Discourse's Deathbed

"If everybody thought before they spoke, the silence would be deafening."
-George Barzan

The American market of public ideas and discourse has been making me uncomfortable. I feel... agoraphobic. I don’t want to venture out and be accosted by O’Reilly or Maher. I don’t want to get caught in the Crossfire. I don’t want to feel that flush of Middle West embarrassment listening to a morning “shock jock” describe his bodily functions. And why, exactly, do we need “shock jocks?” How, in today’s world, are we shocked by anything?

I’m shocked by what we have become. By how we speak to one another. By how we treat “communication” and “dialogue” as afterthoughts – as traditions that are outdated and inadequate for this new, shiny age of "You"-ness. As a Puritan-founded country, there was sure to be some slippage. But if we look around, if we take a moment to listen to how we’re talking to each other, the slippage resembles more of a free-fall.

Don Imus’ firing was justified. Not because it was the politically correct thing to do, but because it was the responsible thing to do. I'm not one of those people who think that violence on TV and video games is coarsening our children and our society. It is our lack of setting limits, our failure to set an example, our failure to say "You know what, THAT is not okay" that is causing the coarseness.

What Imus said was wrong. It was offensive and hurtful on the basest of levels. The language itself was riddled with "code" -- the women were thugs, the women were rough, the women had tattoos, the women had "nappy" hair -- these codes were meant to subjugate, to put these women in their "place" because the speaker feared them, was intimidated by them and strove to make himself feel and look better, smarter, stronger. It was prejudice. And because Imus is who he is, he had a responsibility to avoid such prejudice, to shun it. He didn't. And for the first time in a long time, someone crossed a line and someone else said, "Enough. No more." In Les Moonves' email to his staff he included this paragraph:

"One thing is for certain: This is about a lot more than Imus. As has been widely pointed out, Imus has been visited by Presidents, Senators, important authors and journalists from across the political spectrum. He has flourished in a culture that permits a certain level of objectionable expression that hurts and demeans a wide range of people. In taking him off the air, I believe we take an important and necessary step not just in solving a unique problem, but in changing that culture, which extends far beyond the walls of our Company."

Consider the line "...he has flourished in a culture that permits a certain level of objectionable expression that hurts and demeans a wide range of people." We don't think of that often enough. We don't consider the "effects" of language. Because words matter. They have tremendous power and they hurt, they scar. I feel as though our words have been getting sharper, more biting. They have to. To keep our attention. To make a point. In this chaotic public market of speaking, speaking, always speaking, everyone is shouting and insulting and putting-down.

We have allowed this coarsening to ground down our discourse so our words are nothing more than metal on metal. There is no buffer, there is no cushion of understanding or empathy or open-mindedness. Our words come flying out with no consideration for each other or other points of view and they simply clang against one another in midair.

It's all you really hear anymore, this "clanging." You hear it on playgrounds, you hear it on the radio, you hear it on cable television shows. Don Imus was fired because his words struck a different chord, they clanged a little louder than all the rest -- and we sat up and took notice.

I'm glad someone heard it and said, "That's not okay." I'm glad someone enforced the limits. I don't know if it will reduce the coarsening or lessen the clanging, but I think it's a start. A reasonable, responsible start. And if we continue down this path, if we continue to enforce our limits maybe we can, as Moonves hopes, “change the culture.” I’m not optimistic, but I’ll hope for it. I’m tired of hiding from the clanging of the public market. I’m tired of covering my ears.