A Conversation Too Far?

Cell phone use has become rampant in almost all areas of our society, slowly but surely.  It became such a problem on the road that in most states, cell phone use while driving has been made illegal.  In one recent article available on Yahoo, a man playing in an amateur soccer game stopped playing the game so that he could answer a phone call.  This seems to be a bit ridiculous to me.  The fact that a man stopped in the middle of the game, without a sub, to answer a phone call just shows that in our world we have placed more of an importance on virtual communication than face to face communication.  Although cell phones' ease of use has increased our ability to communicate with one another, it has also lowered the quality of our communication with the people who are right in front of us.  We can be found at restaurants eating together, at movies, or walking to and from places texting or otherwise plugged into our phones when we could be plugged into the world around us.  It has gone a bit too far when we are using our time with people who are present and in front of us to communicate with others who are probably asking a simple question or with whom we are carrying on a substance-less conversation with.

The question then becomes, what can we do about this now that cell phones are so common in our culture?  The answer to this question will not be easy to find.  So many of the current generation are content with their current modes of communication that no public service announcement or civility campaign will change their mindset.  There must be some sort of conscious effort by the phone companies with their ad campaigns or something of a similar affect in order to shift what the public perceives as appropriate use of cell phones.  Without this, we will continue to turn ourselves into a society which is content with placing more of an importance on virtual conversation.

All or Nothing

We often see news stories about partisan arguments flash across the television and appear in the daily newspapers we read.  These stories just kind of exist in the background of our lives and they really have no bearing on our daily lives.  I believe we have become so jaded by these stories because we have been conditioned to not expect anything else from our political leaders.

An article such as this in the New York times is a dime a dozen.  However when you really look at the content of the article, you begin to see that, in this case, arguments over budget issues become less about choosing the more effective course of action than they do about winning the argument.  In this article, it features a quote from the fiery tea party leader from Indiana, Rep. Mike Pence.  He says, "It's time to pick a fight, if liberals in the Senate would rather play political games and shut down the government instead of making a small down payment on fiscal discipline and reform, I say, 'shut it'"  Quotes like these give us an example of how it seems as though political arguments are being continued just so that one side will be able to declare themselves the winner and use it to boost their standing come election season.

The hostile approach Rep. Mike Peace is taking is everything that is wrong with politics today.  Instead of going at each other with the goal of winning for their own sake, we need political leaders who spark and debate arguments with the end goal in mind of finding what will benefit our country and our citizens' well being the most.  The reason this is taking place is because politicians are moving away from the shared background of common goals.  Author Stephen Carter explains in his book Civility that in order to keep a healthy and functioning republic, politicians must understand that, "... the political battles themselves must take place against the background of a shared understanding of what America most fundamentally means."  It has nevertheless become apparent that politics has become a seemingly personal competition among its leaders, with little regard to how their goals of personal advancement affect the nation's well being.

It's a Cryin Shame

As most people can agree, one of the most annoying and mood killing sounds you can hear is a baby crying in a restaurant.  The shrieking cry that is followed usually by the parent's futile attempts to hush it down always seem to draw the entire restaurant's attention; usually in amazement that the parent does not quickly usher the baby out of the restaurant in order to save the sanity of the other patrons.  These struggling parents would do well to follow what the author P.M. Forni says in his book Choosing Civility.  Forni explains that, "When we pay attention we do justice to the presence of others in our lives."  Should a parent take the baby out of the restaurant immediately once it starts its crying fit, that parent would immediately receive much respect from the patrons of the restaurant since unfortunately this is such an uncommon occurrence.  This respect that the parent is clearly showing the others in the restaurant is bound to be felt by them, and therefore it is not a stretch to say that they would be more inclined to show a similar respect to others in their life.  It takes one person to show an uncommon courtesy for others to go out in their own lives and show the same respect and courtesy.

Political Bickering... At What Cost?

In an Op-Ed piece for the New York Times written by Paul Krugman, he discusses the difficulty that conservative politicians have with bringing their promises of fiscal responsibility to fruition.  His major discussion point is how conservatives have long been proponents of education and childcare, but their tax and spending policies have blatantly challenged their major platform.  Throughout his article, he jabs at the idea that conservatives are two faced, that they say they stand for one thing but act in contradictory ways.  He uses past examples of how presidents such as George W. Bush ran on the ideal of supporting our children's education, touting Texas's low dropout rates as the proof that he can bring that success to the rest of the country.  Paul Krugman then talks about how in order to attempt to balance the budget, Texas Governor Rick Perry has had to make spending cuts in Medicaid and in school administration layoffs.  While these points are biting and may seem outlandish to many who have always seen the Republican party as the fiscally conservative champions for the youth, Paul Krugman did effectively lay out some of the problems with the Republican party's approach to monetary and education policy.  However, the weakness of his piece is that he merely expresses his disagreement with conservative policy while providing no real advice on how to improve the current situation.

This belief that politics has become a back and forth of childish arguments that have no constructive goals is echoed by an article in the Rasmussen Report called Partisan Politics.  This article shows that while many congressmen and women are hopeful for a bipartisan future, the voting public continues to distrust our political leaders' ability to work together for the good of the nation.  They see constant arguments and outbursts by politicians not as passionate outcries for change, but as infantile calls for support of their own political platform.  As a country, we see too many politicians criticizing the beliefs of opposing parties while not offering nearly as much constructive advice on how to better improve our national standing in all areas.  Politics has become too much a competition over who looks better in the media and can fit our usual view of what a leader looks like, when it should be a competition over who has the best ideas and the talent and determination to implement them in an effective way.

We read articles like Paul Krugman's and we see his opinion and belief that Republicans are doing a poor job, but we don't see any viable options being offered to change the current course of the country.  His article comes across as immature bickering that is intended to inflame debate over whose opinions sound the best.  As long as these articles are published, not just coming from the eyes of a democrat, but from the republican side as well, America will continue to see politics as one big argument that appears almost removed from the wants and needs of the people who the politicians are actually representing.  The more we see articles like the one written by Paul Krugman, the less we will believe in a future in which partisan politics will no longer impede the progress that this nation needs.

The Secret to Happiness?

In the book Choosing Civility by P.M. Forni, one of the chapters discusses the connection between happiness and the mind.  This is interesting to me because it references some material that I have rarely seen.  The first time I was introduced to information similar to this was in a book called The Secret.  It explains how happiness is a choice that is made by the individual through the things a person thinks about.  Until I read the section about this in Forni's book, I have not seen anything about this subject in a mainstream let alone academic book.  But more than the location of where I found it, I thought it was interesting how Forni made the connection between personal happiness and how it affects the outside world.  The book The Secret focused purely on the personal effects of this way of thinking, but Forni explained how a change in the way we think about our happiness also effects the relationships we have with those around us.  


In an editorial written by P.M. Forni for the Dallas Morning News, he discusses various opinions and arguments about the state of civility in America.  In one paragraph, he brings up the health effects that good relationships can have on a person.  He goes on to connect the heath benefits of harmonious relationships to the civil discourse that comes from them.  It is no stretch to imagine that his idea of happiness and the mind leads to increased civility through healthy relationships.  Therefore, the idea that happiness comes from the mind could be one of the most influential arguments and ideas for those who are discouraged by the assumed lack of civility in our culture.


One of the things that I did not like about The Secret was the focus on personal gain, almost to the point of narcissism.  But Forni's point about the positive mind's affect on our relationships shows that we must not use this positive thinking only to try to benefit our own lives but to affect beneficially those around us.  This idea seems to be what could bring about a change in the civility of our society.  The belief that it is within ourselves to determine our happiness as well as our relationships seems to be the kind of game changing idea we need.