Fair criticism doesn’t equal incivility – Tennessee Lookout

[ad_1]

In 1910, a year after leaving the presidency, Théodore Teddy Roosevelt gave a speech at the University of Paris better known as the Sorbonne titled Citizenship in a Republic.

The speech is better known as the man in the arena speech, and you may know it because part of it is often quoted these days by politicians praising their work and letting their critics know that they don’t care about criticism:

It’s not the criticism that counts; not the man who shows how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is stained with dust, sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who fails again and again, because there is no effort without error and lack; but who actually strives to perform the acts; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a noble cause; who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, fails at least by daring greatly, so that his place will never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know the victory nor defeat.

Governor Bill Lee quoted part of the passage from his second inaugural address on Saturday, adding that, and I paraphrase, those who disapprove of his work and voice their disapproval are guilty of toxic incivility and division.

Civility has become a media and political slogan to discourage critical analysis and by criticism I mean several definitions of the word, including involving an analysis of the merits and flaws of a work and expressing unfavorable comments or judgments or disapproving.

Criticism does not implicitly mean incivility. Elected officials need to be viewed with a critical eye, especially by journalists, who are trained not to take politicians’ statements at face value. Legislators should expect their words and decisions to be carefully considered and reported: for public servants, that comes with the territory. Don’t want to see your emails printed? You don’t want opposition party members calling you hypocritical or voters challenging your decisions? Don’t run for the office.

Criticism is an integral part of public service. To be sure, we have witnessed, particularly in the past six or seven years, a degradation of thoughtful criticism into increasingly ad hominem attacks; insults for the sake of insults.

Criticism does not implicitly mean incivility. Elected officials need to be viewed with a critical eye, especially by journalists, who are trained not to take politicians’ statements at face value. But ad hominem attacks and name-calling undermine a legitimate analysis of political positions.

Often I hear Tennessean Democrats calling U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn and Lee dumb or stupid, and neither of them fits this bill. It takes, at a minimum, a generous amount of common sense and knowledge of political systems to get elected. To disparage them with such names, or to make sarcastic remarks about, say, the appearance of Blackburn, another model I took note of, belittles arguments about their political positions, which are ripe for open disapproval.

There are plenty of legitimate reasons to criticize Lee and his politics, issues he didn’t address in his speech Saturday. Admittedly, rare is the politician who uses an inaugural address to discuss issues of concern, and Lee was no exception.

The gist of his speech was how big Tennessee is indeed, there are a lot of great things about our state, but most of its policies are not part of it. While he spoke of Tennessee’s accomplishments, including recruiting the massive Ford Blue Oval City that is sure to economically transform rural West Tennessee, he barely touched on the many ways we need to improve.

Lee referenced the need to protect the children in our care and in our state with a better fostering and adoption process, which is the sweetest way imaginable to deal with a years-long crisis in the department. Tennessee Children’s Services that has led to hundreds of children, some with disabilities sleeping on the floors of state office buildings or hiding in hospitals due to lack of sufficient staff or foster support.

He did not mention his support for one of the strictest abortion bans in the state or that Tennessee ranks among the worst states in the nation for maternal health care. He also did not explain why, just days before being sworn in for the second time, he and the Tennessee Department of Public Health decided to forgo federal funds used for HIV prevention and treatment.

I noticed the way Lee treats his wife, First Lady Maria Lee, who was diagnosed with lymphoma last year, the tender way he looks at her and noted how he choked talking about her in his Saturday speech. I believe he is a good family man who loves his wife and children very much.

But that does not shield him from simple criticism of his professional performance, nor does it make his critics toxic and uncivil.

I urge Governor Lee and members of the Tennessee General Assembly to avail themselves of the full text of Roosevelt’s speech, as it has many facets applicable to politics in our state and the paragraph of the man in the arena is just one of 35 comprising the speech.

For them, I point out Roosevelt’s phrase: Therefore, it behooves us to do our best to ensure that the standard of the average citizen is kept high.

In the following sections Roosevelt discusses the evils of a government which refuses to accept proposals for the benefit of the citizens simply because they come from opponents, in which he declares that the best test of the true love of liberty in n Any country is probably how minorities are treated in that country. Not only must there be complete freedom in matters of religion and opinion, but complete freedom for everyone to lead his life as he sees fit, provided only that in so doing he does not harm his neighbour.

Roosevelt, dead for more than a century, remains a beacon for conservatives. But true conservatives will analyze his every word about how a government should treat its citizens and reflect that Roosevelt, unlike many Tennessee politicians, was not afraid to take a little criticism.

[ad_2]