Spit and Sputter

The New York Times ran this op-ed piece last week, and it caught my eye, because I think that the study it discusses is indicative of something far deeper than just a deficit in Western education. I think it points to an issue with U.S. culture at large.

America has always been far too violent a culture for my taste. I personally think that the cowboy stereotype of the “Wild West” genre of movies is generally and accurately descriptive of our culture,  as we seem to prefer to solve our problems as gunslingers instead of having some form of reasoned conversation. To use the phrase the New York Times used, “civility” is something I find to be sorely lacking here.

Violence in U.S. culture is generally accepted as a way of life, if even in a bit of a duplicitous way. Gang violence in urban streets, for example, is condemned by the same people that support warfare as a primary option in foreign policy. After all, we’re a country founded in revolution, and combat has taken on a certain place of cultural honor as a result. That was the first splash in the pool, but the concentric circles that result from that splash are more concerning. Police officers in the U.S. often carry fully automatic rifles in their cruisers. This is compared to the fact that police officers in most cities in the U.K., for example, have no need to carry even a sidearm. That’s partly an issue of a right to bear arms, but more an issue of civility taken seriously as a cultural foundation. In the study referenced above, notice that many students in public schools answered that it was okay to hit someone. When succumbing to the initial impulse to do violence as a way to solve a disagreement, we refuse to rise above the knee-jerk reaction of our most base impulses. The resulting state of affairs is not limited to the realm of physical violence, either.

The reason is because this mindset justifies a refusal to listen to others’ views. This, I think, is the launching point for the troubling phenomenon of fundamentalism, both in religious and political spheres…a “my way or the highway” attitude that results in such a forcibly dogmatic argument for one’s beliefs that there is no recognition of the others’ right to believe otherwise, or, worse, a refusal to accept that person or group as even legitimate in their existence because their viewpoint parts company with yours.

I’m not attempting to make a political statement in this post. I’m not asserting that one culture is superior to another culture. I just want to say that there’s a lack of civility and willingness to discuss options and ideas that is taking a frightening hold in American culture, and the result is a violence done to ideas and to civilization, as well as a violence done to everyone’s personal safety.

I heard a statement from a professor at the beginning of my undergraduate studies that has stayed in my memory. She said (and she may have been quoting someone else, so feel free to correct me here) that, “A civilization advances or declines based upon its ability to talk about its problems.” If that statement is taken to be true, then my culture…that is, American culture…is declining at a rate so rapid that I’m left with serious concern for the next decade. Screaming so loudly that the no one can hear the other’s perspective is not a valid method of debate. In fact, it isn’t a debate, at all.

Photo Attribution: tiseb