How did it happen that “divisiveness,” or the absence thereof, became the most important political test of our time?
Divisiveness has become the pounding headache of political discourse. When something is divisive, debate is supposed to halt, because it’s just too divisive to continue. Invoking divisiveness has become the last line of defense of the dull-witted, who have nothing left to say. Increasingly, half of us are supposed to give in to the other half to avoid hurt feelings.
The overuse of “divisive” in newscasts and news columns itself has become divisive. It reflects a simplistic, mistaken and dangerous understanding of democracy. It is time to scrub it from our political vocabularies.
Divisive was used to describe President Bush’s State of the Union address last week because–get this–it caused Democrats to boo his proposals for Social Security reform. It wasn’t clear whether Bush was responsible for the divisiveness by just raising the issue, or whether the “raucous booing” and “hooting” by Democrats was divisive. Maybe if Bush had just shut up about the reforms he wouldn’t have created a divisive moment, to which Democrats would have had no choice but to respond in a divisive manner. What we do know is that because divisive has so many negative connotations, what happened at the address was bad, bad.
The Internet, of course, was flowing with divisiveness after the speech. One site, ukgaynew.org.uk, went so far as to report that Bush “chose the divisive path of supporting the narrow interests of extremist elements of his party over uniting the American people.” How droll. In Ukraine, parliament postponed a confirmation hearing on its prime minister because of the nominee’s “often divisive rhetoric. …” It sure hasn’t taken long for Ukraine to adopt Western-style democracy.
It has infected sports, too. A commentator, reflecting on the Super Bowl, pondered whether Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Terrell Owens’ “look-at-me” antics are “divisive to team chemistry.”
The last presidential election was divisive. The war in Iraq is divisive, recalling divisions raised by the Vietnam War. Cultural issues are divisive. So are tax, budget, deficit and economic issues. Affirmative action and reparations are divisive. Come to think of it, just about everything Bush mentioned during his address was in some way divisive.
Divisive was Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) blazing away at the Bush administration’s Iraqi policy a few days before Iraq’s elections–the most uplifting event of the year so far. (Just edging out the embrace, during Bush’s speech, of the mother of an American Marine who died in Iraq and an Iraqi human-rights activist. Now there’s an undivisive moment.) Just because Kennedy, turning himself into the Senate’s class clown, is irritating Republicans, must he button his lip? Of course not.
How did divisive get to be such a bad word? I have my own theory: The requirements of sensitivity and correctness have become so paramount in our age, that they have eclipsed merit and wisdom. The first test of public policy isn’t whether it makes sense or works, but whether it provokes disagreement or promotes quietude. That’s not what our founders had in mind.
The Declaration and War of Independence were certainly divisive. So divisive that Loyalists fled to Canada. (Remind you of anything?) The Emancipation Proclamation was divisive. You can’t get much more divisive than the bloody Civil War, which was fought to preserve the Union, a part of which wanted to be divided from it. Divisive was the civil rights and just about any significant social movement imaginable. And, yes, divisive was Social Security when it was first created.
If we all had to agree with each other all the time, we would never have created a land of opportunity and freedom. You elect your guy and we elect our guy, and then they fight it out; that’s how it’s supposed to work. You can probably count on your fingers the number of times this country has arrived at an important decision or passed a critical milestone without division.
That’s why arguing about whether something passes the test of not being divisive leads us nowhere. To say that something is divisive is to say virtually nothing at all. All it does is unmask the speaker as stupid and drive the rest of us nuts.
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