Civil Discourse

I recently wrote about some of the institutional madness that is crippling American education and invited parents to say something about it.  One reader left this comment.  "Your call to action for parents has me feeling ambivalent.  I have read the minutes of local school board meetings that consist of parents shouting about masks.  [W]hat troubles me is the manner that parents have gone about these conversations.  We are all collaborators in the education of our children.  Why can't we approach disagreements with genuine curiosity?"

There is a simple key to making our civic discourse more civil and filled with the kind of curiosity this reader and countless others desire, but while it is simple, it seems difficult for many to put into practice.  We all know the old adage, "Listen more and talk less," and although this would indeed move the level of communication in the public square toward the humane end of the spectrum, there is something else that, if implemented, should clear things up in a hurry.

Good Morning, Eastside High

In the 1987 movie Good Morning, Vietnam, comedic legend Robin Williams portrayed Adrian Cronauer, a radio personality for the Armed Forces Radio Service.  Despite the genius that Williams brings to the movie, hilarious performances are also given to us by Bruno Kirby as Lieutenant Hauk and Noble Willingham as General Taylor.  In one scene the lieutenant explains to the general why he thinks a bit that Cronauer did on air regarding Vice-President Richard Nixon was disrespectful, noting that the former V.P. is a "good man and a decent man."  The general disagrees in some rather salty language, modified here for more sensitive readers.  The original script can be found here.

General Taylor:  Bull!  I know Nixon personally.  He lugs a trainload of manure behind him big enough to fertilize the Sinai.  Why, I wouldn't buy an apple off the man, and I consider him a good, close, personal friend.

Just two years later we saw the Morgan Freeman movie Lean On Me in which Freeman plays high school principal Joe Clark who takes over struggling Eastside High School in Patterson, New Jersey, in an effort to make it an institution of true education once again.  His heavy-handed tactics, however, land him in hot water with the superintendent, Dr. Napier, portrayed by Robert Guillaume.  In a tense verbal altercation, the superintendent lays down the law.

Dr. Napier:  End of discussion!  Debate is over!  You will write a formal apology for your treatment of Mrs. Elliott and Darnell and for your thoughtless insult to the women of this community!  Get used to it! It's the way of the world!  If you're so hot for discipline, then start by accepting mine!  Come on.  Let's get something to eat.

Bullshit!|I know Nixon personally.W
He lugs a trainload of shit behind him|that would fertilize the Sinai.
Why, I wouldn't buy an apple from|the son of a bitch, and I consider|him a good, close, personal friend

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=good-morning-vietnam

What do these scenes have in common?  They both portray the ability of people to disagree, yet get along.  They show that it is possible for one person to call another out for being wrong and yet for the two of them to remain friends.  They give us a clear picture that dispute and civility, disagreement and amiability, can live side by side in our hearts, words, and actions.  The question, of course, is how this is possible.

#1 Rule of Engagement

Neither give nor take anything personally in discourse about ideas.  There it is.  That is the number one rule of engagement that makes discourse civil, which is usually if not always a prerequisite to pursuit of curiosity.  To reference just one more movie from the '80s, consider a scene from the Patrick Swayze action flick Road House.  Swayze's character Dalton takes over security at a Missouri road house where the customers have become used to getting out of hand.  At his first meeting with the bar staff, he tells them not to take insults from inebriated customers personally.  One of the bouncers questions whether or not a particularly vulgar appellation is personal or not, and Dalton replies, "No.  It's two nouns combined to elicit a prescribed response."  Unwilling to let the matter go, the bouncer continues.

Bouncer:  What if someone calls my momma a whore?

Dalton:  Is she?

Shakespeare it's not, but the scene illustrates a vital point in public discourse.  Don't take things personally.  Ideally, don't dish out anything personal either, as that amounts to nothing more than an ad hominem attack, but even if someone else does not know the rules of civility, you still have the choice of whether to respond.

There is a widely accepted belief that we must answer every taunt and insult in kind, or perhaps even go it one better.  Why?  Why is that necessary?  Someone calls you a name or insults something or someone you hold dear.  What, exactly, is gained by your doing the same in response?  To return to Road House, another bouncer tells Dalton when he first arrives that he had heard he was really tough, but then adds, "You don't look like much to me."  Dalton merely responds, "Opinions vary."

The Path To Killing Cats

It is said that curiosity killed the cat, and that may well be true if the feline confused the ball of string with a ball of electrical wire, but for humans curiosity is the key to learning.  The person who commented on my other post asked why we can't approach disagreements with genuine curiosity, and too often the reason is that we have violated the first rule of engagement.  Curiosity and exploration many times come to dead ends and wrong conclusions.  That is part of the adventure and, dare I say, the fun.  Sometimes we need to be told rather directly that we are wrong, but if we take everything as a personal slight, we can never have the meaningful engagement that genuine curiosity and learning require.

To end with one more reference to a dramatic scene, consider an episode from the television series The West Wing, which ran from 1999-2004.  John Amos, who superbly portrayed James Evans in the '70s sitcom Good Times and Kunta Kinte in the miniseries Roots, gives equally powerful performances as Admiral Percy Fitzwallace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  In season 1, episode 3 of The West Wing, the President's chief-of-staff is about to hire a young, African-American man as personal assistant to the President.  He asks Admiral Fitzwallace if he would have a problem with it, since the young man would occasionally have to carry the President's bags.

Admiral Fitzwallace:  You gonna pay him a decent wage?  You gonna treat him with respect?  Then why should I care?  I've got real battles.  I don't have time for cosmetic ones.

If we take a page from the admiral's book, we will be more likely to engage in civil discourse, and this allows curiosity to flourish and true learning to take place.

Filler People

I wasn't planning to get into a discussion about poverty and homelessness, drug trafficking and prostitution, but it happened.  I am fond of saying that education is a shared journey of discovery, and my Period 9 A.P. Latin class proved that today.

We were reading the part in Book 6 of Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico in which he began to talk about the Druids.  He noted that there were two basic divisions of Gallic society of any size or importance, and that the rest was made up of filler people.  That's what the word "plebeians" meant to the Romans, and it is the word Caesar used in this passage.

He observed that these people never ventured to do anything on their own, nor were they ever consulted about anything.  We imagined the day in, day out grind of existence with no hopes or aspirations.  We recalled the passage we had read in Latin III from Cicero's essay on old age in which he says one of the rewards of reaching advanced years is appeti, to be sought for one's opinion, and we put all of that against this scene from the classic film Twelve Angry Men.

(Begin clip at 41:35)

Going back to Caesar, we read that these people, when oppressed by debt, taxes, or the injustice of those in power, often gave themselves over to slavery.  We considered the choices that some make to engage in dangerous and criminal behavior like selling drugs and prostitution, choices that we rightly condemn but the background to which we may not fully know.


Caesar went on to describe the authority of the Druids in all matters, public and private.  He wrote that anyone who did not abide by their decisions would be excommunicated from all the holy rites.  Such people would be shunned as wicked and accursed.  One of my students pointed out that this still goes on in the way we avoid homeless people, refusing to make eye contact with them and pretending not to hear their pleas for assistance as we pick up our pace.

We compared this excommunication by the Druids, which Caesar said the Gauls considered the harshest of punishments, with the scene from the Morgan Freeman film Lean On Me in which a freshman begs Principal Joe Clark to be readmitted to the school.  Class ended as I asked the students if there was anything that meant that much to them, anything from which they could not be to be separated or exiled.

I had not intended any of this, mind you.  I had not prepared the Cicero text for reference nor had I set up the film clips ahead of time.  That Period 9 class simply read Caesar in the original Latin and did what people do.  We thought together, and the results were powerful.