The political temperature seems at a boiling point. Online, on TV, even in our living rooms, we see constant political conflict over matters both consequential and frivolous. A recent New York Times article sought to pinpoint what exactly divides us. As it points out, partisanship involves deep differences of principle. But it notes other distinctions as well: Our divide, for instance, extends to markers of identity, particularly defining ourselves in distinction from our political opponents.
This analysis needs at least one more point of comparison: temperament. We are witnessing a sorting of the electorate between two dispositions: a Frank Party and a Polite Party.
This distinction was pinpointed long ago by an 18th-century French thinker, Montesquieu. Montesquieu held great sway over our Founding Fathers. The Federalist Papers refers to him as the “celebrated Montesquieu” and as the “oracle” regarding the principle of separation of powers.
The Frenchman discusses our temperamental divide in his seminal work, The Spirit of the Laws (1748). He argues that all men, despite many differences, pursue honor. Therefore, “the world is the school of what is called honor, the universal master that should everywhere guide us.” This honor originates in our self-love, manifesting in demands for “preference and distinction.”
But honor does not guide all in the same fashion. Montesquieu claims that honor’s education brings “a certain frankness in the mores, and a certain politeness in the manners.” From these two tendencies spring part of our partisan divide.
The Republican Party is our Frank Party. Its partisans claim to value “straight talk,” caustically delivered. Sometimes, giving offense here becomes the point, itself a claim to truthful simplicity. Some do so, Montesquieu explains, out of a devotion to what they consider truth and simplicity. Others act it out for the preference and the distinction it provides from adoring watchers. Since “speaking the truth appears to be daring and free,” they want its attendant reputation for courageousness. In fact, Montesquieu observes what we often see said by Republicans in praise of President Trump: “Such a man seems dependent only on things and not on the way another receives them.” Regardless of intent, this independence shows its power in rejecting the seemingly stifling etiquette of “woke” and “politically correct” cultures.
The Democrats much more exemplify the Polite Party. Many of them observe and enforce a rigorous decorum in political discourse. “Cancel culture” shows this policing in full force, ever ready to descend on those ignorant of or unwilling to observe its dictates. This temperament, too, can originate from something noble: We need to observe basic proprieties to live together and to pursue social goods in common.
But this “pure source” is rarely the real one, Montesquieu observes. Instead, he grounds it in arrogance. This arrogance itself is a yearning for distinction at the expense of others. “We flatter ourselves,” Montesquieu observes, “that our manners prove that we are not common and that we have not lived with the sort of people who have been neglected through the ages.” In other words, Democrats’ polite decorum seeks to separate them in perception from the uncouth “deplorables” out there. “Virtue-signaling” can approximate this pursuit, seeking to showcase one’s enlightened moral refinement in comparison to the rubes.
Neither tendency is going away, just as is neither party. Nor should we desire either frankness or politeness to do so, given the need both for some form of honesty and decorum. But perhaps both require interaction with a third characteristic Montesquieu discusses: civility. Our Frank and Polite parties each, at times, criticize the quality.
For the Frank Party, civility entails deception and weakness. For the Polite one, it might mean letting crass prejudice pass.
But Montesquieu’s civility rightly moderates each temperament where they need it. Civility’s rules restrain all from displaying our own vices in the hope of not further corrupting each other. To the Frank Party, civility guards against “the vices that come from a harsh spirit.” To the Polite Party, Montesquieu counsels against the tendency to flatter the vices of the powerful, thereby also inflaming one’s own ills.
As 2020 looms, the parties’ distinct temperaments will only intensify. Civility surely will not be what partisans want in their political discourse. But Montesquieu shows it might be what we need.
Adam Carrington is an assistant professor of politics at Hillsdale College.
