The Dignity Index
"From a Grading Tool to a Mirror"
“Two sure signs of culture are amiability and restraint. These virtues carry us a long way into the good graces of civilized society. In our better homes and schools and churches we have been taught diplomacy, courtesy and serenity.”
Clarence Jordan - Cotton Patch Parables, 1976
Human beings have been struggling with different opinions since day one, when Adam and Eve disagreed about what to eat, and what to wear. Over the subsequent years the family discord blossomed. Caine, their first born son, murdered his younger brother Abel, after a spat of jealousy over who was God’s favorite grandson.
Fast forward thousands of years and little has changed. One of the main differences however, is that if some guy killed his little brother over something like a lamb, millions of people would find out about it overnight, not over the millennia. Any unusually nasty behavior would make it to the rating-obsessed media networks where it would spread like a California wildfire. Their profits depend on keeping an engaged and enraged viewership.
The common decency that Clarence Jordan eluded to above, has been replaced with a conquest-centered approach to dealing with different opinions. The exchanging of ideas has been replaced with contempt, character assassinations, and shouting matches. The purveyors of this mentality accomplish very little - but they do make the headlines, which further divides us. In the political arena this translates to highly motivated voters electing very ineffectual “leaders.”
For more than two hundred and forty years our country has generally moved forward and progressed in spite of major disagreements. In the twenty-first century however, our contempt for people with different views is at complete odds with the building of a better nation for all Americans.
One of my readers introduced me to a recently developed “Dignity Index” which I think has some serious potential. It is a system whereby a person is critiqued regarding how they interact with other speakers based on their level of respect or contempt for the other. Effective communication requires give and take and fundamental decency.
The following are excerpts from the websites of both “The Dignity Index” and UNITE which devised the tools for grading participants approach to debating or speaking. Please take a look and let me know what you think. The Video is short and a good summary of the process.
A Little Background
By Logan Stefanich
May 5, 2023
Special Olympics International chairman and Dignity Index co-creator Tim Shriver knows a thing or two about taking chances.
“I grew up with parents who took big chances,” Shriver said in his keynote address to the University of Utah's 2023 graduating class during the commencement ceremony at the Huntsman Center on Thursday.
His mother grew up with a sister, Rosemary, who had intellectual disabilities. As a little girl, Shriver's mother saw her own mom struggle to find help for Rosemary.
“My mom learned to see what others didn't,” Shriver said. “The world saw Rosemary as too different to be included. My mom saw a sister who was too beautiful to be excluded, and that made all the difference.”
Shriver’s mother’s experiences shaped her to eventually open what she called “Camp Shriver” — a place where children with intellectual disabilities went to learn how to swim, play and “see the joy and the beauty you’ve been missing” — at her own house.
Eventually, Camp Shriver became the Special Olympics.
“Graduates, I don’t come here to ask you to have faith in human dignity. I don't come here because I have some deep belief in it. I don't come here because I have a theory about it. I come here because I've seen it. I know it exists,” Shriver said. “I’m here to ask you — to beg you — as you go forward from here, don't listen to the voices that are telling you to blame and shame and treat others with contempt. Turn them off, tune them out, shut them down.”
“We have divisions that are not caused by disagreements, they’re not caused because we think differently, they’re caused because we have contempt.”
“Contempt kills curiosity…it takes away our ability to talk to each other, which takes away our ability to solve problems.”
An Introduction
A 2022 example of how the DI works
In October 2022, UNITE introduced the Index in Utah during the mid-term elections, scoring political speeches on a weekly basis. The political content of the speeches was irrelevant though the manner in which positions were expressed was of utmost importance. As the video above explained, the Index was seen as reliable, fair, and intuitive. Voters from opposite ends of the spectrum were able to agree on scores, and the media covered the Index eagerly on TV, newspapers, and radio. I would add that when a candidate for office knows that they will be critiqued on their level of civility, they would have to be more creative and less demeaning, if they are to get their position across. What public discourse and attempts at problem solving are not enhanced when the issues and their root causes become the focus of the debate.
The most intriguing part of the Dignity Index is that it is every bit as useful across the back fence as it is across the debate stage.
I've read several books on disability and Christianity this year, because I have a disability, and also to learn how I exclude - unintentionally - others who have different ones. You can get so wrapped up in your struggles, you forget to fight for everyone. The DI is a loving reminder that if one person loses, we all lose. If one person is subject to indignity, we all are. Either we're one Body, or we're not. We can't pick and choose who deserves dignity: atheist, Buddhist, Christian, Sikh - either we all have intrinsic dignity, as made in the image of God, or we don't.