THERE is much talk today about whether Obama’s Tucson speech will suddenly inspire civility in our political discourse. Will pols put their pettiness aside, join hands and sing Kumbaya? If history is any guide, the answer is no. American politics – forged in the cauldron of revolution and tempered by Civil War – has always been a raucous, occasionally violent, and often boorish affair. Chalk it up, in part, to the limitations of the passionate brain, an imperfect organ often governed by its reptilian, eat-or-be-eaten impulses. This Darwinian fact isn’t changing anytime soon. Neither is the nature of American politics. The question we should ask is: How might we leverage technology to access our better angels? For what is different today is the signal-to-noise ratio. Thanks to the rise (and symbiosis) of cable news and the Internet, the noise is drowning out rational discourse altogether. As Henry David Thoreau said prophetically, “Men have become the tools of their tools.” Only when we realize that can our body politic begin to change course. One brilliant speech isn’t enough.
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