DATE: Sunday, October 26, 1997              TAG: 9710220115

SECTION: COMMENTARY              PAGE: J1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Opinion

SOURCE: BY TOM ROBOTHAM

                                            LENGTH:  117 lines

SLAM THE IDEAS, IF YOU MUST, BUT NOT THE MAN CHARLTON HESTON DOESN'T DESERVE PERSONAL ATTACKS FOR POLITICAL VIEWS

It's a truism these days that the American political process has been tainted by big money. And undoubtedly it has. But a case could be made that our democracy faces an even more serious threat, the rapid deterioration in the quality of our political discourse.

Difficult as it is to believe, our national dialogue was once shaped by men of towering intellect: men like Thomas Jefferson, Daniel Webster and Abraham Lincoln. Today, it's shaped by Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern. As a result, a process that used to involve an exchange of ideas is now characterized by rapid-fire put-downs. Look no further than the ongoing viciousness of Jim Gilmore and Don Beyer as they shred one another's character in their equally reprehensible campaigns for the Virginia governorship.

I started thinking about this issue recently when I came across a piece, in this paper, by syndicated columnist Robert Reno. The subject was Charlton Heston and his recent speech to the National Press Club on the subject of gun control.

The column caught my eye for two reasons. First, I'm interested in the debate over gun control. Second, I have a personal relationship with Heston, having recently worked with him on a book. As a result, I take more than passing notice whenever I see his name in the newspaper.

For the record, I strongly disagree with Heston's interpretation of the Second Amendment. Gun ownership should be strictly regulated. But the fact is, we'll never solve this problem - or any other - unless we strive to find some common ground.

With this in mind, I turned to Reno's column, hoping that it might shed new light on the issue. No such luck. More than half the column was devoted to a series of sarcastic comments about Heston himself. Calling him a self-appointed ``Moses of the raving right,'' Reno went on to imply that Heston never had any business playing Moses in the movie ``The Ten Commandments'' because he's not even Jewish.

Wait a minute. Wasn't this column supposed to be a response to Heston's speech on the right to bear arms? Well, Reno eventually did get around to the subject at hand by making a few comments about the abuse of guns by foreign dictators. But I never did get a sense of where he stood on the question of gun-control in this country - other than that he's for it, in some vague way.

On the surface, there was nothing unusual about Reno's column. And that's the problem. We have become so accustomed to hearing politicians and commentators tear down their opponents with patronizing remarks that we scarcely even notice how hollow - and beside the point - their arguments really are.

I might not have noticed myself, in this case, had there not been a certain irony behind Reno's column. The one thing that struck me about Heston, after I got to know him, was how civil he is. He's an arch conservative, to be sure, but he's clearly not a member of ``the raving right.'' As far as I can tell, he always demonstrates the utmost respect for people, even when he strongly disagrees with them. He is, as one longtime acquaintance puts it, ``the consummate gentleman.''

When I asked Heston about all this recently, he said he had not seen Reno's column but he was not inspired by my description of its tone. ``I don't think there's any question that political discourse has become less and less civil over the years,'' he said. To underscore this fact, he pointed to the correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. ``They were political opponents, but for most of their lives they maintained a very high level of civility.''

Heston believes that the news media are partially to blame for the lack of civility in modern public discourse, but he admits that the problem goes beyond that. ``It's a very complex issue,'' he said. ``People a lot smarter than I am have wrestled with it and have not come up with any conclusive answers.''

One of the more compelling examinations of this problem, he believes, is Robert Bork's recent book, Slouching Towards Gomorrah, which blames modern liberalism for a host of social ills, including the widespread lack of civility. But when I pointed out that the trademark of many conservative commentators, such as Rush Limbaugh, is contemptuous disrespect for political opponents, he admitted that ``ad hominem attacks (i.e., attacks on the man) are a bad idea,'' whether they come from the right or the left.

I suspect most Americans would agree with the last point. So why is it that so many high-profile commentators and politicians - on both sides of the political spectrum - spend more time hurling insults at one another than they do exploring ideas and trying to find workable solutions to social and political problems?

The answer seems obvious enough. Heated arguments are entertaining. Civilized dialogue is not. Pat Buchanan - one of the foremost practitioners of the winning-through-intimidation school of political discourse - summed up his point of view nicely the other night in a promo for his talk show. ``Washington is an angry town,'' he said with clear sense of delight. ``That means we're going to have a great `Cross Fire.' ''

I don't mean to suggest that our national dialogue is entirely devoid of thoughtful and respectful commentary. Civilized exchanges take place every day on the editorial pages of our newspapers and magazines - and even, once in awhile, on television. But increasingly, those voices are being drowned out be commentators and politicians who seem to regard political discourse as a contact sport. (The very name ``Cross Fire'' suggests as much. So does the name ``Hardball,'' another program in this particular genre.)

So why is this trend significant? Well, for one thing, the tone of political commentary in newspapers and on television sets the tone of public discourse in society at large. Many people I've talked to about this problem admit that they're reluctant to bring up political subjects with coworkers or neighbors for fear that the discussion will become to emotional and too personal. The problem with that attitude is that it pushes us deeper and deeper into our own private worlds. In the process, our capacity for understanding viewpoints other than our own is steadily diminished.

I never thought I'd find myself quoting Robert Bork to support my own argument, but an observation he made in Slouching to Gomorrah gets to the heart of this issue: ``A population whose mental faculties are coarsened and blunted,'' he wrote, ``is unlikely to be able to make the distinctions and engage in the discourse that democratic government requires.''

That's the bottom line: When political opponents show nothing but contempt for one another - and political dialogue becomes nothing more than the intellectual equivalent of professional wrestling - we all become coarsened. And the health of our democracy suffers as a result. MEMO: Norfolk's Tom Robotham has written several books on history and

American culture, and has contributed to Cosmopolitan and Esquire

magazines. ILLUSTRATION: color photo

KRT

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu