Civil discourse is important for any country, any population, any society that wants to continue to build and grow, and become an advanced nation and people. However, it doesn’t exist everywhere. In fact, it is hard to come, difficult to maintain, and almost impossible to preserve. We’ve seen even civil discourse fall in even the most democratic, most open-minded, open conversation countries. Sometimes the pressure, or the tension, amounts to become too much. This is what makes civil discourse so important. The fact that it can be the bridge between two opposing ideologies or mentalities that at the end of the day must accept each other if they are to live in the same piece of land with each other. But also the fact that if t fails, what sort of possibilities or outcomes are you faced with?
We’ve seen societies, cities, even entire empires fall under the pressure of mounting global influence but with a sense of local divide. It all goes back to that saying, you can conquer the world if you don’t have your things in order at home. There are many examples of when the lack or I should rather say total failure of civil discourse led to the demise of the societies. The most notable would have to be the great Roman empire, which -in its day- was the largest reaching, ever powerful, empires of all empires. Yet, what brought about its eventual demise is the division that daunted them on the domestic side. The in-house bickering. The collusion instead of discourse.
It’s a play we’ve seen throughout history and has had similar effects every single time. In fact, one might argue we are seeing it right now at the helm of the world leadership. The greatest country in the world, the United States of America, seeing a decline in its influence and might. Some pundits put that decline in American power because of the divisions and lack of civil discourse that they have at home. Their politics and government parties are more divided than ever. And instead of resolving issues for the greater good of the country, the wedge continues to grow wider, and both parties continue to chip away at it.
So when civil discourse fails, in total simplicity, countries fail. And it’s not just that they fail, but they also fail to pick themselves back up. Putting a country back together is more difficult than building it from the ground up. A task that was still possible had the reigns not slip away as a result of dignified that trumped discourse. It is a fallible lesson but a valuable lesson all the same. We should seize the opportunities that we still have to speak to one another instead of opting towards the severance of speech and civil discourse. Because by the time we realize our mistake and the gravity of what we have done, it would have been too late, and in the blink of an eye, you would have witnessed the fall of an empire.
