Political Argument in a Polarized Age. Scott F. Aikin
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their reasons, declining to take cheap shots, and so on. Civility is also readiness to offer to one’s interlocutors in political disagreement reasons and arguments that one sincerely believes they could appreciate the force of. That is, when disagreeing civilly, interlocutors actually address each other; they do not use the argumentative interaction as merely a tactical contest to stump or “own” a critic. Finally, when political disagreement is civil, interlocutors aspire not only to convince others of the correctness of their own position, they also seek to deepen everyone’s comprehension of the matter in dispute. This means that when arguing civilly, disputants do not seek merely to win converts, and they do not use the exchange as an occasion simply to mug to an audience of sympathetic onlookers.
In short, civility in the sense we will use it here names the collection of tendencies that are necessary for political disagreement to yield enhanced understanding of the point in dispute, even if not agreement. Again, civility in this sense is obviously consistent with raising one’s voice, offering sharp rebuttals to one’s critics, and adopting a combative tone. In order to be civil, one needn’t be soft-spoken, calm, or resigning; one needs rather to argue honestly.
The Demands of Civility
Civility is nonetheless demanding. It may seem to be so demanding that no actual democratic citizen would even try to adhere to its requirements. And even if some democratic citizens do take up the challenge of civil political disagreement, it’s obvious that many more will not, and civility has value for democracy only if it is widespread among political disputants. So why bother?
This is a serious challenge, and this entire book is an attempt to meet it. However, we can bring this chapter to a close with the following preliminary response.
An intriguing phenomenon in contemporary political discourse supplies the basis for much of our inquiry. Political communication is almost exclusively conducted by means of purported debate among people with different views; cable news is dominated by programming that features panel discussion among experts who disagree; and politics online largely consists of threads, comments boards, and pile-ons, in which participants constantly present themselves as devoted to facts, reason, and logic. In short, our political discourse is almost entirely argument-based, and the vast majority of participants explicitly extoll the virtue of honest and earnest engagement that we have identified as civility.
Yet here’s the intrigue. Although the dominant images of our politics are more dressed in the attire of civility (in the sense depicted above), our actual politics has become increasingly tribal – devoted to circle-the-wagons campaigns, celebrity spokespersons, and the on-point messaging of carefully curated and audience-tested party lines. Citizens seem increasingly unable to grasp the perspectives of those with whom they politically disagree, and yet they are fervently convinced that they need to be engaged in argument all the time. In short, as appeals to reason, argument, and evidence become more common in political communication, our capacity to actually disagree and argue – to respond to criticisms and objections, to address considerations that countervail our views, and to identify precisely where we think our opponents have erred – has significantly deteriorated. And here’s a notable irony: everyone seems to know this and bemoan it.
We draw from this the hypothesis that democratic citizens are already committed to what we have called civility. They indeed embrace the ideals of proper political argumentation among political equals. And, moreover, they are devoted to trying to participate civilly in the kind of political disagreement that is called for by democracy. Yet their efforts are being somehow thwarted. This book argues that clever simulations of civil disagreement are misdirecting our democratic aspirations. Citizens already embrace the proper ethos, and they are prepared to put in the effort required for civil political disagreement. However, they are surrounded by distortions of civility: sites of market-tested and targeted pantomimes of democratic engagement. Accordingly, citizens tend to get their view of their political opposition not from actual engagement, but from media outlets designed to appeal to those who share their political views. They learn about the other side from commercial enterprises marketing to their own side; unsurprisingly, citizens come to embrace distorted and skewed views of their political rivals. With such distortions in place, efforts at civil engagement will naturally fail. But they will fail in a way that the participants will see as confirming their views of the other side. Eventually, participants on all sides come to regard civil disagreement as a pointless endeavor, given the irrationality and depravity of those with whom they disagree. Our democratic aspirations are thus undermined, but from the inside. Civility is turned against itself; it breeds its own discontent.
Hence, our task in the following chapters is not to make a case for civility. Nor need we present a defense of democracy as involving an ethos of civility. Our readers already take themselves to be committed to the view that democracy requires citizens to engage in civil political debate. There’s no doubt about that. What’s more, our readers believe themselves to be proficient at civility. They see the troubles with public discourse as emerging mainly from the public vices of those on the other side. Our task instead is to propose a way of diagnosing the ways in which civility breaks down, even among citizens sincerely committed to it.
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