Spirit Of Meanness Has Swallowed Up Discourse

"We are critical without acknowledging the possibility of change or redemption and we brook no apology for human limitation, human mistakes or human indecision in our leaders. And perhaps the most telling of all, we make no such inventory of ourselves as citizens who are ultimately responsible for the political process." - John Frohnmayer, author of "Out of Tune" and "Leaving Town Alive"

Last Sunday's paper had an essay by John Frohnmayer on the increasing difficulty of thoughtful public discussion. He asks, as I have many times in this column, "How did we get here - in this state of endemic meanness . . . obnoxiously partisan." I would add that we seem unaware or disinterested in substance but captured by form and personality. I know this affects our families as well as our communities.

Write to me and tell me why we are so obnoxiously personal in our attacks?

Albert Einstein once described himself as "a horse for single harness," because he found himself unable to find solid ground when yoked to the shifting opinions of others. Can a leader today walk away from that "shifting ground" now exemplified by pundits and opinion polls and hold his or her position? Is it becoming harder to be public and honest?

Write to me and tell me why it is, if it is, harder to be public with one's thoughts or opinions?

What triggered these questions for you, at this moment, was a combination of the campaign commercials, Frohnmayer's essay,

rereading "The Fountainhead" on a plane and, the more personal, a letter to the editor from Catherine Ross about my Sept. 25 column. I receive many letters like hers but I still wonder why. Why the need to add the gratuitous slap in a debate or correction, like the tag line on a political ad?

In the column I was answering an inquiry on "free will" from someone concerned that Thomas Aquinas said humans were distorted by sin. Ross was correct to point out that I misquoted Aquinas by not including more of his comments and response to Aristotle. The quote was too hastily plucked by me and was misleading. Had she written to me we could have argued the other issues, but her letter was sent only to the editor.

What I question, in the same vein as the other rhetorical questions in this column, is the lack of civility in her letter and in so many other letters to the editor. The central problem of current public discourse is the increasing acceptability of snide comments about one's imagined opponent. It may be intended to pass for wit or politics but it reveals something altogether different.

Why do we do it?

Wit is to be savored. Skewering, roasting or otherwise sticking pins in pomposity is a valuable American pastime, but we seem to be losing our skill at it. I want to laugh at intellectual thrusts and parries, not sigh at sneers. Ross mentions my Ph.D. twice, even though I don't use the title myself. I have never felt a Ph.D. was an indicator of intelligence. She distorts my comments to imply ideas, in this case about men, I have never held. She thrusts with the column headline that I do not write. She aims a number of other arrows hoping to hit me rather than clarify or improve a dialogue on whether humans are inherently good or bad. Her letter left me thinking that we humans are neither good nor bad, we are just silly.

Why are we, as Frohnmayer says, in the middle of an endemic of meanness?

In "The Fountainhead," author Ayn Rand says of her character, a newspaper publisher: "News, Gail Wynand told his staff, is that which will create the greatest excitement among the greatest number. The thing that will knock them silly. The sillier the better, provided there's enough of them." She wrote this in 1943. It is more true now that it was then if one accepts the analysis of contemporary journalists about their profession and what they choose to print.

Write to me and tell me why news, commentaries and public debate now seem more likely to limit than expand our reasoning process.

Thomas Aquinas (I went back and reread much more of his writing as a penance), whom Ross describes as "angelic" in her letter, would be horrified. He may have disagreed with Aristotle, but he did not call him names and scrupulously avoided snide remarks. He deeply believed in reasoned discourse. I would love "talking" philosophy with Ross or anyone; that is one of my pleasures in life.

Write to me, as well as the editor, and we can throw ideas at each other instead of pies. - Jennifer

(Copyright 1994, Jennifer James Inc. All rights reserved.)

Jennifer James' column runs Sundays in the Scene section of The Seattle Times. Letters will be edited to preserve anonymity. Address letters to: Jennifer James, c/o Scene, The Seattle Times, P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111.