Civil Advocates
In The New York Times yesterday, an article on the 2010 campaign in the US spoke about voter disengagement and how most people say it is because of the high unemployment rate, government spending, the deficit and our disaffection with politicians. However Matt Bai says that is not the whole story and after talking to some marketing consultants who spoke with independent voters, different issues are factoring into the mindset of Americans facing electoral choices.
“The dominant theme of the discussion, in which jobs and taxes came up only in passing, seemed to be the larger breakdown of civil society — the disappearance of common courtesy, the relentless stream of data from digital devices, the proliferation of lawsuits and the insidious influence of media on their children. One woman described a food fight at the middle school that left a mess school employees were obliged to clean up, presumably because the children couldn’t be subjected to physical labor. A man complained about drivers who had grown increasingly hostile and inconsiderate on the roads, which drew nods of assent all around. Another described the Internet as just plain ‘bad.’”
I bring this up because the breakdown in civil society was the topic of our in-depth investigation into Civility in America that we undertook several months ago with Powell Tate and KRC Research. We found that an overwhelming majority of Americans view the erosion of civility in human interaction today as a major problem. Among the many signs pointing to this steady decline were the daily occurrences of cyber bullying, online “flaming” and nasty blog comments, the venomous bickering taking place on some reality TV shows and between TV news personalities and their guests, and the mean-spirited mudslinging among politicians and their loyal supporters. Weber Shandwick Chairman Jack Leslie said, “Freedom of expression is the bedrock of our society. Conflicting points of view are always welcome but too much incivility in the public square can turn people away from voicing their opinions.”
The tone of civility is clearly causing Americans to tune out from the most fundamental elements of our democracy — government and politics, news coverage and reporting, and opinion pieces and editorials in newspapers and magazines. We have the facts to back this up. Sadly, the top reason for what people can do about this growing uncivil nation was for parents to teach their children the importance of civility from an early age. This made me think of the young people who have recently made news after taking their lives over cyberbullying or reputation-crushing events.
Weber Shandwick provides several strategies that can be taken to combat the the rise of incivility that is causing people to tune out like the Independents that Bai wrote about. Take a look. We saw it coming. Advocates for a more civil society need to speak up and make changes. Here is one place to start – CiviliNation.
