Author: Dr. John Osae-Kwapong, Democracy and Development Fellow, CDD-Ghana, and Project Director, the Democracy Project

US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas once observed, “None of us should be uncivil in our manner as we debate issues of consequence. No matter how difficult it is, good manners should be routine.” This admonition needs no reminders, but it is fair to say that we appear to have lost sight of this in our public discourse.

Public Discourse Today

A glance at our public spaces today — from the floor of Parliament to the comment sections of our newspapers online, from radio and television panels to the various handles of social media — shows that our discourse is sadly defined by hostility, adversary, and the use of intemperate language, rather than civil discourse and respectful disagreement.

Issues that matter and have great consequences for our governance and democracy architecture are too often reduced to personal attacks, name-calling, and the wholesale demonization of people or groups who hold contrary opinions to that which is being expressed. I dare say that we are living through a serious erosion of civility in how we engage each other as citizens in public spaces.

Picture this. A social media (Facebook) post. A citizen expresses a view on a policy issue. Others disagree. That is the beauty of democracy and should be encouraged. After all, it is through our disagreements and eventually arriving at consensus that allows us to address the public problems confronting our dear country.

What continues to baffle me are the ensuring comments and the language used in response, especially when the citizen who expressed their view never used intemperate language. I often ask myself whether the dissenters could have expressed their contrary opinion without deploying the kind of language Justice Clarence Thomas reminds us never to depart from when engaging in public discourse?

I do not want to blame recent developments on social media, but it goes without saying that it has become one of the spaces where civility is truly lost on many citizens. So how did we get here? And what can be done about it, if anything?

How Did We Get Here?

The question of how we got here does not admit a simple answer. We must instead probe more broadly for the range of possible sources behind this decline in civility. It is only through such an effort that we can begin to determine how best to tackle the problem.

First, we must examine the incentive structure of our current media and political environment. If you have ever been part of panel discussion that includes partisans of our two main political parties, you will soon realize that the partisan banter tends to carry on longer than the non-partisan contributions.

This is not to fault the media, but sometimes allowing the partisan banter to drag only incentivizes those who engage in it, even if unintended. Second, and related to the first point, is the reward system that hyper-partisanship creates.

In my view, it offers perverse incentives that lead us to see fellow citizens not as neighbors with differing views, but as political adversaries to be defeated. This perverse incentive is further reinforced when our political parties lend credence to such voices — either by defending them when their uncivil conduct comes under scrutiny, or by elevating them as people who speak on the party’s behalf.

Third, I return to the role of social media. As noted earlier, I am reluctant to place the blame entirely on social media, but it goes without saying that, for some, it has become a convenient tool to weaponize for uncivil political conduct.

In particular, because social media offers anonymity and distance, it removes the traditional constraints that typically accompany engaging withfellow citizens face-to-face. It is easier to be uncivil in such spaces.

In fairness, though, we have seen the same behavior in traditional media spaces controlled by partisan owners. All of this has resulted in a political culture where outrage and binary arguments are preferred to thoughtful and nuanced deliberations.

Where Do We Go from Here?

How do we fix this? We must intentionally commitment to civil discourse, understanding that disagreements do not make us enemies. Our political leaders must become the models for civility and never been seen as profiting from uncivil conduct because it is politically rewarding.

Our media houses and platforms must pay close attention to how they frame debate and who they invite to engage. For citizens, we must always be guided by what Justice Thomas said – “no matter how difficult, good manners should be routine.”

Sanitizing our public spaces and restoring greater civility will not happen overnight, but it starts with each of us. We must choose to engage each other as fellow citizens interested in the same goal – the good of our country, and not as political enemies to be defeated.