Can a high school model repair the nations body politic?
WASHINGTON – On a recent Friday night, I went to a high school football game to escape an especially nasty week in politics. Instead, I had the misfortune of sitting near a middle-aged man in a rain slicker who spent the evening loudly denouncing officials, players and everything else. His low moment came when a player on the opposing team fell injured to the turf. Mr. Loudmouth yelled: “Get him off the field!” I describe this scene to make a larger point about our injured body politic. When we fixate on the lack of civility in politics, we ignore the fact that civility is equally endangered in other arenas of modern life. Consider the rise of trash television that revels in celebrity miseries and fixates on O.J. Simpson. The morning after Mr. Loudmouth held forth from the football stands, The Washington Post wrote about another suburban high school game. Two football teams did not shake hands after a hotly contested game, and the winning coach told The Post his team would not “back do
