For years and years, American public discourse has gotten more and more toxic. The growth of political violence, including the attempted assassination of a former president this weekend, confirmed just how sick the national body politic has become.
Public officials are by no means the only ones to blame for how we talk to and about one another. But they must do more to heal public life.
Among the greatest problems is that so many prominent figures—this applies to commentators and officials alike—no longer recognize their duty to preserve the health of the public square. They see the public square as something to be used, not something to be maintained.
They take our system for granted. They enjoy their right to say what they want. They enjoy their ability to use social media, cable news, talk radio, and podcasts to broadcast their thoughts. They enjoy our tradition of open debate and the institutions that enable a vibrant public life. And since they see as the highest good the voice they contribute to the day’s events, they take full advantage of these rights, platforms, traditions, and institutions. In their minds, such things exist to amplify their voices.
In a nation like ours, voices are important. But even more important is the system that enables voices to contribute to democracy, liberty, community, and human flourishing. We have lost sight of the damage that bad civic behavior can inflict on this system. Insults, baseless accusations, threats, trolling, catastrophizing, and casual cancellations aren’t just immoral; they also corrode and eventually disable our system. Misusing and denigrating the institutions central to healthy public discourse (whether legislatures, journalism, schools, or courts) harms public life.
When functioning well, America’s public square is a marvel. It enables this diverse, free, continental nation to advance knowledge, protect traditions and ways life, collaborate, and resolve conflict. But that system is not indestructible. It must be maintained. All citizens, but especially those with governing power, must behave in ways that preserve the functionality of that system so they, the rest of us, and those who come after us can participate in public life.
In other words, the language in press releases, tweets, interviews, campaign events, and floor speeches cannot be understood solely in terms of giving voice to a view. It must also be understood as affecting our ability to live together in a pluralistic democratic republic.
Two analogies can help explain what I mean.
Tragedy of the Discourse Commons
The “tragedy of the commons” refers to instances where everyone can 1) take advantage of a public good, 2) feel no obligation to maintain the public good, and therefore 3) unintentionally degrade the public good.
Think of an open field free for public use in an agricultural community. No one owns the field, so no one feels responsible for maintaining it. Everyone else benefits from using it, so I lose out if I don’t take part, too. So everyone has their animals graze the field. Everyone benefits now. But because no one is taking care of it, the field deteriorates. Soon, there’s no grass left. Now, no one can use it.
In other words, yes, we should be able to make use of a field. Or a system or institution. But we must recognize that how we use it can strengthen or debilitate that field or system or institution.
Eroding Its Own Preconditions
For ages, some have made the case that capitalism (and, more broadly, freedom) can erode the preconditions that make capitalism (or freedom) possible.
Capitalism is not just a plug-and-play system that can work anywhere, anytime, forever. To emerge, it requires a collection of deep-seated beliefs and practices (e.g., a degree of self-sufficiency, honesty, social trust, a measure of charity, a sense of duty to one’s neighbors, an understanding of our reliance on others). That is, it is built on a particular, hard-to-come-by foundation. Then, to live on, capitalism depends on a range of evolved institutions (e.g., contracts, the rule of law, the price system, anti-monopoly protections). To grow and thrive, the original foundation must be expanded and strengthened.
Unfortunately, once capitalism is up and running, people can behave in ways that make the most of capitalism for themselves but that undermine the system as a whole. Their actions can wear away at the preconditions. For instance, to get wealthier, they might become more and more selfish, dishonest, and indifferent to others’ needs. They might then influence legislators to change shipping rules so they can get an advantage, encourage the executive to set price controls so they can get an advantage, bully the courts to issue rulings that give them an advantage. Before long, a healthy capitalist system no longer exists, and all of us pay the price.
Something similar can be said about liberty more generally. For freedom to emerge, a people need to have a preexisting culture of self-restraint, a shared moral framework for defining proper behavior, and voluntary social penalties for acting badly. But once people live in freedom for a long time, they can lose their sense of self-restraint, that shared moral framework, and those social penalties. Eventually, the society spirals from liberty to licentiousness. Then freedom is no longer possible.
In other words, the improper use of a system can degrade the system itself.
To put a fine point on this, we need our public officials to behave well inside our system of public discourse. They must take care of that system or else it won’t be there for any of us.
Unguarded Gates
One final point about how today’s lack of gatekeepers makes it even more important for our public leaders step up to protect discourse.
A generation and more ago, young people were taught how to behave well inside our system of public discourse. The system they entered then policed the norms they were taught. So we had a process for maintaining the public square.
But students today are largely unfamiliar with our founders’ insistence on public virtue. Students are not shaped like they once were by the lessons of republicanism, civic responsibility, and the common good. Instead, they often come to believe that it is right and good to use all means available to fight for their own conception of justice. So future generations may not develop their predecessors’ instinct for protecting our system of discourse.
Moreover, not long ago, there were far fewer outlets for discussing issues of public interest (i.e., a handful of television networks and newspapers). As such, gatekeepers could ensure that only those who behaved well would get a platform. A sloppy, cruel, antagonizing op-ed would not get published. A pundit who insulted, threatened, and lied wouldn’t get air time. Strong political parties ensured that candidates behaved responsibly; strong political institutions ensured their members behaved responsibly. Through these mechanisms, we consciously sought to minimize the behavior that would erode the system.
But today, with a virtually limitless, gatekeeper-free discourse environment, all types of language and behavior are possible. In fact, financial models and the possibility of going viral tacitly encourage people to transgress. Political parties have very little ability to form candidates, much less constrain them when they go too far. Too few institutions are willing to police their members’ behavior.
So today, sadly, too few people have been taught to protect our system of discourse, and we have too few ways of censuring them when they don’t. Of course we need individuals to police themselves and institutions to police their own. But we also need the most influential actors in public discourse—government officials—to set the example. We need them to practice self-restraint and model civic virtue. They must protect the commons, not just use it.
"But today, with a virtually limitless, gatekeeper-free discourse environment, all types of language and behavior are possible. In fact, financial models and the possibility of going viral tacitly encourage people to transgress. Political parties have very little ability to form candidates, much less constrain them when they go too far. Too few institutions are willing to police their members’ behavior."
Something about this seems off, or is not qualified in the right way. After all, this is an era of nearly across-the-board professional-conservative participation suppression of a rather major story of our time, that about the widespread Covid-19 vax-harms, a totally legitimate story with masses of evidence, and huge public interest. See my pieces this summer on how Laura Ingraham and The Federalist are suppressing this story, and the one which notices an exception to the trend, Eric Metaxas.