To the editor:

Your editorial comments on April 20 (“Assuming the worst”) brought to mind an essay written for one of the weekly magazines in the late 1950s or early 1960s by the British historian and novelist, Robert Graves.

In the midst of the so-called Cold War, Mr. Graves was explaining to Americans why in the contest between American democracy and Soviet dictatorship, so many of the other countries of the world, not only did not run to embrace the American democratic model, but questioned how it worked.

The central point of Mr. Graves’ argument was that the vast majority of countries around the world did not have in place and could not conceive how they could create the fundamental level of trust that is central to the United States democracy.

This basic, cultural level of mutual trust that is at the foundation of our democracy could not be exported and for most countries was beyond even comprehension, more or less implementation.

For the last 50 years, this essential, unstated, but previously assumed, mutual trust among Americans has been eroding, and its erosion now begins to imperil the ability of our democratic institutions to function.

The causes for this loss of trust are many, including such changes in our lives as population growth, unremitting, minute-by-minute bombardment by multiple communications forms about the terrible things that individuals do to each other and seemingly intractable social issues that have pushed political discourse to levels of disrespect and viciousness not seen in the United States since the 1850s.

Americans have never always agreed with each other: Witness our Civil War. But since that tragedy we had managed to replenish the well of public trust essential to making our system of government work.

We now confront again the challenge of whether or not we can maintain a social, political and cultural discourse that is charged with our passion and tempered by our respect for our fellow citizens. We have not yet poisoned the well of public discourse to such an extent that it cannot be brought back to where we can have the vigorous arguments a democracy must engage in, but if we continue to pour vitriol into our public discussions, we will eventually destroy the basic public trust our country needs to retain if it is to continue to function as a free and democratic nation.

Robert Lenna,
Bowdoinham

[email protected]