In “Please, Stop Already with the Outrage,” Michael Gerson, member of the Washington Post Writers Group, gives examples of exaggeration from several prominent politicians (Akron Beacon Journal, 2/1/15, A11. Print.) He then explains its implications:

“This rhetorical strategy [of apocalyptic language] is a disaster for democratic discourse. It creates a cartoon version of reality in which actual problems are obscured or misdiagnosed. It avoids the hard work of drawing careful distinctions and offering nuanced judgments. It leaves some people on constant high alert; others are exhausted by an endless series of supposedly existential threats and unable to distinguish the real ones… Above all, extreme rhetoric shapes a certain view of ideological opponents… America has enough real problems and real enemies without the manufacture of artificial outrage.”

A friend emails to suggest I look at this article, writing that this kind of discourse not only compromises democratic discourse but also weakens the fabric of civility. I agree.

For example, Gerson discusses “[Bobby] Jindal… talking about a Muslim fifth column intent on establishing Sharia law in unassimilated enclaves and eventually subverting the Constitution and conquering the country. A pretty serious charge against some portion of several thousand Muslims living in Louisiana, for instance.”

In fairness, Gerson acknowledges that apocalyptic language occurs across the board, on the left and the right. Yet both civility and democratic discourse, rely on an ability to examine point of view, and to maintain equanimity in the face of differences and disagreements. Politicians, like the rest of us, get so ego-involved in their messages that they overstate and oversimplify. Judgment gets clouded.

I write as a retired Professor of English, and so find the literary/rhetorical concept of point of view to be a powerful tool to analyze the drama of high emotion that leads to outrage. It is useful in deconstructing political talk in general. Point of view is one of fiction’s basic elements and writers’ most powerful tools. Good fiction shows how two people can experience reality differently.

Rhetoric asks: Who is speaking to whom under what circumstances? What are the speaker’s motivations? In what context is the speaker holding forth? What constraints are shaping the speaker’s message, and its emotionality? Answering these questions is what Gerson calls the “hard work of drawing careful distinctions and offering nuanced judgments.”

These are good questions to ask in the land of politics and talk TV where emotionality spins political discourse to outrage. Gerson lays out the results on listeners/readers: they are “exhausted by the endless spin of existential threats” and left “unable to sort out the real ones,” thus “shaping certain views of ideological opponents.”

Civility in its broadest sense commits to a belief in human dignity and the greater good. Ultimately exaggeration, intended or not, denigrates the subject under consideration. We can appreciate the fact that opinions differ and not tolerate the disparagement of people in the process. Life in our global village makes doing so essential.

That said, we must acknowledge that it is easier to analyze the points of view of others than it is to be conscientious of our own. I like the word deconstruct, familiar as it is in the discourse community of Departments of English. Free Merriam Webster defines it as “to take apart in order to examine the basis of intention, often with the [purpose] of examining biases, flaws, and inconsistencies.” We can deconstruct a situation to see if the speaker is speaking with civility, certainly one of the foundations on which a democracy thrives. Civility involves caring—not just for good manners and courtesies as so often thought--but also for the words we choose to construct our realities. True for politicians in the public life; true for us in our private lives.