On election night, after the votes are tallied and the decisions are announced, candidate speeches are important. Campaigns are divisive; political attacks hurt people, and the words candidates choose offer a chance to heal. That’s why a good election night speech is a humble one, and it probably isn’t humble enough unless it was hard for the candidate to say. This past Tuesday night, after Congressman Tim Ryan from Ohio lost his Senate race to J.D. Vance, Ryan said to his disappointed supporters, “I had the privilege to concede this race to J.D. Vance. “The fact that this line made national news is a sign that -- at this time in American political life – we’re amazed by grace. We hope this won’t always be the case.

The FBI issued a memo last week warning of a rising likelihood of political violence. A Washington Post-ABC News poll released today says that nearly nine in ten Americans are worried about it. What can we do? If someone tells us the cause of violence is economic issues, or the decline of institutions, or the loss of public trust, there’s just not much we can do. But Amanda Ripley, author of the recent book High Conflict, says, “Political speech, we know from the research, can incite violence, and it can also reduce the likelihood of violence. ”What’s the difference between speech that increases or reduces the chance of violence? Dignity and contempt.

When we were in the early stages of testing of the Dignity Index, a Republican woman from rural Utah said, “We want to be able to stand up for what we believe in – without getting attacked and without attacking.” Sometimes people tell us that they have to speak with contempt when people do things they believe are wrong. That if they speak with contempt, they can keep people in line, and if they don’t speak with contempt, they’re just letting people get away with things. We disagree. We believe that challenging people without contempt works better – because we avoid language that makes everyone angry, and we focus attention on the issue, not the individual.

It’s important to be clear about what the Dignity Index can measure, and what it can’t measure. The Index can measure contempt or dignity in a passage from a speech or a debate. It can’t measure contempt or dignity in a full debate or in a campaign. And so it can’t work as a tool for comparing two candidates on the dignity scale. That would not be fair. That’s because a valid dignity score for a debate would have to identify and score every single instance of dignity or contempt in the debate. But we are scoring language manually, which means we can, at most, score an equal number of passages from each candidate in a debate.

Applying the principles of the Dignity Index, coders selected the high- and low-dignity segments to represent the widest range of dignity during the debate. This selection provides insight into the range of language often expressed in political dialogue. As a result, the scores of these passages may not conform to an individual’s perception of the entire debate. As with the other debates, examples of both contempt and dignity for both candidates were evident, showing individuals are capable of both. However, in this debate there were more examples of contempt, and fewer examples of dignity.

In a country as polarized as ours is now, it’s natural for people to be suspicious that The Dignity Index is a secret scheme to gain partisan advantage. It’s not. The Index is not on the side of any debater; it’s on the side of the debate – and on the side of democracy. As we set out to design a dignity scale, we did not anticipate what happened. We found that the dignity scale measures not only how we treat each other when we disagree; it also measures how well we ease divisions and solve problems.

The Dignity Index released ratings from the Fourth Congressional District debate, Congressman Owens’ comments related to the debate, and ratings of third-party messages - those not paid for or issued directly from candidates and their campaigns.

The CD4 debate scores are found in a separate post. Burgess Owens declined to participate in the debate, and therefore these scores come from his videotaped statement regarding nonparticipation in the debate.

One of the most frequently asked questions about the Dignity Index is, “How can you hold people politically accountable without contempt?” It’s a good question. People tend to believe that challenging politicians or public figures requires contempt. But treating people with contempt usually backfires. It inflames them, makes them defiant, and can turn them into an enemy. And when you speak of someone with contempt, you’re encouraging all your sympathetic listeners to have contempt for that person too, and encouraging all your non-sympathetic listeners to have contempt for you.

The Dignity Index released scores for select passages from the October 10th First Congressional District debate between Rep. Blake Moore and challenger Rick Jones. Both of the Congressional debates so far have been largely free of contempt, although the selected passages showed lower scores in general than last week’s Third Congressional District debate between Rep. John Curtis and challenger Glenn Wright, with the most notable difference between the two debates being the level of engagement between the candidates.

Dignity in public debate involves making proposals, declaring values, stating goals and discussing decisions, actions, and outcomes. It includes listening carefully, asking for more information, debating why something worked or didn’t work, and whether it will work or why it won’t. In the 3rd Congressional District debate, Rep. Curtis and Mr. Wright frequently responded to each other’s comments, often with agreement, and then adding a point of difference. In some cases, it seemed like the event was less a debate than it was an exercise in problem solving.

The Dignity Index is an eight-point scale that measures what we do when we disagree. The scale ranges from one -- which sees no dignity at all in the other side -- to eight, which sees the dignity in everyone. Each point on the scale reflects a particular mindset, and each mindset is associated with certain beliefs and behaviors that reflect how open we are to the other side. As a broad rule, if I treat you with dignity, it means that I can see myself in you; if I treat you with contempt, it means I see myself above you.

A national movement to increase dignity in public discourse launches a pilot program in Utah today, rating public messages from Utah’s federal Senate and House races on a scale called, The Dignity Index. Powered by UNITE, a national movement to encourage Americans to reject "us vs. them" thinking and stand together in common purpose, The Dignity Index was developed in partnership with behavioral scientists and other experts, and the demonstration project is being guided by researchers at the University of Utah. The Index is a 1-8 scale designed to rate speech, not people, in as unbiased manner as possible.

Though we like to think of ourselves as exceptional, the causes and cures of division and violence are the same in the United States as anywhere else — and they all pivot on questions of dignity.

Read More →