Can We Talk? A Conversation About Civility and Democracy in America By Dr. Amy Gutmann, President, University of Pennsylvania University of Pennsylvania President, Amy Gutmann, suggests that it is not the presence of incivility, but rather its ubiquity that should disturb us. She argues that our exercise of free speech has become divorced from a sense of civic responsibility and calls for reducing the excess of polarizing rhetoric in the body politic and reviving a mindset conducive to compromise.
It’s a pleasure to join you all today at the National Constitution Center. I’m reminded that President Ronald Reagan—whose 100th birthday we mark this year—signed the “Constitutional Heritage Act” in 1988 that established this venerable institution, which was constantly championed by Mayor Ed Rendell. One of the great modern rivalries in American politics was between President Reagan and the then Speaker of the House, Tip O’Neill. If Reagan believed that government was the problem—O’Neill, an unreconstructed New Dealer—believed it could be the solution. Yet these two very different politicians—from rival parties and with opposing philosophies of government—were able to bridge the gulf between them, often with cordiality—and always with civility. Reagan summed up their relationship when— after one of their famous St. Patrick Day lunches—he wrote in his diary: “Tip is a real pol…[he can] be a friend while politically trying to beat your head in.”
I find one story especially poignant. Exactly thirty years ago this month, John Hinckley Jr. shot Reagan as he was leaving a speaking engagement. The President was in much worse shape than was generally known when O’Neill went to his hospital bedside. He took Reagan’s hands in his, and knelt in prayer. Tip then rose… kissed Reagan on the forehead…and said that he didn’t want to keep him from his rest.
Reflecting on that story, Chris Matthews—once a senior aide to O’Neill— wrote in his Post column this January: “these political giants recognized…their shared humanity, despite their stark differences of philosophy.”
It’s a recognition that seems to be lost to the incivility of so much of our public discourse...an incivility that many blame for the recent tragedy in Tucson.
I think they go too far. But none of us here would deny that recognition of our shared humanity has been lost when, this February, a Dallas County Commissioner disparages a speaker as “the chief mullah of Dallas County...” 52