The Forgotten Virtue

First Things, December 1, 2018

At present there is a great deal of handwringing about civility. On campus, students in screaming packs set upon speakers or professors who have said things that the earnest young have been taught to find offensive. Other students are encouraged by university administrators to act as spies, handing in anonymous denunciations of teachers whose words are felt to harm their self-esteem. In the public sphere, certain politicians can be counted on to set off Pavlovian reactions among the online arrabbiati. The enraged believe that Hitler has returned to cumber the earth once more, this time as a blond, and that the best response is to rush into the streets, block traffic, march about dressed in simulacra of female body parts, and denounce public servants during the soup course. Partisan mobs send up chants calling for leaders in the opposite party to be jailed. The expression “objective journalism” has begun to sound quaint or naive in our ears. The republic is in danger; the social fabric is fraying; the dark night of fascism is about to descend.

Cynics, who still predominate in the media, see things differently. Outrage is good for business. The merchants of wrath on social media, only some of whom are Russian, generate clicks and raise funds. Apparently there really are people so little in control of their impulses that they can be induced by the injudicious tweeting of buffoons to give out their credit card details to buffoons of the opposite tendency. Supreme Court nominations are gamed on the basis of which nominee is likeliest to generate the most intemperate outbursts, raising funds for one side and losing votes for the other. It is the new technology that has made us more uncivil…

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