d even on a local level \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and our species-inherent tendency to assign a reason or a rationale for everything, and you have the genesis of conspiracy theories, the discovery of cabals and machines or the all-to-prevalent notion that powerful people are out to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153get\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the folks they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t agree with.<\/p>\n<p>And while there certainly are political people who are intent on crushing their enemies and boosting their friends at the local level, here it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hardly done with the finesse and maliciousness you see in the movies or the anger witnessed every night on Fox or CNN.<\/p>\n<p>Nope, around here some people in politics simply don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like other people in politics. That may be a reason not to be chummy or plan family outings together, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no reason to support one or another policy. Sadly, the second victim in such squabbles \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the first being truth, of course \u00e2\u20ac\u201d is the best interests of the people they represent. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen good ideas delayed or shot down not on their merits but as a result of who was carrying the water.<\/p>\n<p>That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the kind of attitude that exists all too often in the workplace or the schoolyard, but when it comes to making decisions for all of us, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no call for it<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It would be a lie to say that civility is the answer to all the ills of modern politics \u00e2\u20ac\u201d local, state, national and global. But damn folks, now that this election is over, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s give it a whirl. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve covered a lot of governmental boards, commissions, councils and what-have-ya\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s and have witnessed decent behavior&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1250\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}