Living a Life of Civility

Featured

Feb 29

The coarsening of public discourse has brought attention about the need to back civility back into the culture. There have been several books about the value and importance of civility for American society that have appeared, along with efforts to inculcate the practices of civility in our universities. Alexandra Hudson, a writer, popular speaker, and founder of Civic Renaissance, has contributed to this conversation with her The Soul of Civility. Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves.

Hudson adopts an Augustinian anthropology where we struggle to either master ourselves or master others and use people as means instead of ends. She draws from the entire western tradition—biblical, classical, medieval, and the Enlightenment—to present a virtue ethics account of civility that is compatible with liberalism. For Hudson, civility is the correct disposition and conduct appropriate to citizens in their duty to the state. To recover civility, Hudson examines such virtues like integrity, freedom, and civil disobedience and how civility requires hospitality, education, and forgiveness to flourish in society.

Throughout the book, Hudson contrasts civility with politeness, the former concerned with virtue while the latter focused on the form of rules of behavior. The difference between these two was starkly revealed to Hudson when she was working in government in Washington D.C. where she experienced incivility among her coworkers. Her experiences in D.C. made her realized that the “punishing ruthlessness or extreme politesse” were “two sides of the same coin: both originated from a dark place in the human spirit—a place where people are willing to instrumentalize and use others as means to their own selfish ends.” The opposite of this is civility, which seeks friendship with others in spite of—or sometimes because of—their disagreements because both are concerned about the common good of society.

Before Gerald Ford became president under the extraordinary circumstances of Richard Nixon’s resignation, he had spent 25 years in the U.S. House of Representatives. As a moderate Republican, he had an influential role in Congress and was remembered well by the opposition party. Democratic Representative John Dingell, the longest-serving member of Congress, recalled Ford fondly. “When it comes down to it, the best political leaders are those who put partisan labels and rhetoric aside to best get the job done.” Ford did just that, said Dingell. Civility, not politeness, was the distinguishing characteristic of Gerald Ford as a politician and political leader.

Campaign Civility

When Ford returned from service in the Navy to Grand Rapids, he worked as a lawyer, with the hope of making partner in the future, and was active in local Republican politics. His supporters urged him to challenge Bartel J. Jonkman, the incumbent Republican congressman. Jonkman was in his fourth term and preached isolationism. By 1947 Ford had shed his earlier isolationism. His service in the Navy changed his worldview, “I came back a converted internationalist and of course our congressman at that time was an avowed, dedicated isolationist. And I thought he ought to be replaced.”

Ford’s decision to run against Jonkman led him first to approach potential rivals, deferring to each should he decided to challenge the incumbent. Conventional wisdom had Jonkman could not be beat, so each person demurred. With a path cleared in front of him, Ford decided to challenge Jonkman in the 1948 Republican primary. His strategy was to contrast the generational differences between him and Jonkman, encourage Democratic voters to support him in Michigan’s open primary, and outhustle Jonkman by visiting farms, factories, service clubs, churches, and labor organizations. The strategy worked, helped with mistakes by the Jonkman campaign, and Ford won the primary and subsequently was elected to Congress in the 1948 general election.

Ford’s decision to run against Jonkman is the virtue of civility in action. If civility is the correct disposition and conduct appropriate to the citizens in their duty to the state, then Ford was emblematic of this not only in his military service but choosing to run against Jonkman and how he went about it. Convinced from his service in the Navy, Ford believed that America had a responsibility to preserve world peace, even if this required rebuilding both friend and foe alike. By contrast, Jonkman opposed the Marshall Plan, especially the reconstruction of Germany and Italy.

Both Ford and Jonkman believed their positions about the U.S. role in the world was for the good of America. Yet Ford recognized that global circumstances have changed where isolationism was no longer a viable option for the country if the U.S. wanted global stability and peace. It was the duty of America to be active in global affairs as it was the duty of American citizens to support it.

In it noteworthy that Ford was willing to step aside if one of his potential rivals wanted to challenge Jonkman. This willingness to defer reveals that Ford was motivated for the common good of his constituents and the country rather than self-aggrandizement and ego. And while Ford’s willingness to reach out to Democrats for their support in an open primary was mostly out of political calculation, such overtures were an implicit recognition that despite party differences Ford saw everyone as a citizen first.

During the campaign, Ford blamed Jonkman for failing to include Grand Rapids in a major flood control survey by the Army Corps of Engineers which resulted in water diverted from Michigan to Illinois. For his part, Jonkman accused Gerald Ford Sr. of profiteering from city contracts. Both the Ford and Jonkman campaign played hardball but that makes neither uncivil. In fact, it was the opposite, because, in Hudson’s words, “civility calls for telling the truth and having a tough conversation about it.” Disagreement among citizens about the common good is inevitable, so having a public debate about them is the appropriate way to resolve these differences in a democracy. Politeness, on the other hand, polishes and papers over disagreements by avoiding tough conversations whether out of fear, flattery, or some calculative reason.

Civility in Congress

As a congressman, Ford’s civility was recognized in 1961 when the American Political Science Association presented him its Congressional Distinguished Service Award, calling him a moderate conservative who was respected by both parties and “who eschews the more colorful publicity seeking roles in favor of a solid record of achievement in the real work of the House: Committee Work.” Ford served on the House Appropriations Committee and the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee where his philosophy as “a moderate in domestic affairs, an internationalist in foreign affairs, and a conservative in fiscal policy” governed his 25-year tenure.

Known as the “Congressman’s Congressman,” Ford had productive and friendly relationships with both Republicans and Democrats. He was known as a negotiator and reconciler among congressmen in crafting legislation, and he was appointed to the Warren Commission, a special task force to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy (who also was Ford’s House Office Building neighbor during their freshmen congressional year together). Working with both Republicans and Democrats, Ford defended the commission’s report and conclusions that Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole assassin.

After the 1964 Democratic election landslide, Ford was urged by his moderate Republican colleagues to run for House Minority Leader. In 1965 he won the position by four votes, becoming the highest-ranking Republican in Congress. As Minority Leader, Ford’s primary role was to do what was needed to become Speaker of the House, which only would occur if the Republicans became the majority party. Ford campaigned for moderate Republican candidates and helped narrow the gap between the Democratic majority and Republican minority in the House.

But Ford did not let his political ambitions tramped over his deportment of civility. An example of this is when Lee Hamilton, a Democratic Representative from Indiana, recalled one of his early encounters with Ford as Minority Leader:

Well, I’ll give you a very personal story. As a very young member of Congress, I made a big parliamentary mistake on the floor; didn’t even know I’d made it. I knew so little about the rules. Ford was the Minority Leader. Either at his instigation or at least with his consent, I never knew which, he sent over an Indiana Republican member of Congress, Bill Bray, to me and Bill said, “Lee, you just made a mistake. Here’s the way you correct it.” And I did on a bill neither he nor Ford liked. Now, it wasn’t a major piece of legislation, pretty small, but an extraordinary act by the Minority Leader and by Congressman Bray to help this newcomer Democrat not make a fool of himself. And I cannot imagine that kind of thing happening in today’s climate.

Ford’s willingness to help Hamilton to avoid embarrassment is an act of integrity, behavior based on his core values—such as civic friendship and respecting one’s fellow citizen—for the common good of the country. It is also a case of hospitality, a virtue that Hudson describes as taking a risk with strangers in the hope they will become friends. By taking a chance to save a freshmen congressman from embarrassment, Ford transformed his relationship with Hamilton from one of opposition to one of political rival and friend.

Civility and Education

Hudson’s The Soul of Civility is needed today because the habits, practices, and culture of civility have been lost. Politicians and political leaders who embodied civility, like Gerald Ford, are rarer in today’s political environment. Part of this is due to the advent of social media technology which splits citizens into groups that then only serve as echo chambers. Part of it is the counter-culture revolution of the 1960s which rejected traditional American norms and values of community and responsibility for autonomy and individualism. And part of it is economic offshoring where the industrial heartland has suffered deindustrialization so the promise that your children will be better off than their parents ring hollow. All these forces—technological, ideological, and economic—have contributed to a coarsening of the culture and a decline of rationality in public discourse.

But perhaps the most influential of these forces has been the revolution in education where concerns of economic utilitarianism have taken center stage at the expense of liberal and civic education. The result is that Americans are productive workers but abysmal citizens and mediocre human beings. The purpose of liberal education is to cultivate a sense of wonder and virtue in students; and the purpose of civic education is to make students good citizens. Only when we as a country can recover liberal and civic education will we have a culture that promotes values like hospitality, friendship, and civility.

Gerard Ford lived a life of civility as a politician and congressman. As a campaigner he reached out to Democrats for support; and as a congressman, he worked across the isle to see that legislation was passed. He respected everyone, especially with those whom he disagreed, and sought to work with everyone for the common good of the country. By looking at Ford’s congressional career, we can draw a myriad of lessons of how to lead and work with our own colleagues, but the most important one is how we can be civil with our countrymen, for only together can we as a country accomplish anything that matters.

Photo courtesy of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum. Michigan Senator Arthur Vandenberg welcomes new Congressman Gerald R. Ford Jr., to Washington DC. 1949.