What Prevents Civil Discourse

 

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, you know that this is pretty much what political discussions sound like these days.  No facts, no explanations of factual interpretations, just name calling and lies.

To be clear, if the disagreement is about facts alone, then only one can be correct.   The other may be lying, or simply misinformed, or without a thorough factual investigation.  However, if the disagreement is about one’s viewpoint or opinions, or factual interpretations that support those opinions, then neither can be absolutely correct, and neither can be lying.

And herein lies a key problem with today’s political (as well as other) discourse.  We seem no longer able to distinguish facts from opinions.

Facts are what they are and we cannot change them.  We can often interpret them in more than one way and can use them to support more than one viewpoint.  But interpretations, opinions, viewpoints are not facts and cannot be lies.  They can be based on lies, but they themselves are individual interpretations and in this country we are allowed to have our own opinions. 

This is why the distinction between fact and opinion is so important.  It is also why, until we can once again make that distinction, that our discourse will never return to the civility that once was and will instead continue to look like the above cartoon.

We also are living in a post-fact world where one’s feelings, hopes, desires – their narrative – rather than facts seem to be the “reality” that many prefer. Although living in a post fact world we still interact as if we were not, as if we were living in a reality governed by facts. 

Yet, in today’s times the narrative, not the fact is king.  For many today, if one believes something to be true, because it is their narrative, then it is so.  Inconvenient facts that do not fit one’s narrative are often ignored, and the bearer of those difficult facts is called a liar or worse and often silenced.

While issues can and often do have more than one viewpoint and more than one reasonable solution, we have gone beyond tolerance of opposing viewpoints to a belief that there can be only one.  That one is the one that one’s own controlling narrative says is the one.

We have confused fact with narrative and while someone certain of their facts can claim to be right and try to silence incorrect factual presentations, one cannot attempt to silence other narratives than their own.    To do so is to confuse reality with one’s own opinion or hope or emotional experience or other unverifiable information.  This confusion is not only present in today’s uncivil discourse, we see it all around us.

If one wants to check oneself and one’s beliefs against reality, against actual and complete facts, where do they go to find those facts?  Because it is only with a complete picture of the facts relevant to an issue that one can form an honest opinion about that issue.  And it is those real and complete facts that allow one to build arguments in support of their preferred resolution to the issue and then build a real world narrative based on those facts.

Today one has to spend hours going from news site to news site to try to ferret out the actual and full picture of any issue.  The line between news and opinion and propaganda has become so blurred that one must at a minimum check at least one source from every aspect of the political spectrum.  This takes a lot of time and few are able or willing to spend that necessary time on this task.  Others still have a sadly misfounded belief that they can trust their usual news source to give them a full and unbiased report.

The press currently fails us in its responsibility to report unbiased facts.  The many forms of media bombarding us 24 hours a day are mostly there to entertain and to make a profit, not to provide us with a fair and unbiased report of some occurrence.  Those who seek power are able to take advantage of the medias’ failings and of our confusion or ignorance of them.

This leaves the two political sides to each create their own story and assert that narrative as true.  And the supporters of each side are often more than willing to accept that narrative on face value and call those who don’t agree liars and disrupters.

I was recently told that this is a partisan world and how dare I take a partisan view (with which the speaker disagreed) and therefore further the partisanship.  There was a time when people with differing opinions could present them, question one another and discuss those views.  Unless we have the state mandating what we think we will always have a partisan or multi-opinionated society.  That is not a bad thing.  It is how we learn and grow and move forward.

Compounding the problem of inability to distinguish fact and opinion is the fact that the two political parties and their followers seem to have two very different and indeed opposing opinions of this country’s past, present, and future. 

These two distinct views of America cannot coexist in any unified form.  There are those, mostly on the Right, who generally like and believe in America as she currently exists.  While accepting her faults and working to correct them, they believe that the country and form of government created by our Constitution and developed over the last 240 plus years is good.  They do not believe it is static or that it should be so, but they do believe that it is worth preserving and changes to it should occur within its proven systems, governmental institutions, and Constitutional provisions.

The Left’s view, in contrast, paints a negative picture of America as she currently exists.  People holding this view do not think of America as a good country, they do not believe in her system of government and actually they do not trust the people to make the decisions about themselves and their country that our Constitution allows.  Many holding this view believe that problems in America’s systems should not be repaired or improved, but rather that the entire structure of America should be dismantled and completely rebuilt in a manner that conforms to their vision of what she should be.

The Left’s vision for a future America is unclear.  Like Obama’s promise of “hope and change”, no one can or will really articulate what the Left’s vision means – what it will look like in the larger picture;  instead it holds a different form in each believer’s heads.  (And this is the problem with narrative when it is not tied to actual and specific facts.)

We can, generally, distinguish the restructured view of America from that which currently exists.  It far more resembles socialism than anything we have today.  It includes a large government and would allow those in power to make many and significant decisions over the individual lives of the citizenry. 

Each side feels very strongly about its view.  The belief in a governmental system is far more deeply seated and passionate than a position on this or that issue; it affects the individual’s entire world and the world of their future generations.  It is not a wonder that passions are elevated when one is talking about their view for their very existence.

Both sides often assert the other is destroying the country.  Indeed, each really believes this.  But the destruction that the Left sees is often more a destruction of their narrative than an actual destruction of what in reality exists.   When the President does not do what the Left wishes he would, when his actions conform to our laws and our Constitution, he is not destroying the country; rather, his political positions,  policies, and opinions are not those of the Left and their narrative. 

Interestingly, this country, in its current form and with its current Constitution gives the Left legal and civil processes to challenge actions they do not like.  But in the Left’s narrative world, rather than follow these processes, their remedies are to break faith with the Constitution and do such things as silence the opposition, interfere with the administration’s performance of its Constitutional duties, and look to some form of mob rule for a remedy.  Their narrative allows – indeed they believe it mandates – that they do this.

This is what happens when narrative clashes with fact, or narrative with narrative.  There can be no civil discourse nor can there be a civil resolution because the rules are different depending upon on which side of the divide one stands. 

We have always had partisanship in this country as any free people should, but our debates were based on shared rules and an understanding of the difference between fact and opinion.  We were all playing by the same rules.  

Only when we once again respect the reality of facts and are able to distinguish factual reality from narrative will we be able to find our way back to some sort of civil discourse and debate and with that a way forward from the anger and hate that surrounds us today.