3 Instructor Linda Rogers English 130 RR+R2 25 March 2014 Nicholas Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” 25 March 2014 One of the renowned authors named Nicholas Carr, who has authored many books around technology, has pulled out a very important piece titled “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” In this article he gives an interesting story of Dave, Bowman, who, being controlled by supercomputer HAL, was nearly “sent to a deeper space death by the malfunctioning machine.” At this critical moment, Dave started disconnecting the memory circuits of the supercomputer, which felt robbed of his brain. The supercomputer wanted to regain its brain. Therefore, I agree that Google is making us stupid. Imagine a situation like the one given by Nicholas Carr, in which technology is used to control robots, and then the technology doing the controlling fails to do its work. Most times, technology can fail due to technical issues. If this failure arises, it means that the brain of the robot will be distorted. When Dave realized that the supercomputer was almost killing him, he started disassembling it. However, surprisingly, the supercomputer started feeling that its brain was being stolen. In this case, the author tries to bring a point that the use of Internet can make our minds become erratic. The author in this book argues, “I get fidgety, lose the thread, [and] begin looking for something else to do,” he says. People nowadays access a lot of information. They are also consuming a lot of information from the Internet. That is why when people open their computers; they are propelled to different sites. The author quotes that “…hyperlinks don’t merely point to related works; they propel you toward them.” (Carr, 732). On other way, the communications technology effect on our life as general, especially how we communicate with others. Newly, the messages became a substitute for dial-up. It’s make us more and more lazy. My argument therefore, is that the advancement in technology is making people do things that look stupid. Despite the fact that technology could bring a lot of good, in most cases, it makes people do things that are stupid. It is therefore, important for people to always think properly of what could be the likely consequences of exploring a given direction in technology. Works Cited Nicholas Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid? What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains,” Atlantic Monthly, web, July/August, 2008, http:// www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-makingus-stupid/6868/ (accessed March 25, 2014). What is Environmental Engineering? • We are concerned with the quality and availability of environmental resources and with the waste streams that impact them • Science…improve our understanding of natural processes • Engineering…use this understanding to develop and apply technologies that will maintain or improve environmental quality WATER QUALITY Engineering • Water treatment - take water from a s.

1. 3
Instructor Linda Rogers
English 130
RR+R2
25 March 2014
Nicholas Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” 25 March 2014
One of the renowned authors named Nicholas Carr, who has
authored many books around technology, has pulled out a very
important piece titled “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” In this
article he gives an interesting story of Dave, Bowman, who,
being controlled by supercomputer HAL, was nearly “sent to a
deeper space death by the malfunctioning machine.” At this
critical moment, Dave started disconnecting the memory circuits
of the supercomputer, which felt robbed of his brain. The
supercomputer wanted to regain its brain. Therefore, I agree
that Google is making us stupid. Imagine a situation like the
one given by Nicholas Carr, in which technology is used to
control robots, and then the technology doing the controlling
fails to do its work. Most times, technology can fail due to
technical issues. If this failure arises, it means that the brain of
the robot will be distorted. When Dave realized that the
supercomputer was almost killing him, he started disassembling
it. However, surprisingly, the supercomputer started feeling that
its brain was being stolen. In this case, the author tries to bring
a point that the use of Internet can make our minds become
erratic. The author in this book argues, “I get fidgety, lose the
thread, [and] begin looking for something else to do,” he says.
People nowadays access a lot of information. They are also
consuming a lot of information from the Internet. That is why
when people open their computers; they are propelled to

2. different sites. The author quotes that “…hyperlinks don’t
merely point to related works; they propel you toward them.”
(Carr, 732). On other way, the communications technology
effect on our life as general, especially how we communicate
with others. Newly, the messages became a substitute for dial-
up. It’s make us more and more lazy.
My argument therefore, is that the advancement in technology is
making people do things that look stupid. Despite the fact that
technology could bring a lot of good, in most cases, it makes
people do things that are stupid. It is therefore, important for
people to always think properly of what could be the likely
consequences of exploring a given direction in technology.
Works Cited
Nicholas Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid? What the Internet
Is Doing to Our Brains,”
Atlantic Monthly, web, July/August, 2008, http://
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-
makingus-stupid/6868/
(accessed March 25, 2014).
What is Environmental
Engineering?
• We are concerned with the quality and
availability of environmental resources and
with the waste streams that impact them
• Science…improve our understanding of
natural processes

3. • Engineering…use this understanding to
develop and apply technologies that will
maintain or improve environmental quality
WATER QUALITY
Engineering
• Water treatment - take water from a
source and subject it to treatment
processes to make the water suitable
for its intended use
• Waste water treatment - after water is
used, it is collected and treated to make
it suitable to be returned to the
environment
Boulder, CO
Water Treatment Plants
World’s Largest: One Billion Gallons Per Day, 7 Hr Process

4. James W. Jardine Water
Purification Plant,
Chicago, IL
I-Clicker - Water delivered from a public supply in
western Michigan cost $0.45 per cubic meter.
A 0.5L bottle of water purchased from a gas
station costs $1.00. What is the cost of bottled
water on per cubic meter basis?
Note: 1000 L per 1 m3
• A: $5x104 per m3
• B: $2 per m3
• C: $2000 per m3
• D: $5x10-4 per m3
Answer:
$1/ 0.5 L x 1000 L / m3
= $2000 per m3

5. Seattle, WA
San Jose, CA
Boulder, CO
Portland, OR
Waste Water Treatment Plants
http://dnr.metrokc.gov/wtd/wtd/westpt/player1.htm
http://dnr.metrokc.gov/wtd/wtd/westpt/player1.htm
How the Waste Water
Treatment Plant Works
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
-bjbW1-lXaU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bjbW1-
lXaU&feature=related
A few problems that we need to solve!
• RUN-OFF: Contamination of aquatic
environments by fertilizers and
pesticides in agricultural runoff
• GROUNDWATER CONTAMINATION:
Contamination of groundwater
resources, especially by hazardous
wastes

6. • REUSE: Treating wastewater for reuse
Air Quality Engineering
• Apply science and technology to control
adverse effects of air pollution on human
health and welfare, on other organisms, on
materials, or on ecosystems
• Most efforts focus on emission sources since
once pollutants are emitted into the
atmosphere, there are no practical
engineering techniques for
removing them
Denver, CO
http://www.raqc.org/more/slides.htm
Clear Day
Hazy Day

7. Early
1900s,
NY City
Downtown Los Angeles, December 31, 1993
3 April 2002
This dust plume
passed over urban
areas in China,
Korea and Japan,
cruised over the
Pacific Ocean and
eventually made its
way to Alaska.
Pollution doesn’t have boundaries
WHY DO WE CARE??

8. Some air pollutants cause adverse health effects,
and we don’t like feeling bad or dying young.
Two examples of particle collectors in
southern California
www.aqmd.gov/news1/50th_photos.htm
HAZARDOUS WASTE
Management
• Creation, growth of the
chemical industry
during the 20th century
established need
• Hazardous
if…corrosive, ignitable,
reactive, toxic,
radioactive,
infectious…

9. Love Canal
• What needs to be done?
– Develop, apply methods for proper use, treatment
and disposal
– Identify and remediate contaminated waste sites
Global Warming
Carbon Dioxide Levels
• What needs to be done?
– Develop, apply methods for carbon sequestration
Ozone
Chlorofluorocarbons
• Residence time 55 years

10. for CFC-11 and 140 years
for CFC-12, CCl2F2
• HFC’s contribute to the
depletion of the
stratospheric ozone layer
• Strong UV radiation breaks
the CFC molecules apart,
releasing chlorine
• A single chlorine atom can
destroy over one hundred
thousand ozone molecules
• increase in cataracts and skin cancer, which is now one of the
fastest growing forms of cancer, and could weaken the immune
system. In the U.S., one person dies of skin cancer every hour
• changes in plant form, how nutrients are distributed within the
plant, timing of developmental phases and secondary
metabolism

11. • reduction in phytoplankton production, damage to early
developmental stages of fish, shrimp, crab, amphibians and
other
marine animals
Effects of Ozone Depletion
The HFC’s Reduction Efforts
• The Montreal Protocol in which all developed
countries agreed to phase out production of most
ozone depleting substances, including CFCs, by
the end of 1995
Homework Problems are
Available as Assignment 8 on
Blackboard.
Rogers 6
Engl 130
Rogers
Reader Response + Research
An important part of your academic writing experience is
developing your skills as a critical reader and researcher. A

12. critical reader isn’t someone who has a negative opinion about
everything; by “critical” we mean rigorously thoughtful—a
reader who engages each text with an open, curious mind. A
critical reader takes notes as she reads; she asks questions of
the text; she challenges the assertions made by an author; she
questions the source of any claim. In short, a critical reader
“tests” a text; the act of reading becomes a dialogue, or
exchange, between text and reader. A critical reader takes these
active learning skills with her to the desk when she writes, and
becomes a more thoughtful, engaged, and rigorous writer of
texts.
A critical researcher looks for current material with which to
further discuss, emphasize, and/or argue his assertion. This
self-directed inquiry is paramount to critical learning as
evidence in one’s writing.
For most class periods devoted to a reading (or readings) from
The Norton Field Guide to Writing, or the readings on
Blackboard,you are either required to typewrite an entry for
your Reader’s Journal, (RJE) or a Reader Response + Research
short paper. Each RR+R should be approximately 400-500
words long (about a full page and a half of typewritten, double-
spaced pages).
On RR+R days when two readings are assigned, select one
reading from those listed on the schedule for your response.
You are, of course, still required to read, and be able to discuss,
both assigned readings.
In each RR+R, record a thoughtful response to the essay,
addressing an issue of substance. This might have to do with the
particular rhetorical mode we are studying (e.g., narration and
description, definition, argument, and so on). Or it might be a
considered reflection on what you liked or disliked about the
text, what questions it raised, or what the text made you think
of, and why. Please, avoidmereplotsummary or simplistic
condensation. Select one or maybe two interesting elements of
the text in question and record your thoughts and responses.

13. Research a current (within the last two years for a pop culture
source, ten years for a scholarly article) issue that is relevant to
the essay at hand. Link this material critically to your journal
response.
Given the length of the entry, it is important to focus on a
specific, selected element of interest; don’t try to account for
the entire reading.
That having been said, your RR+R should reflect your own
reading and research practices; it is a space for you to express
your own personality and opinions. Feel free to use the first
person and to adopt a personal, perhaps slightly more informal
tone in your entries.
I will be looking for the following:
· A 400-500 word entry for each day of RR+R assigned reading;
read both essays but choose only one essay for your response.
· For each entry, include the author’s name, the title of the
work, and the date assigned for class. Also include full
citation information for additional sources. Use proper in-text
citations.
· A thoughtful reflection on your reading of the piece—evidence
that you have “engaged” the text.
· The avoidance of gratuitous plot summary or condensation.
· Research to support your reflection/argument.
· Each entry should be typewritten, double-spaced, and free
from excessive mechanical and technical errors. Follow MLA
2009 guidelines regarding format. Do not skip lines between
paragraphs. Include a running head which always includes the
page number.
Please also read the following material for further suggestions
and examples for writing reader responses:
http://trccwritingcenter.pbworks.com/w/page/9356011/Reader-

14. Response-Papers
http://www.ehow.com/info_8644592_rules-writing-reading-
response-essay.html
Pay close attention especially to the material in the CAUTION
box on this page:
http://utminers.utep.edu/omwilliamson/engl0310link/readerresp
onse.htm
Here is a link that shows you sample first sentences—some do’s
and don’ts:
http://utminers.utep.edu/omwilliamson/engl0310/Sample%20firs
t%20sentences.htm
The following is a sample Reader Response + Research paper,
which will be double-spaced, in Times New Roman, font size
12. Please note that no extra lines are skipped. No bold. Title
of reading is in quotes. The comma is inside the quote. The
date is in MLA 2009 format. There will be a running head.
(COPY the structure for your own RR+R. I have a shredder and
am not afraid to make bedding for the hamster cage out of any
RR+Rs that are not ready for me to assess.)
NOTE: Make sure your header has your last name, not mine,
and that it lists page 1 as page 1, etc…
Also: We are using a different textbook than the one included
here. Make sure that you use the NFG citation example for your
own RR+R, (double-spaced).
In-text citations (itc)
· When citing from our text, use the author’s name, not NFG.
· “Romance, not marriage, is the woman’s goal” in advertising
just a decade later, highlighting the author’s point that
emancipation has altered the emphasis in the marketing of
women’s toiletries (Lantry 44).
Works Cited (You will have at least two entries, one from the
original essay in our text and one from the source you find that
supports/counters the argument of the assigned essay.)

15. · When citing from our text, use the following format, inserting
the author’s name, essay title, and correct pages, (it will be
double-spaced in your paper).
· Noe, Denise. “Parallel Worlds: The Surprising Similarities
(and Differences) of Country-and-
Western and Rap.” Ed. Richard C. Bullock. Norton Field Guide
to Writing. 2nd ed. New
York: W.W. Norton and Co., 2010. 598-603. Print.
Lastname, Firstname. “Title of Essay.” Ed. Richard C. Bullock.
Norton Field Guide to Writing. 3rd ed. New York: W.W. Norton
and Co., 2013. 598-603. Print.
Sample based on:
http://owl.cuny.edu:7778/portal/page/portal/oira/Assessment/Fa
culty%20Handbook%20CATW.pdf
Firstname Lastname
Instructor Linda Rogers
English 130
RR+R1
12 September 2013
Kalle Lasn, “Hype,” 13 September 2013
I was hooked from the opening sentence of Kalle Lasn’s,
“Hype,” and as I finished, I couldn’t resist a small internal
cheer. I believe most of us would agree with the author’s
sentiments, in that advertisements are truly the “most…toxic of
the mental pollutants” (217). Who doesn’t fly through the
channels when there is a break in the televised program to
escape this garbage; who wants to be clobbered with the endless
commercials or even infomercials?
The statistics that Lasn quotes are staggering: in North

16. America, we are exposed to more than two-, or some say, three-
thousand marketing ads/messages each day. It means that our
minds are continually bombarded with messages of
consumerism, courtesy of corporate America.
Our lives are saturated with ads occupying not only T.V., radio,
and online, but every square inch of viewing space. When I
flew home over break, I was not pleased when I flipped down
the seatback tray table on the airplane only to see an ad for
Yoplait yogurt. All I wanted was a clear space to set my
notebook while I jotted some thoughts. I ended up closing the
tray table and balancing the notebook on my knee because the
thought of strawberry yogurt kept infiltrating my mind. It is
enough to make one scream.
“The increase in commercial advertising,” according to Lasn,
“has happened so steadily and relentlessly that we haven’t quite
woken up to the absurdity of it all” (218). Yet I believe the tide
is turning. Journalist Gary Stroller writes in USA Today that
even though ads “add up for airlines,…some fliers say it’s too
much.” Deemed a captive audience by the airline industry,
passengers are growing more intolerant of the excessive
advertisements that seem to fill every available space and
flashing screen. Most travelers, whether flying for business or
pleasure, believe that the only suitable location for ads onboard
the airplane is the in-flight magazines—individuals can then
choose whether or not to peruse these commercial
advertisements. Frequent fliers may not be able to avoid this
new barrage of ads in-flight, but can certainly boycott the
offending companies. Marketing consultant Bruce Silverman, a
former creative director at three of the largest ad agencies
insists, “There is already too much advertising clutter in the
world.” Silverman “truly believe[s] advertisers who choose to
intrude on airline passengers are likely to lose — not gain —

17. customers” (qtd. in Stoller). More ads equal less patience on
the part of consumers.
Kalle Lasn fears that “there is nowhere to run. No one is exempt
and no one will be spared” (221). I flipped up that airplane tray
to avert my eyes and will do the same every time I cruise the
yogurt aisle at the supermarket. Please tell the powers-that-be
that I might not be able to avoid seeing their ads “in the
friendly skies” but I will let my wallet do the talking every time
I skip over the Yoplait.
Works Cited
Lasn, Halle. “Hype.” Signs of Life in the USA: Readings on
Popular Culture for Writers. Ed. Sonia Maasik and Jack
Solomon. 4th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2003. 217-20.
Print.
Stoller, Gary. “Ads Add up for Airlines, but Some Fliers Say
It’s Too Much.” Usatoday.com. USA Today, 17 Oct. 2011. Web.
16 Jan. 2012.
AGAIN: Make sure that you use our actual textbook’s citation,
listing the essayist’s name as the author.
Make sure the pages are the pages for that particular essay. See
the beginning of this requirements document to see the NFG
citation.
MORE TIPS FOR A HYPOTHETICAL RR+R:
Let’s say that one of the two essays we read for the RR+Rs is an
article comparing country and western music with rap, saying
that the two types of music are more similar than they are
different. If you choose to write about that essay and not the
other essay (which you still must read), you could then choose
to:
1. agree with the author, (Denise Noe), that these two types of
music are indeed similar and then find another article or book
that supports this

18. or
2. disagree with the author and find another article or book that
counters this by saying that rap and country/western music are
not alike at all.
But know that she is not just talking about the music—her essay
touches on some deep social issues. You would read the essay
closely before you made your decision on supporting her claim
or countering her position. Then you’d go look for others to
assist you as experts/authorities to cite in your argument.
Look for reputable, reliable, and current sources, (we’ll cover
that in class). Introduce the author and his/her expertise in a
signal phrase. Remember to include how/why this person gets
to support/counter this argument. And always explain again in
your own words how it all ties in to the big picture. P.I.E.
Sample paragraph from a longer RR+R on this music topic.
This is just a small piece of a larger essay:
Acclaimed writer and journalist, Denise Noe believes that one
of the major reasons that causes mainstream U.S.A. to reject rap
is race. Whites expect angry messages when they listen to rap
music. They believe that years of oppression and inner-city life
will be reflected in artists’ rap (Noe 600). And many blacks
listen to the songs, hoping for an uplifting message but are also
discouraged when black artists glorify drugs, sex, and violence.
Unfortunately, as political blogger Jeff Mendelman so
accurately paraphrased rapper Mos Def for Policy-mic, “Rap
music will reflect and analyze wherever we’re at in America. If
we’re virtuous, so too will rap. If we remain a misogynistic,

19. malevolent, materialistic society, so too will rap.” Rap music
will continue to receive negative publicity as long as it reflects
the harsh realities of street life for a huge portion of this
country. When inner city life is no longer a fight for daily
survival, perhaps rap will evolve into something wholly
different than what it is now, a mirror we’re too afraid to
acknowledge that reflects our own image—black, white, or
other.
Works Cited
Mendelman, Jeff. “From Jay-Z to Kanye West: Does Rap Music
Promote Bad Values?” PolicyMic.com. N.p., 12 Feb. 2012.
Web. 13 Feb. 2013.
Noe, Denise. “Parallel Worlds: The Surprising Similarities (and
Differences) of Country-and-
Western and Rap.” Ed. Richard C. Bullock. Norton Field Guide
to Writing. 2nd ed. New
York: W.W. Norton and Co., 2010. 598-603. Print.
Use the actual page numbers of the essay..
Your last name, not
mine.
Again, do not use my opening line or sentiment. Get your own
hook.

20. This is the citation for the 2nd edition of our textbook. Just
replace: 2nd with 3rd, 2010 with 2013, the author’s name,
essay title, and page numbers.
Just Be Nice
by Stephen L. Carter
Stephen L. Carter is a professor at Yale Law School and has
written extensively on such
topics as affirmative action, the judicial confirmation process,
and the place of religion in
our legal and political cultures. The following argument was
written for the Yale Alumni
Magazine in 1998, and was later included in Civility: Manners,
Morals, and the Etiquette
of Democracy, ©1998.
When I was a child, attending grade school in Washington,
D.C., we took classroom time
to study manners. Not only the magic words we have already
discussed (“please’ and
“thank you’) but more complicated etiquette questions, like how
to answer the telephone

21. (“Carter residence, Stephen speaking’) and how to set the table
(we were quizzed on
whether knife blades point in or out). And somehow nobody—
no children, no parents—
objected to what nowadays would surely be viewed as
indoctrination.
Today instruction of this sort is so rare that when a school tries
to teach manners to
children, it makes news. So when the magazine U.S. News &
World Report ran a story in
1996 about the decline of civility, it opened with what it must
have considered the man-
bites-dog vignette—an account of a classroom where young
people were taught to be
polite. Ironically, this newsworthy curriculum evidently teaches
a good deal less about
etiquette than we learned back at Margaret M. Amidon
Elementary School in the sixties,
but that is still a good deal more than children learn in most
places. Deportment classes
are long gone. Now and then the schools teach some norms of
conduct, but almost always
about sex, and never the most important ones: Do not engage in
harassment and Always

22. use a condom seem to be the outer limits of their moral
capacity. The idea that sex, as a
unique human activity, might require a unique morality,
different from the general moral
rules against physical harm to others and harm to the self, is not
one that public schools
are prepared to entertain.
Respect for rules of conduct has been lost in the deafening
and essentially empty rights-talk of our age. Following a rule
of good manners may mean doing something you do not want
to do, and the weird rhetoric of our self-indulgent age resists
the idea that we have such things as obligations to others. We
suffer from what James Q. Wilson has described as the
elevation of self-expression over
self-control. So when a black student at a Connecticut high
school was disciplined in
1996 for wearing pants that drooped (exposing his underwear),
not only did he claim a
right to wear what he liked, but some community leaders hinted
at racism, on the theory
that many young African American males dress this way. (The
fact that the style is

23. copied from prison garb, which lacks a belt, evidently makes no
impression on these
particular defenders of the race.)
When I was a child, had my school sought to discipline me, my
parents would have
assumed the school had good reason. And they probably would
have punished me further
at home. Unlike many of today’s parents, they would not have
begun by challenging the
“The illusion that all
desires are rights
continues its insidious
spread.”
teacher or principal who thought I had done wrong. To the
student of civility, the relevant
difference between that era and the present is the collapse of
trust, particularly trust in
strangers and in institutions. My parents would have trusted the
school’s judgment—and
thus trusted the school to punish me appropriately—but trust of

24. that kind has largely
dissolved. Trust (along with generosity) is at the heart of
civility. But cynicism has
replaced the healthier emotion of trust. Cynicism is the enemy
of civility: It suggests a
deep distrust of the motives of our fellow passengers, a distrust
that ruins any project that
rests, as civility does, on trusting others even when there is risk.
And so, because we no
longer trust each other, we place our trust in the vague and
conversation-stifling language
of “rights’ instead.
Consider again the boy with the droopy pants. To talk about
wearing a particular set of
clothes as a “right’ is demeaning to the bloody struggles for
such basic rights as the vote
and an unsegregated education. But the illusion that all desires
are rights continues its
insidious spread. At about the same time, a fired waitress at a
restaurant not far from Yale,
where I teach, announced a “right’ to pierce her face with as
many studs and rings as she
wishes. And, not long ago, a television program featured an
interview with a woman who

25. insisted on the “right’ to be as fat as she likes. Rights that are
purchased at relatively low
cost stand a fair chance of being abused, simply because there is
no history behind them,
and thus little pressure to use them responsibly—in short,
because nobody knows why the
right exists. But even a right that possesses a grimly instructive
history—a right like
freedom of speech—may fall subject to abuse when we forget
where it came from.
This proposition helps explain Cohen v. California, a 1971
decision in which the
Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a young man who
wore on his jacket the
benign legend F _ _ _ THE DRAFT. The case arose as the
public language grew vulgar.
The 19th and early 20th centuries offered a tradition of public
insults that were witty,
pointed, occasionally cruel, but not obscene or particularly
offensive. Politicians and
other public figures competed to demonstrate their cleverness in
repartee. (One of my
favorites is Benjamin Disraeli’s explanation of the difference
between a misfortune and a

26. calamity: “If Gladstone fell into the Thames, that would be a
misfortune. And if anyone
pulled him out, that would be a calamity.’) Nowadays the
tradition of barbed wit has
given way to a witless barbarism, our lazier conversational
habit of reaching for the first
bit of profanity that comes to mind. The restraint and
forethought that are necessary to be
clever, even in insult, are what a sacrificial civility demands.
When we are lazy about our
words, we tell those at whom our vulgarity is directed that they
are so far beneath us that
they are not worth the effort of stopping to think how best to
insult them; we prefer,
animal-like, to make the first sound that comes to mind.
In Cohen v. California, the justices were unfortunately correct
that what the dissenters
called “Cohen’s absurd and immature antic’ was protected by
the freedom of speech. But
it is important to add that when the framers of the Constitution
envisioned the rough-and-
tumble world of public argument, they almost certainly
imagined heated disagreements

27. against a background of broadly shared values; certainly that
was the model offered by
John Locke, by then a kind of political folk hero. It is unlikely
that the framers imagined
a world in which I might feel (morally) free to say the first
thing that came into my head.
I do think Cohen was rightly decided, but the danger deserves
emphasis: When
offensiveness becomes a constitutional right, it is a right
without any tradition behind it,
and consequently we have no norms to govern its use.
Consider once more the fired waitress. I do not deny that the
piercing of one’s body
conveys, in many cultures, information of great significance.
But in America, we have no
tradition to serve as guide. No elder stands behind our young to
say, “Folks have fought
and died for your right to pierce your face, so do it right’; no
community exists that can
model for a young person the responsible use of the “right’; for
the right, even if called
self-expression, comes from no source other than desire. If we
fail to distinguish desire

28. from right, we will not understand that rights are sensible and
wise only within particular
contexts that give them meaning. The Constitution protects a
variety of rights, but our
moral norms provide the discipline in their exercise. Sometimes
what the moral norm of
civility demands is that we restrain our self-expression for the
sake of our community.
That is why Isaac Peebles in the nineteenth century thought it
wrong for people to sing
during a train ride; and why it is wrong to race our cars through
the streets, stereos
cranked high enough to be sure that everyone we pass has the
opportunity to enjoy the
music we happen to like; and why it was wrong for Cohen to
wear his jacket; and why it
is wrong for racists to burn crosses (another harmful act of self-
expression that the courts
have protected under the First Amendment). And it is why a
waitress who encounters the
dining public every day in her work must consider the interest
of that public as she mulls
the proper form of self-expression.

29. Consequently, our celebration of Howard Stern, Don Imus, and
other heroes of “shock
radio’ might be evidence of a certain loss of moral focus. The
proposition that all speech
must be protected should not be confused with the very
different proposition that all
speech must be celebrated. When radio station WABC in New
York dismissed a popular
talk show host, Bob Grant, who refused to stop making racist
remarks on the air, some of
his colleagues complained that he was being censored. Lost in
the brouhaha was the
simple fact that Grant’s comments and conduct were
reprehensible, and that his abuse of
our precious freedoms was nothing to be celebrated.
The point is not that we should rule the offensive illegal,
which is why the courts are correct to strike down efforts to
regulate speech that some people do not like, and even most
speech that hurts; the advantages of yielding to the
government so much power over what we say have never been
shown to outweigh the
dangers. Yet we should recognize the terrible damage that free
speech can do if people

30. are unwilling to adhere to the basic precept of civility, that we
must sometimes rein in our
own impulses—including our impulses to speak hurtful words—
for the sake of those who
are making the democratic journey with us. The Proverb tells
us, “Death and life are in
the power of the tongue’ (Proverbs 18:21). The implication is
that the choice of how to
use the tongue, for good or for evil, is ours.
Words are magic. We conjure with them. We send messages, we
paint images. With
words we report the news, profess undying love, and preserve
our religious traditions.
“How we treat one
another is what civility
is about.”
Words at their best are the tools of morality, of progress, of
hope. But words at their
worst can wound. And wounds fester. Consequently, the way we
use words matters. This

31. explains why many traditional rules of etiquette, from
Erasmus’s handbook in the
sixteenth century to the explosion of guides to good manners
during the Victorian era,
were designed to govern how words—those marvelous,
dangerous words—should be
used. Even the controversial limits on sexual harassment and
“hate speech’ that have
sprouted in our era, limits that often carry the force of law, are
really just more rules of
civility, more efforts, in a morally bereft age, to encourage us to
discipline our desires.
My point is not to tell us how to speak. My point is to argue
that how we speak is simply
one point on a continuum of right and wrong ways to treat one
another. And how we treat
one another is what civility is about.