Tim Russert, rest in peace

I am disturbed to have already caught half a dozen mean-spirited comments about Tim Russert. Apparently some people don't know or don't care that it's considered offensive to speak ill of the recently deceased.

If you can't wait couple of weeks to jump on or even just snark at the man, don't complain about a lack of civility on our national discourse*.

Civility is based on recognizing the power and the importance of the golden rule - the recognition that when someone dies, those who loved him deserve the right to grieve in peace, and those who admired him would find it deeply offensive (even hurtful) to hear crude or cruel comments. When we fail to maintain a respectful distance, we are not just attacking the man, but also all who loved him and all who admired him - and in a way that is a particularly low blow, as all of us become surprisingly vulnerable when we learn that one of our own has died.

The reason these rules matter has nothing to do with whether you personally liked the deceased or even whether (you think) he was worthy of respect. Rather, it has to do with turnabout being fair play and keeping a moral high ground and what enemies might do to our soldiers if we set a nasty precedent in how we treat their soldiers.

If "They" treated "one of ours" that way, we'd be horrified and outraged and maybe even shocked. We'd say, I cannot believe They stooped so low; I cannot believe They said that. This is and was and hopefully always will be the appropriate human reaction** to the act of crossing the line into the unknown beyond.

So shut up and be respectful.
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* And let me confess to a hypocrisy - and recognize, hindsight being what it is, that I was wrong: I also want to apologize for laughing at the Jerry Falwell jokes so soon after that man's death. Yes, it was in bad taste - and no, as it turns out, I was not making just one exception for an exceptional man. One exception in this case does a rule break, because it redefines the issue away from the real reason why we honor this rule, and substitutes a false issue - the question of whether one genuinely respects the deceased figure.

Is there - has there ever been - any human being on this earth that we all genuinely respect?

** amazingly, I find myself having to actively fight the urge to add snark of my own - for instance, "we cannot make an exception, not even for journalists". The humor of course lies in the suggestion that journalists aren't fully human (and now occupy the status that used to be reserved for lawyers).

This leads me to contemplate where the urge to violate normal rules of civility comes from. I think this contemplation is pretty significant right now.

I believe that it comes from the urge toward justice - that we feel so urgently about broken rules that we feel we must suspend some normal rule of what a person is entitled to in order to enact a punishment that will say, "we're really serious about this - you better wake up and get the message!".

This is how we banish each other from the community. This is how we traditionally communicate excommunication. The problem is, we have done too much banishing. It isn't working. It is instead becoming a collection of futile, angry, nasty gestures, repeated faster and faster as we recognize the hopelessness of our attempt.

Instead of those people being horrified at their banishment - and reforming their bad behavior - they are instead merely attacking back. This is the spiral loop that leads us downward. Everyone is trying to communicate when what we need is for someone to recognize that nobody is on the listening end of things.

We must not break the rules of civility in the hope that this time it will make a difference. Instead, we must use the tools that we have, within civility itself. We must recognize why these rules aren't working is because we ourselves are undermining our own efforts. We must emphasize consistency, and make clear to all those "on our side" that it is now imperative to hold firm and not give permission, no matter how serious the pressure is. When we disapprove a behavior, we must continue to disapprove until things are fixed. We must not grudgingly give consent or blessing to any bad act. So what if it's fait accompli - take it back. So what if it's the way everyone does things - don't do things that way. There is no wholesome power in spitting on graves, but there is still power in refusing to bless what others have done. Continuing to hold people responsible - instead of giving up and taking impeachment off the table, and all of the justifications that entails - this, not desecration (de-sacred-ation) will have the effect we need.