By
Edwin J. Feulner
The
following speech was delivered on May 8, 2004, at college commencement
at Hillsdale College. As we are in the thick of U.S. elections, Feulner’s words seem important and appropriate.
Edwin J. Feulner is the president of The Heritage Foundation,
a Washington D.C. conservative think tank.
In 1969 a Stanford University psychologist
named Philip Zimbardo set up an experiment. He arranged
for two cars to be abandoned—one on the mean streets
of the Bronx, New York, the other in an affluent neighborhood
near Stanford in Palo Alto, California. The license
plates had been removed, and the hoods were left open.
Zimbardo wanted to see what would happen to the cars.
In the Bronx, he soon found out. Ten minutes
after the car was abandoned, people began stealing parts
from it. Within three days the car was stripped. When
there was nothing useful left to take, people smashed
windows and ripped out upholstery, until the car was
trashed.
In Palo Alto, something quite different happened:
nothing. For more than a week the car sat there unmolested.
Zimbardo was puzzled, but he had a hunch about human
nature. To test it, he went out and, in full view of
everyone, took a sledgehammer and smashed part of the
car. Soon, passersby were taking turns with the hammer,
delivering blow after satisfying blow. Within a few
hours, the vehicle was resting on its roof, demolished.
At this point, you might be wondering…”Why did this man come
from Washington to tell us about cars that were abandoned
in a psychology experiment 35 years ago?”…
Among the scholars who took note of Zimbardo’s experiment were
two criminologists: James Q. Wilson, who is now the
Ronald Reagan Professor of Public Policy at Pepperdine University, and George
Kelling. The experiment gave rise to their now famous
“broken windows” theory of crime, which is illustrated
by a common experience: When a broken window in a building
is left unrepaired, the rest of the windows are son
broken by vandals.
Why is this? Aside from the fact that it’s fun to break windows,
why does the broken window invite further vandalism?
Wilson and Kelling say it’s because the broken window
sends a signal that no one is in charge here, that breaking
more windows costs nothing, that it has no undesirable
consequences. The broken window is their metaphor for
a whole host of ways that behavioral norms can break
down in a community. If one person scrawls graffiti
on a wall, others will soon be at it with their spray
cans. If one aggressive panhandler begins working a
block, others will soon follow. In short, once people
begin disregarding the norms that keep order in a community,
both order and community unravel, sometimes with astonishing
speed.
Police in big cities have dramatically cut crime rates by applying
this theory. Rather than concentrate on felonies such
as robbery and assault, they aggressively enforce laws
against relatively minor offenses—graffiti, public drinking,
panhandling, littering.
When order is visibly restored at that level, a signal is sent
out. This is a community where behavior does have consequences.
If you can’t get away with jumping a turnstile into
the subway, you’d better not try armed robbery.
Broken Civility
Now all this is a preface. My topic is not crime on city streets.
Rather, I want to speak about incivility in the marketplace
of ideas. The broken windows theory is what links the
two.
As the head of a think tank in Washington, I work exclusively
in the marketplace of ideas. Our job at the Heritage
Foundation is to engage in a wide range of public debates
about public policy issues. We put forward traditional
conservative policy options and ideas with the aim of
persuading others to our viewpoint on the whole range
of national policies—both international and domestic.
What we’re seeing in the marketplace of ideas today is a disturbing
growth of incivility that follows and confirms the broken
windows theory. Alas, this breakdown of civil norms
is not a failing of either the political left or right
exclusively. It spreads across the political spectrum
from one end to the other.
A few examples: A liberal writes a book calling Rush Limbaugh
a “big fat idiot.” A conservative writes a book calling
liberals “useful idiots.” A liberal writes a book titled
The Lies of George
W. Bush. A conservative writes a book subtitled “Liberal Lies about
the American Right.” A liberal publishes a detailed
“case for Bush-hatred.” A conservative declares, “Even
Islamic terrorists don’t hate America like liberals
do.”
Those few examples—and unfortunately there are many, many more—come
from elites in the marketplace of ideas. All are highly
educated people who write nationally syndicated columns,
publish best-selling books and are hot tickets on radio
and television talk shows.
Further down the food chain, lesser lights take up smaller
hammers, but they commit even more degrading incivilities.
The Internet, with its easy access and worldwide reach,
is a breeding ground for Web sites with names like Bushbodycount.com
and Toostupidtobepresident.com This is how the broken
windows theory plays out in the marketplace of ideas.
If you want to see it working in real time, try the
following: Log on to AOL, and go to one of the live
chat rooms reserved for political chat. Almost immediately,
someone else will sing the verbal hammer of incivility,
and from there the chat degrades into a food fight,
with invective and insult as the main course.
This illustrates the first aspect of the broken windows theory,
which we saw with the car in Palo Alto. Once someone
wields the hammer—once the incivility starts—others
will take it as an invitation to join in, and pretty
soon there’s no limit to the incivility. And if you
watch closely in that chat room, you’ll see something
else happening. Watch the screen names of people who
make civil comments. Some—a few—will join in the food
fight. But most will log off. Their screen names just
disappear. They leave because the atmosphere has turned
hostile to anything approaching a civil exchange or
a real dialogue.
This illustrates the second aspect of the broken windows theory.
Once the insults begin flying, many will opt out. Wilson
and Kelling describe this response when the visible
signs of order deteriorate in a neighborhood.
Many residents will think crime, especially
violent crime, is on the rise, and they will modify
their behavior accordingly. They will use the streets
less often, and when on the streets will stay apart
from their fellows, moving with averted eyes, silent
lips, and hurried steps. Don’t get involved. For some
residents, this growing atomization will matter little…But
it will matter greatly to other people, whose lives
derive meaning and satisfaction from local attachments…[F]or
them, the neighborhood will cease to exist except for
a few reliable friends whom they arrange to meet.
The chat room shows us that a similar response occurs when
civility breaks down in the marketplace of ideas. Many
people withdraw and tune out, regardless of whether
the incivility occurs in a chat room, on a talk show,
in a newspaper column, in political campaign ads, or
on the floor of Congress. This is the real danger of
incivility. Our free, self-governing society requires
an open exchange of ideas, which in turn requires a
certain level of civility rooted in mutual respect for
each other’s opinions and viewpoints.
What we see today, I am afraid, is an accelerating competition
between the left and the right to see which side can
inflict the most damage with the hammer of incivility.
Increasingly, those who take part in public debate appear
to be exchanging ideas when, in fact, they are trading
insults: idiot, liar, moron, traitor.
Civility and Character
Earlier this week I was in London and attended a dinner honoring
Lady Margaret Thatcher on the 25th anniversary
of her accession to the Prime Ministership of Great
Britain…She was a great political leader and has always
been a model of civility.
If you want to grasp the nature of civility, try to imagine
Lady Thatcher calling someone a “big, fat idiot.” You
will instantly understand that civility isn’t an accessory
one can put on or take off like a scarf. It is inseparable
from the character of great leaders…
Incivility is not a social blunder to be compared with using
the wrong fork. Rather, it betrays a defect of character.
Incivility is dangerous graffiti, regardless of whether
it is spray-painted on a subway car or embossed on the
title page of a book. The broken windows theory shows
us the dangers in both cases.
But those cases aren’t parallel in every way, and in closing
I want to call you attention to an important difference
When behavioral norms break down in a community, police
can restore order. But when civility breaks down in
the marketplace of ideas, the law is powerless to set
things right. And properly so: Our right to speak
freely—even with incivility, if we choose—is guaranteed
by those five glorious words in the First Amendment:
“Congress shall make no law….” And yet, the need for
civility has never been greater. Our nation is divided
as never before between the left and the right. We
are at loggerheads on profoundly important political
and social questions. Meanwhile, civilization itself
is under barbaric attack from without.
Sadly, too many of us are not rising to these challenges as
a democratic people. On the contrary, we’ve seen a
40-year decline in voter participation in national elections.
In the last two presidential elections, fewer than half
of eligible voters bothered to vote. Rather than helping
to reverse this decline, the rising chorus of incivility
is driving out citizens of honest intent and encouraging
those who trade in jeering and mockery…
If we are to prevail as a free, self-governing people, we must
first govern our tongues and our pens. Restoring civility
to public discourse is not an option. It is a necessity.
Who will begin the restoration of civility? I hope you will…I
urge you to take it on as a serious, lifelong commitment.
Reprinted by permission from Imprimus, the nationwide speech digest of Hillsdale
College
