Time to return good manners to politics
What seems to pass for discourse nowadays is … volume. Those who can outshout their opponents seem to think they are the winners.
Recent incidents involving metro school district meetings as well as Minnesota House committee meetings have been disrupted by loud-mouthed protesters, who seem to think their views are the only ones that need to be heard … and loudly.
Or the Black Lives Matters screamers who think they can browbeat political and civic leaders into seeing their point of view by shouting down anyone who disagrees, or who does not immediately agree to their views. Not sure when they were anointed the judge and jury in the Jamar Clark investigation.
Wow! And is this going to be the way we conduct public business, and establish public policy going forward?
One quick look at the current political campaign may indicate these might be the methods of choice in disrupting speeches and squelching discussions of today’s real issues.
Recently, I was invited to a gathering of the Glencoe Study Club, a group of women interested in a wide variety of topics. I happened to have the topic of the night … newspapers.
The women posed some very thoughtful, and at times, tough questions about the newspaper business, and I tried to answer those questions. There was no shouting, no finger-pointing, no conspiracy accusations, just questions about newspapers.
Like, who writes the editorials? Why do you have to run the court news, and how much does it cost? Is there any topic the newspaper would not touch?
Tough questions, and the answers were never simply yes and no, but more complicated.
In the end, it was a pleasant evening of discourse, the way it was meant. Polite, calm and thoroughly enjoyable.
I thank the women for their attentiveness and their interest in their local newspaper. After all, it is their newspaper, and it needs their support, not only financially, but in exchanging information with other readers, including sharing opinions with one another.
Which gets us back to the current state of discourse in this state and country. The one thing I learned in the newspaper business is you cannot talk and listen at the same time. When your mouth is open, your ears are closed. And when you are shouting and screaming at other people, their ears are closed, too.
Perhaps we need to all go back to old school where it was pounded into us that we do not interrupt others when they are speaking. It is simply bad manners. When the person is done speaking, then you may speak.
Shouting over another voice simply adds to the air pollution and does nothing to solve problems. Perhaps the teaching of manners in school needs to be added to the current curriculum since many younger adults have no clue on how to properly behave in public.
Check any gathering for cell phone use, and you’ll see what I mean.
Rich Glennie was the editor of The Chronicle for 23 years. He retired Aug. 1, 2014, but still plans to submit an occasional column.
