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Creative
Incivility
Anger. Angry angry angry.
I’ve been thinking about how angry I am; and how we angry
people respond to what’s making us angry. I’ve been thinking about whether
what’s being called “uncivil” words and actions are damaging to our national
experience, our national identity. I’ve been thinking about whether it’s not
nice; or not fair; or not socially correct, to be rude to the crude, racist
bully who’s our current president, or to the elected officials who don’t stand
up to him or who even actively pander to him, or support him or egg him on, or
become his apologists; or to the people who are working for the administration,
especially the ones who are often in the public eye.
I’ve been thinking. And I think it’s hard to say for sure. One
thing I do know for sure is that we need to be clear – both those of us who are
using adjectives in our descriptions of the president and his policies, or talking to or about the
people who pander, or who have chosen
– and let’s be clear about that, certain people in this, or any, administration
have made an active decision to willingly be a paid or unpaid mouthpiece for
the president, and that choice to be
in public, repeating what’s been said or done in a supportive and promotional
way, removes them from the realm of people to whom we maybe owe the benefit of
the doubt – we who use those adjectives, and those who hear them, need to be
clear that there are adjectives that are simple descriptions of fact, and there
are adjectives that really only express our frustration and anger.
So, to that end: to call the President a bully, a racist,
crude, mocking, an egotist, a sexual predator, thoughtless, undisciplined,
ill-educated on national and international matters, a liar, and so on, isn’t to
insult the President – it’s to describe what has been publically demonstrated
by the man, on film and in public, often enough to be provable fact. In a
democracy, we need to clearly state
the facts, especially the less pleasant facts that can affect our standing as a
nation and our way of embodying and expressing our national tenets; and we need
to do it often, and we need to do the same about public figures, be they
elected or paid, who promote those qualities and actions, repeat them, defend
them, or don’t publically reject the qualities and actions that can damage our
nation and the peoples who compose it. We need to shout out the truth and we
need to do it publically and individually or en masse – it’s one of our most important national responsibilities, and we
need to take it seriously if we want to ensure that our country doesn’t devolve
into something corrupted and base.
Folks who like the President’s policies, or enjoy or share
his less democratic public servant and crude personal characteristics may not like hearing the factual descriptions of
his words and actions, but they shouldn’t be heeded when they call this uncivil
and damaging. The damage would happen if we don’t
speak the truth about what’s being said and done. Our silence, and the cleansing, unfactual words used by the
faction that supports the administration to make the reality of what’s being
done or said sound reasonable or appealing, can quickly cause us to become numb
to how our national conscience, morals, and the execution and definition of our
democracy are changing, are being changed daily. In the process of being clear,
rather than making spin, some feelings are going to be hurt. I would suggest
that those people who are offended by clear descriptions need to examine
carefully what it is that actually bothers them. You can love Trump’s crudeness
and support his policies, and still admit that he is crude, a bully, a racist, etc. and is actively working to change
our national character. If you can’t, maybe you don’t like being associated
with what the truthful words indicate.
Public figures who don’t like being subjected to clear
descriptions of what they’ve been saying or promoting, or hearing what citizens
think about it, should rethink their jobs. Many true patriots who tried
sticking with this administration hoping to sway it towards civility,
classiness, kindness, calmness, thoughtfulness and truthfulness have since given
up their jobs, recognizing that they were in danger of becoming sullied and
unable to effect change from within. Jobs at that level of the national order
are always a choice – no one takes the job of presidential advisor or
mouthpiece because they need the job and the money – there’s always a choice,
and there’s always an affinity for what they’re representing, what’s being
said, and done, and how. I have no sympathy for the hurt feelings of public
figures who are subjected to the opinions of the people of the nation, even if
they’re just out taking a walk or out for a meal when those opinions are
expressed. Hearing the opinions and suffering the legal consequences of those
opinions is part of the job, and those jobs are 24-7 while they last. Ask any
local town selectperson, if you need proof.
We need also be clear about what we say in anger. I know
that expressing anger in the most fluid terms can relieve tension, letting anger
release rather than blocking up and then exploding in some less appropriate
way. But words – adjectives and verbs, especially – can be blunt and
hammer-like, and they can be untruthful. It’s hard to think of an example of an
unfactual adjective with negative connotations about our current President…but
there surely are some, and we shouldn’t use them, even to express our anger. So
let’s be more creative. The Brits have so many good words to describe people
they’re mad at or disgusted with; and to our ears, they’re slightly amusing.
Let’s let off steam and cause a smile at the same time, if we can. Imagine: prat; git; twonk; maggot; mad as a
bag of ferrets; tosser; dodgy; barmy; gormless; naft; daft; nutter;
abydocomist; fopdoodle; plonker. Abydocomist
is, actually, a factual description of our current President.
How much I would have loved hearing that the young intern
who recently made the news for shouting at Trump had instead shouted, “Mr.
President, you’re a gormless maggot!”
Stand tall and speak truth to power, like a true patriot.
But when you just need to let off steam, go for it. Make an art of it. Civil
discourse be damned.
For the blog, 11 July
2018
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