Student Orgs Host 'A Loyal Opposition: Civility During Election Season'

Photo by Esther Wickham

The House of Reagan, the House of Susan B. Anthony and The Table hosted an event titled ‘A Loyal Opposition: Civility During Election Season’ on Friday, Nov. 20. 

The panelists included Professor Alissa Wilkinson, Dr. Dru Johnson and Dr. Anthony Bradley,  with Dr. David Tubbs as moderator. Throughout the event, panelists answered various questions about civility and the difficulties of exercising it in a polarized society. 

Tubbs started the conversation by asking what the panelists thought of civility concerning politics.

“It can be used as a weapon, but what I think it should mean is something like respect, and respect for people, even if we don’t have respect for their ideas,” Wilkinson said. 

“Situate yourself to be mutually centered towards the other person, this shapes the way in which we think about this activity called discourse,” Bradley said. 

“No matter how deep your convictions run, there has to be this constant sense that you might be wrong,” Johnson said. 

Next, Tubb asked what event in history brings insight into what civility looks like.

“I am amazed that even in the height of the Civil Rights Movement, that King and Malcolm X when they were often in conversation with one another, exercised a lot of restraint in their speech,” Bradley said. “You’ll see vehement disagreement, but also mutual respect.

The panelists later discussed how civility in politics guides those attending university and the biggest obstacles some face when practicing it. 

“There is a desperate need for civility. To not take it personally but to actually work things out, through arguments, where it doesn’t spill over into personal attacks,” Johnson said. 

“The biggest obstacle I see is this turning of politics into religion, where we bend our identity around our politics to the point where that’s our first and primary instinct,” Wilkinson said.

“We use politics as our meaning system and that really erodes so much of the discourse,” Bradley said. “America has become geographically polarized, and I think it makes people vulnerable to go even deeper down the rabbit hole because they want more meaning,”

Concluding the event, Tubbs gave an observation of the struggles that come with civility in relation to friendships: 

“All of the discussion about civility and politics I think presupposes that interaction with non-extremists, which is the great majority of the American people. Nonetheless, I think the premise of this discussion is that for many of us friendship with a person whose politics are very different from ours is surprisingly hard.”