House of Jerks: The Debasement of Public Speech

 Definition of jerk (Merriam-webster)

     a : an annoyingly stupid or foolish person     ·         was acting like a jerk       b : an unlikable person; especially : one who is cruel, rude, or small-                       minded  ·         a selfish jerk

"He speaks like one of us" is often heard as a justification for using vulgarities and profanities in public. Curiously, most of those who tolerate or even celebrate fool language in celebrities or populist politicians would smack their kids or fire their pastor for using those same words in public. 

                            

Foul, insulting language makes politics personal. Perhaps too personal. Trying to justify it with the  tired "politics is a contact sport" invites to double down on fighting words. Using the "s" and the "f" words in public speech is the verbal equivalent of a kick in the groin or a rabbit punch. We ban athletes from professional sports for doing such kind of things. Soccer players get fired and fined for cursing during a game (ask Messi). And using the "f" word to ask for punishment for  players who kneel in protest only adds insult to injury. Which is all what debased speech and name-calling is all about.

Adding irrationality to insult. vulgar speech self-defeats its aggressive purpose. It might please the "base", but it turns the attacked in victim to the eyes of the politically undecided and reinforces the animosity between the parties. 

That might explain why Donald Trump's personal approval rating has never risen over 40 percent after his first year in office in spite of presiding over an otherwise successful economy. By relying only on a faithful "base" of followers, Trump's tweeting and name-calling is cultivating larger wave of new "anti-Trump" voters. Quite like Nixon in 1968, Trump seems to bet on the secret approval of a "silent majority" tired of "political correctness".

Trump's public taunting of women and bragging about sexual harassment as part of the perks of "executive privilege" is already energizing women's rallies and widening the gender gap against him. 

Thanks to Trump, Fox News and Hollywood's meltdowns, "male" is becoming a code word for "jerk" and "power abuser".

Which is the uncivil default behavior not only tolerated but promoted by our political and business leaders. Voters' tolerance of Clinton's Oral Office and Trump's Planet Hollywood are to blame without any doubt. They willingly condoned and voted for well-known sexual predators and tolerated their continuation while in office. Just look at the recent "Stormy" Daniels payments affair.

Politically correct lies -such as "alternative facts" or the juggling to justify Clinton's stay in office- and abusive, personal tweets are in fact debasement of public speech. 

The "trickle-down" effect is visible in plain sight from the deadly clashes in Charlottesville to the mobbing of invited speakers in campuses. And although there has been some swift public punishment at Hollywood, Wall Street and even COTUS, there doesn't seem to be any fix or care for the broken damn at the White House that keeps growing in incontinence.

Not too long ago -in the pre-Tweet, YouTube era- behaving as a gentleman was still considered a default code of public conduct among political or business executives.  The fact that tweets and smart phones have erased dangerously the gray zone between public and private spheres only turns more embarrassing the lack of self-control (still a pre-requisite for keeping a top job, at least for once omnipotent and tenured Travis Kalanick, Harvey Weinstein, Anthony Weiner, Al Franken, Roger Ailes and Bill O'Reilly). We even saw an actor who played a corrupt fictional president fired for his actual acting job for personal corruption in his job.

How it should be? Let's look at some simple examples.

Writer and literary critic George Plimpton is a good example of what manly and civil behavior looked like on those days when they were the standard to bear for everyone. 

Plimpton was the typical "ladies man" and also a gentleman. Those interested in gentlemanship can take a look at the video or read "George Being George", his posthumous biography made by friends, with abundant anecdotes and pictures of his famous Paris Review parties.

Plimpton and others created a civil atmosphere where political enemies such as Henry Kissinger and Gore Vidal socialized between bouts of political yet civic debate. There was Washington Post's Kate Graham whose newspaper was eviscerating the Nixon Administration sharing cocktails with Nixon's Secretary of State and confident.

(A Paris Review party circa 1960: Plimpton, left, Truman Capote, center, Ted Sorensen , Katherine Graham next and Henry Kissinger second standing)

Peggy Noonan wrote in WSJ  an excelent description of a gentleman, which, in my opinion describes all what is lacking in a jerk:

The dictionary says a gentleman is a chivalrous, courteous, honorable man. That’s a good, plain definition. The Urban Dictionary says: “The true gentleman is the man whose conduct proceeds from good will . . . whose self control is equal to all emergencies, who does not make the poor man conscious of his poverty, the obscure man of his obscurity, or any man of his inferiority or deformity.” That’s good, too.

A website called Gentleman’s Journal offers a list of 20 traits that make a man a gentleman. I liked “A gentleman always walks a woman home.” He doesn’t pack her off alone to an Uber downstairs, in the back of which she weeps as she sends her friends horrified texts, which is what happened with the Hollywood star and the girl. I liked, “A gentleman ruins his lover’s lipstick, not her mascara.” And “If a woman comes with baggage, a gentleman helps her unpack it.” 

A gentleman is good to women because he has his own dignity and sees theirs. He takes opportunities to show them respect. He is not pushy, manipulative, belittling. He stands with them not because they are weak but because they deserve friendship. Once at a gathering of women in media, I spoke of a columnist who years before had given me helpful critiques of my work and urged me on. “A gentleman is an encourager of women.”

And  she completes her description with these significant points about what is behind true manly behavior:

"It goes deeper than memorizing and repeating certain behaviors, such as standing when a woman or an older person enters the room. That is a physical expression of inner regard. Being a gentleman involves not only manners but morals. The 19th-century theologian John Henry Newman —an Anglican priest who became a Catholic cardinal—said a gentleman tries not to inflict pain. He tries to remove the obstacles “which hinder the free and unembarrassed action of those about him.” He is “tender toward the bashful, gentle toward the distant, and merciful toward the absurd. . . . He is never mean or little in his disputes, never takes unfair advantage.”

David Gandy, a fashion model, wrote a few years ago in London’s Telegraph that his work had taught him “being a gentleman isn’t about what you do or what you wear, it’s about how you behave and who you are.” A gentleman “holds chivalry and politeness in great regard. He holds the door for people; he gives up his seat; he takes off his coat to a lady on a cold evening.” These are old-fashioned actions, but a gentleman still holds to them “even though the world has changed.”

Being a gentleman is an ambiguous term, which can be confused with social standing or upbringing.  Social standing and power only empower a jerk. The current kind of behavior in government and business was adequately lampooned several decades ago by Mel Brooks in his sketch "It's Good to Be a King" :

"Right" wing CEOs turned into politicians bragged about its perks  off camera quite much like Mel Brooks' portrait of a French King:

"Left" wing politicians like Anthony Wiener or Uber's CEO Travis Kalanick bragged no less about theirs turning their jobs and institutions into playhouses and fraternities:

For those of us who don't see teenagers or frat houses as role models of masculinity , nor Fire and Fury's White House as the idea of how to run a government or a business, civility is not about being "politically correct" but playing by rules of mutual respect and decorum - in other worlds, behaving like adults-.

Civility in public and private behavior is -again- the last defense line for our national union and our constitutional institutions. Civility is much easier to destroy than to build, and continuing down the current path might come with a price tag our country can't afford.

Civility, however, will not come back until we practice and enforce it on elected and un-elected officers and business leaders.