Civility: A Sermon by the Reverend David Weissbard, May 7, 2017
Preacher: Reverend David Weissbard
Civility
A sermon by Dave Weissbard
First Universalist Society
Central Square NY
05/07/17
READING
[letters to the Winchester, MA Star]
We don’t need ‘Hate’ signs
What are those lawn signs popping up about town with the provocative message: “Hate has no place in this home” all about? Of course, hate has no place in our homes; so why proclaim it with a lawn sign? It is a truism like the “Black Lives Matter” signs. All lives matter, no more, no less than any other race. The “Hate” sign message begs many important questions, such as: 1) Who are the haters that you, the sign owner, are referring to? 2) What, or whom, do the haters hate? 3) What is the evidence there is significant hate in our community? 4) Obviously, you are so morally superior that you may declare everyone who disagrees with you as a hater. Where, when and how did you become the Lord High Decider of Morality? How self-righteous, how divisive.
Your “Hate” sign is totally uncalled for because it says that Winchester has a hate problem. Where is it? It is offensive to imply that the rest of us — who don’t have a sign and who don’t think the way you think we should — are haters. That’s insulting. It’s still a free country and I am free to think for myself. But full disclosure, I do hate, figuratively, politicians who support policies, laws and regulations that I consider unpatriotic, immoral or limit my liberties. And I also hate, figuratively, people who subliminally suggest that I am a hater.
Please do yourself and the rest of us a favor. Pull up your sign and hang it in your living room where you and your family alone may stare at it and love it. And spare the rest of us the annoyance of looking at it.
Speaking of hate, it is relevant to know that in the six weeks preceding the Presidential election, my car with its external Trump sign was vandalized five times (including a door keyed and a green hardening material poured on the hood), twice my Trump lawn signs were tossed into the street and twice they were stolen. I believe that all those acts were committed by the same one or two individuals. Still, I do not make a sweeping indictment that all Hillary voters are intolerant haters. However, I believe the “Hate has no place in this home” lawn signs are self-righteous, exhibit snow-flake sensitivity and they achieve nothing.
— John Natale, Chester Street.
[This response to Mr. Natale’s letter appeared subsequently and has been quoted widely on the internet.]
‘Hate Has No Home Here’
I read, with great interest, Mr. John Natale’s colossal misunderstanding of the “Hate Has No Home Here” signs. Natale’s first mistake was claiming the signs read, “Hate has no place in this home.” Mr. Natale is incorrectly assuming that the owners of the sign are finding it necessary to state that there is no hate in their home. But, as the American flag depicted on the sign signifies, the posters are referencing the entire U.S.A., a country that does not tolerate hate in spite of its current leadership. Those people who have chosen to place a “Hate Has No Home Here” sign on their lawn are standing behind their belief that the country should be free of hate.
Mr. Natale also lists questions that have remained unanswered, so it is my duty to define his burning inquiries:
Question: “Who are the haters that you, the sign owner, are referring to?” Answer: Bigots who are trying to take away protections for transgender students, deport refugees and build a very expensive wall to keep illegal immigrants out (which is completely pointless and not helping your cause, but I digress).
Question: “What, or whom, do the haters hate?” Answer: Perfectly innocent human beings who happen to be different from the haters.
Question: “What is the evidence that there is significant hate in our community?” Answer: Me getting called homosexual slurs by students and adults alike.
Question: “Obviously, you are so morally superior that you may declare everyone who disagrees with you a hater (side note: this first part is a statement, not a question). Where, when, and how did you become the Lord High Decider of Morality?” Answer: Never. We just put a lawn sign down. Calm down, dude.
As I stated previously, the signs are not talking exclusively about Winchester. The signs are about the whole United States. They also aren’t implying you are a hater if you disagree; where did you get that idea? Also, Mr. Natale, if you’re going to ask us to do you a favor and take the signs down, do humanity a favor and take your Trump signs down. Finally, if you are going to say signs exhibit “snowflake sensitivity,” take a moment to think about how you are writing an angry letter to a newspaper about a lawn sign.
— Luke Macannuco, seventh-grader, Brookside Avenue
THE SERMON
[Principles]
I want to remind you of the principles of the Unitarian Universalist Association, as a member congregation of which, we have covenanted to affirm and promote:
The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
Justice, equity, and compassion in human relations;
Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations
and in society at large;
The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all; and
Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
[civility]
This sermon is one in which several of those principles come together. There is a single word which encapsulates belief in the inherent worth and dignity of every person; justice, equity and compassion in human relations, acceptance of one another; the free and responsible search for truth and meaning, the right of conscience, the use of the democratic process, and the goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all. That word is “civility.”
Civility is written about and talked about a lot these days. There are many who decry its decline in America. Some acknowledge that Europeans have always accused Americans of being short on civility, but even they acknowledge that it seems to have slipped dramatically of late.
Civility, Stephen Carter, the conservative African American law professor from Yale, tells us in his book of that name, was popularized in the 16th century by Desiderius Erasmus, the Dutch philosopher, who wrote De civilitate morum puerilium (On civility in children.) The concept of civility is related to civilized and civilization. It has to do with how people live together. Its root means member of the household. Carter observes:
To be civilized is to understand that we live in society as in a household, and that within
that household, if we are to be moral people, our relationships with other people (our fellow citizens, members of our civic household) are governed by standards of behavior that limit our freedom. Our duty to follow those standards does not depend on whether or not we happen to agree with or even like each other.
There are ways in which we are expected to relate to one another. It has to do with courtesy, but even more with a modicum of respect. The democratic process is dependent upon the free exchange of ideas. It assumes that there will be differences in perspective and that those differences must be considered to arrive at a course of action. The reality, of course, is something less than that. Slavery was tolerated for a long time, and abolitionist speech was discouraged. The second class status of women was accepted, and feminists were derided. Discussion of the organization of labor was considered subversive for a long time, and the government put it down. I grew up during the McCarthy era during which liberalism was considered by some to be UnAmerican.
But, in spite of our failings, there has been at least a theoretical commitment to that free and responsible search for truth and meaning; The so-called ivory towers of academia have been viewed as the freest places of all; even though there have been exceptions to that rule.
[civil listening]
One of Carter’s chapters addresses “The Varieties of (Not) Listening.” He stressed the importance of what he calls “civil listening” which requires that we listen to others with knowledge of the possibility that they are right and we are wrong. He stressed, for instance, the importance of our listening to Louis Farrakhan, even if we find much of what he says offensive. Is it not possible that we might learn something from some of the things he says?
[present trends]
But what has been happening of late is increasingly far from the ideal of civility. Election contests seem to revolve around who can smear whom the worst. The Republican race for the presidential nomination was unlike anything most of us had every encountered, and then there was, during the campaign, Hillary Clinton’s demeaning assertion that:
To just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorable. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic – you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people, now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric.Now some of those folks, they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America. . .”
[the graduation]
The original version of this sermon was delivered in 2003. That Spring, I was given a month-long mini-sabbatical in which to work on my commandments manuscript, and while I was away, the Rockford community hit the big time in the national media because of an event that might have been taken right out of Sinclair Lewis’ novel, It Can’t Happen Here.
The videotape of the Rockford College graduation ceremonies was available on the internet. I found the video experience terrifying. I broke into a sweat as the camera recorded the vitriolic response of some members of the audience to a very good, although far from perfect, graduation address by the columnist Chris Hedges, who had recently written a book on war. Two minutes into the address, people who found it politically offensive, tried to end it by shouting down the speaker, and using air horns, and someone even disconnected the sound system – twice.
There are two kinds of graduation addresses, just as there are two kinds of sermons. There are those which are filled with reassuring pap (the world is your oyster, it’s in your hands now, go out and do good – or well) and there are those in which the speaker tries to say something of significance. I’ve heard both kinds at the graduations I’ve attended. You can guess which I prefer.
I consider it remarkable that the President of Rockford College decided to shift that graduation from the pap tradition to the substantive. I’d wondered about the length of his tenure after he announced his new “Think. Act. Give a Damn!” campaign, trying to assert the college’s relationship with Jane Addams – its most notable graduate. I questioned him about that when he spoke in the UU Church’s sanctuary for an Interfaith Council event. He seemed oblivious to the college’s more, shall we say, conservative tradition. It was a courageous, if not foolhardy, choice to invite Chris Hedges to speak at the graduation.
[room for improvement]
This was the first graduation at which Hedges had been invited to speak, and he apparently gave no thought to contextualizing his remarks. Frank Shier, editor and publisher of the Rock River Times, a weekly newspaper, wrote an introductory paragraph that would have improved Hedges speech a great deal. He suggests the outcome might have been different if Hedges had said:
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, hardworking and proud parents and graduates,
esteemed faculty and all honored guests. It is my privilege to stand before you on this day of celebrating your academic achievements at an institution that is the alma mater of the Nobel Prize winner Jane Addams. Did you know that Addams, your most famous alumna was booed off the stage at Carnegie Hall during World War I for advocating pacifism? War was to her a horror, as I am sure it is to many of us. I wish to speak to you about war today because you, as graduates, may have to deal with war, make decisions about war. You may send your sons and daughters to war. You may fight in war. I feel war is the most pressing issue of the day. As many of you know, President Bush’s new doctrine of pre-emptive action has prompted much criticism from around the world. Much of the world feels we are only after oil in the Mideast, and this doctrine is the beginning of a new age of American imperialism. You may agree or disagree with the assessment, but I ask you to consider my experiences and conclusions after 15 years as a war correspondent. Hopefully, all of us will continue to learn after we leave these commencement grounds today. Consider what I have learned, for now, and for your tomorrows.
I agree that would have been much better than starting cold with, “I want to speak to you today about war and empire” and leaping right into his subject. I believe, however, that people who are so uncivil that they are willing to disrupt a graduation because they do not agree with a speaker, would not have been mollified by a better introduction. The most shocking thing about this, to me, was the local daily paper’s lead for the report of the event, “Speaker Disrupts RC Graduation.” That’s like saying, “President Lincoln Disrupts Play at Ford’s Theatre,” or “Jesus of Nazareth Disturbs the Passover.”
The video of the graduation reminded me of a television mini-series on Hitler. The same mob mentality came into play. Reading the transcript of what Hedges actually said establishes that his was not a radical speech by any stretch of the imagination. It was a clear, reasoned approach to an important dimension of the world today, whether or not you agree with him. His were appropriate words of wisdom for such an event. It was more moderate than what you’ve heard from this pulpit.
[not the graduates]
What needs to be clear is that what transpired did not represent the student body of Rockford College. Several observers testify that there were, at most 75 out of 2,000 people objecting to the speech. One of the members of the UU congregation who was at the very bench in the back where it started, reported it was relatives or friends of a graduate who began the disruption – not students. The college President suggested at the end of the first mike outage, that it was perfectly appropriate in such a setting for those who felt offended by the speaker’s comments to stand in silent protest; that would have given them the opportunity to stand up for their beliefs, to take responsibility, without destroying the event for those who did not agree with them. That would have been a civil thing to do. The worst thing the president could have done would have been to give in to the uncivil mob and abruptly terminate the speech: you do not ever reward such behavior. That would have been a far greater stain on the college’s reputation. I am glad that Hedges had the sense to delete, with the president’s encouragement, some of the middle of what would have been an overly long address – it was the right length as delivered. He is a reporter and author which is not the same as speaker.
The reminder that Jane Addams was booed off the stage at Carnegie Hall makes it clear that such behavior is not a new thing. It is clear that this is not a right wing tactic alone; there have been situations in which allegedly liberal audiences have been just as uncivil during conservative addresses. Had one of the war-mongers responsible for the Iraq tragedy been the speaker, I hope it would have been protested – but protested with civility, not disrupted. People at both ends of the political spectrum are capable of being so sure that they are right that they dare not permit views contrary to theirs to be expressed, and we cannot tolerate such disruption from any source.
[a teachable moment]
As terrible as this was as a way to end the college careers of the undergraduates and to celebrate the accomplishments of the graduate students, I would suggest that this event presented what is called a teachable moment. This experience clearly raises the issue of what civility is about, what it means to live in a democracy, how we learn from people with different perspectives while maintaining our integrity.
Jim Wallis, the evangelical advocate for social justice, in his book, Who Speaks for God, which is subtitled An Alternative to the Religious Right; A New Politics of Compassion,Community, and Civility, wrote:
Being so disrespectful in our political discussion does something to the body politic. Treating opponents and opposing ideas with contempt has consequences that affect us
all. It poisons the debate, polarizes the options, and prevents us from finding real solutions to our many problems.
He went on to say:
Public discussion should be vigorous, sharp and competitive. All of our often competing interests, values, and constituency needs must be brought to the table for democracy
to remain healthy, but disrespect is a different thing altogether.
[how about us?]
Given our Unitarian Universalist principles, it is clear that we would never tolerate incivility in our midst. Are we sure of that? I remember being concerned about the physical safety of a member of the Rockford congregation, a doctor, who, during a discussion of a sermon on abortion, dared to articulate his anti-abortion position. But that’s an extreme example. In my previous congregation, in the Washington suburbs, there was a reported food fight at a congregational meeting before I became its minister.
Most of the writers who address civility base it firmly on respect for the worth and dignity of every person, and they extend their discussion to include the ways we treat one another in community beyond the political arena.
[it matters what we do]
The ways in which we relate to one another is a central a part of the whole issue. Civility is about how we live together in community. It starts in the family, and it includes the church, the school, the workplace, the neighborhood, the village, town or city, the state, and the nation.
Living in community requires some restriction of individual freedom. You cannot live successfully in community and do whatever you feel like doing whenever you feel like doing it, or say whatever your feel like saying whenever you feel like saying it without regard for the others involved: not in the family, not in the church, not in school, not at work, not anywhere that people congregate. Civility is based on the recognition that we are not solitary beings, but that we live with and depend upon others, and that those others deserve to be treated with respect, just as we do.
As Carter said in the paragraph I quoted earlier:
To be civilized is to understand that we live in society as in a household, and that within that household, if we are to be moral people, our relationships with other people (our fellow citizens, members of our civic household) are governed by standards of behavior that limit our freedom. Our duty to follow those standards does not depend on whether or not we happen to agree with or even like each other.
What happened at the Rockford College graduation in 2003 was disrespectful not only of the speaker and those who invited him, but of the rights of those who wanted to hear the speaker, and those who deserved to have their graduation are a joyous day.
When we point a finger at those who disrupted that event through their incivility, we should remember the old adage that when you point one finger at someone else, you are pointing three at yourself. We need to be attentive to the nature of our own community and the health of civility within our walls. How successful are we at insisting upon a climate of respect for the worth and dignity of all people, justice, equity and compassion in human relations, and acceptance of one another? If we want to see a new climate of civility, let it begin with us. If not here, of all places, where? If not now, when?
[25 Rules]
Back in December, in my sermon on “Conscience and Compromise,” I addressed the issue of civility without mentioning the word, and when faced with choosing a subject for this month, I decided to go back to it directly because of how important that issue is today.
In preparing the sermon, I did an internet search to update it for today. I came upon references to the book, Choosing Civility: The Twenty-Five Rules for Considerate Conduct, by P.M. Forni. Dr. Forni, an Italian immigrant, is a professor at the Johns Hopkins University where he co-founded the Johns Hopkins Civility Project. Fortunately, his book is available for the Kindle, so I was able to obtain and read it as I prepared this sermon.
Forni points out that:
Civility’s defining characteristic are its ties to city and society. The word derives from the Latin calvados, which means “city,” especially in the sense of civic community. Civitas is the same word from which civilization comes. The age-old assumption behind civility is that life in the city has a civilizing effect. The city is where we enlighten our intellect and refine our social skills. And as we are shaped by the city, we learn to give of ourselves for the sake of the city.. . . the quality of our lives depends upon our ability to relate and connect. . . .
There is a proven way to keep the hurt that comes from relationships to a minimum, and that is by training ourselves to become good at being with others. How to acquire this invaluable behavioral literacy is not a mystery. A training in civility is part of our basic training as social beings. Civility is the preventive medicine we need.
Forni’s twenty-five rules for civility are:
Pay attention
Acknowledge others
Think the best
Listen
Be inclusive
Speak kindly
Don’t speak ill
Accept and give praise
Respect even a subtle “no”
Respect other’s opinions
Mind your body
Be agreeable
Keep it down [and rediscover silence]
Respect other peoples’ time
Respect other peoples’ space
Apologize earnestly
Assert yourself
Avoid personal questions
Care for your guests
Be a considerate guest
Think twice before asking for favors
Refrain from idle complaints
Accept and give constructive criticism
Respect the environment and be gentle to animals
Don’t shift responsibility and blame
These are not bad rules. I started out enthusiastic about them, but as I read on, I began to feel sort of the way you do when you have a dessert that has way too much sugar. Essentially, it is Dr. Forni’s point that being civil has to do with being a “nice” person. [and he uses the word “nice.”] There is a sense in which he listed 25 Commandments for living in relationship. Reading one a day might be instructive: all at once was a bit too much. We couldn’t go far wrong if we followed, or endeavored to follow, these. It is true that relationships would be enhanced to the degree we succeeded, and I agree that civility begins with us and how we respond to others. The better we are at it, the more we stimulate others to do the same. It would be wonderful if it spread like a virus. Life would be so much better.
[on the other hand]
But, as I did my research, I discovered several essays on the problem with too much civility. There was an article in the New Yorker several years ago about “The Civility Wars,” and one more recently on Salon.com on “Civility is for suckers: Campus hypocrisy and the ‘polite behavior’ lie.” Last December there was a persuasive article in the Atlantic which asserted “Sometimes There Are More Important Goals than Civility.”
What they have in common is the suggestion that, as in the letters to the editor which I read earlier, when people are invested in the status quo, almost any appeal to a higher standard is viewed as a threat, as “uncivil.” Jesus overturning the tables of the money-changers in the temple was uncivil. Those who fought in the American Revolution were “uncivil.” Martin Luther King was deemed “uncivil,” even before his Vietnam address, because he, and other civil rights activists were challenging the status quo. It blows my mind that Senator Elizabeth Warren is considered abrasive and uncivil while I consider her one of the most civil people in a leadership position in America today.
I have never identified myself as being very radical – I am a “liberal,” I believe in working for change within the system. It may come as no surprise to you that there are those who have deemed me threatening and radical. I point with pride to the police chief in Bedford MA, the village in which I first ministered, who publicly declared me to have been sent by Moscow to disrupt our community: I was for sex education, against war, for having controversial books in our library, against criminalizing those who used marijuana – I was against racial discrimination in housing. Oh, he had a long list. I was a threat to his vision of the community, a threat to the peace.
As I look at history, I have looked with concern at the French revolutionaries and their excesses, at the Bolsheviks, at the Maoists, at the variety of people who have pursued reasonable changes utilizing unreasonable means – at students and alumni who try to shut down presentations on their campuses by people whose ideas offend them. When I was chair of our Association’s General Assembly Planning Committee, there were people who protested our invitation to Elliot Richardson, then former US Attorney General, to address the Assembly because of their contention that he was an elitist and too much a part of the status quo, even though he had resigned his position in response to President Nixon’s demand that he fire Archibald Cox. In their eyes, Richardson was not radical enough.
In the Atlantic article which I mentioned [12/5/2016] , Vann Newkirk suggested:
Maybe incivility can be used to empower people of color, establish social penalties for racism, and change social mores and modes of mass communication, which all in the aggregate could push white society toward inclusion and away from bias.
He concludes:
Civility is not the highest moral imperative – especially in response to perceived injustices – nor is hand-holding and guiding reluctant people to confront their bigotry gently. American history is full of fights, including the ongoing struggle for civil rights, that have been as fierce as they are ultimately effective. Civility is overrated.
[Pulling it together]
Let’s see if I can pull this together. I do not trust people who are so sure they know what is right that they are prepared to go to great lengths to shut out opposing views. People from the far right and far left have certainty in common – which is often a mask for their uncertainty. I believe, as the Unitarian theologian Henry Nelson Weimar did, in what he called “creative interchange,” which is to say, a free and open exchange of ideas. We need to be open to learning from one another. I believe we need to treat one another with respect, even when we hold conflicting views. Being “civil” is not the highest goal, but I have found it to be a worthy goal in living in relationship.
P.M. Forni insisted:
Civility means a great deal more than just being nice to one another. It is complex and encompasses learning how to connect successfully and live well with others, developing thoughtfulness, and fostering effective self-expression and communication. Civility includes courtesy, politeness, mutual respect, fairness, good manners, as well as a matter of good health.