UnDisciplined: How can we hold politicians responsible for their inciteful speech?

By Matthew LaPlante

Published February 16, 2023 at 11:37 AM MST

Voters these days often reward politicians who sit at either end of the ideological spectrum while punishing those seen as compromisers. — In 2022, a group based in Utah tested out a new tool designed to rate political rhetoric on a scale that starts with dignity and goes all the way up to incitement of violence.

If you've grown exhausted by the cruel and bitter way that political debates take shape in this nation, then this week's episode of undisciplined is for you. We're going to be talking about a new tool called the dignity index, which is expressly designed to help us disagree, even passionately, without sliding into contempt and hate.

Tami Pyfer is the Utah Demonstration Project lead for the Dignity Index.

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Matthew LaPlante

Matthew LaPlante has reported on ritual infanticide in Northern Africa, insurgent warfare in the Middle East, the legacy of genocide in Southeast Asia, and gang violence in Central America. But a few years back, something donned on him: Maybe the news doesn't have to be brutally depressing all the time. Today, he balances his continuing work on more heartbreaking subjects by writing books about the intersection of science, human health and society, including the New York Times best-selling Lifespan with geneticist David Sinclair and the Nautilus Award-winning Longevity Plan with cardiologist John Day. His first solo book, Superlative, looks at what scientists are learning by studying organisms that have evolved in record-setting ways, and his is currently at work on another book about embracing the inevitability of human-caused climate change with an optimistic outlook on the future.

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