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It takes two to be civil

Nice post by Philadelphia’s Camille Paglia in Salon on the decline of civility in American politics, focusing on various right-wing radio outrages. The most recent was a joke about violence against Nancy Pelosi told by a substitute host on the Rush Limbaugh show. Other have cited comments by Texas Gov. Rick Perry about secession, and similar excesses.

OK, but doesn’t civility go both ways? Do lefty blogs regularly referring to social-issues conservatives as “wingnuts” add much to dialogue? Or the suggestion that Republicans are “immoderate and irrelevant” (The Inquirer’s Dick Polman), or “somewhere between a doomsday cult and Scientology” (Frank Rich in the The Times)?

There was a country once where the left liked to poke fun at the right for its narrowness and absurdity. The theory was to subject it to ridicule and, perhaps, provoke more extreme responses that would discredit the right even further. The country was Weimar Germany. The strategy worked.

May 14, 2009 at 9:12 am

--Michael Livingston

Tags: Camille Paglia, Republican Party, Rick Perry, Rush Limbaugh

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