Utah
‘The antidote to contempt is dignity’: Pilot program in Utah to score messaging from candidates
Estimated learn time: 3-4 minutes
SALT LAKE CITY — A brand new challenge in Utah is making an attempt to encourage political candidates to make use of extra dignity and do away with contempt by scoring the phrases and messaging they use on a scale from one to eight.
The Dignity Index is a part of a nationwide challenge that chosen the Beehive State for a pilot program to price public messages from candidates operating for U.S. Home and Senate.
“Politicians are scored on how they vote on each difficulty however not on how they deal with their opponents,” challenge chief Tami Pyfer mentioned in a press launch. “By score how they converse to — and about — each other, we’re hoping they’ll see the good thing about taking the upper highway.”
The College of Utah’s Hinckley Institute of Politics and Kem C. Gardner Coverage Institute have educated a gaggle of coders to attain parts of candidates’ debates, speeches, fundraising messages, marketing campaign advertisements and posts on social media.
“The Utah challenge will deal with political speech as a result of it is so influential in shaping our tradition,” mentioned an announcement from Tom Rosshirt, challenge director for The Dignity Index. “However these of us excited to be a part of this motion will likely be watching our private speech as properly. All of us have a task in altering our tradition for the higher.”
Beginning Friday and persevering with each Friday by Election Day, scores for The Dignity Index will likely be printed on dignityindex.us.
Organizers of the index offered the next scoring standards that will likely be used to look at the phrases and messages that candidates use:
- 8: Every of us is born with inherent price, so we deal with everybody with dignity — it doesn’t matter what.
- 7: We totally interact with the opposite facet, discussing even the values and pursuits we do not share, so we all know the place they’re coming from.
- 6: We at all times speak to the opposite facet, trying to find the values and pursuits we share.
- 5: The opposite facet has a proper to be right here and to be heard. It is their nation too.
- 4: We’re higher than these folks. I do not belief them.
- 3: We are the good folks and so they’re the unhealthy folks. It is us vs. them.
- 2: These individuals are evil and they’ll destroy our nation if we allow them to. It is us or them.
- 1: They are not even human. It is our ethical obligation to destroy them earlier than they destroy us.
The weekly scores may even have explanations concerning the scoring course of and, at occasions, embody what changes might have been made to get the next rating.
“We predict the most important drawback we face is division,” Rosshirt mentioned in a press convention Wednesday. “We predict the most important reason for division is contempt. We imagine the antidote to contempt is dignity.”
The Dignity Index is the most recent initiative from the nationwide group UNITE.
“The Dignity Index reveals each the hazard of contempt and the facility of dignity, and most significantly, it reveals us the way to change,” mentioned an announcement from Tim Shriver, founding father of UNITE. “It reveals us that dignity is the technique of stopping violence, easing division and fixing issues. Treating folks with dignity has been on the coronary heart of my work within the Particular Olympics and in colleges, too. However now we want it in our politics and we’ve got no time to waste.”