The New Incivility

'Agonism', defined (inTannen 1998) as 'an automatic warlike stance.
A kind of programmed contentiousness ... to accomplish goals that do not necessarily require it.'
Agonism is not the use of explicitly offensive words per se, but the use of oppositional language in order to gain points in debate through polarization and ridicule of the opposition.

Points from "The new incivility: Threat or promise? ",by Robin Tolmach Lakoff in "New Media Language", 2003, Routledge
The last decade of the twentieth century saw a lot of public worrying in America about the growing incivility or 'coarsening' of political and other public discourse.
In their common usage, the two words, while essentially synonymous, differ significantly as indicated by a Usage Note for polite in the American Heritage Dictionary (1992: 1401):
Polite . . . impl[ies] consideration of others and the adherence to conventional social standards expected of a well-bred person . . . Civil suggests only the barest observance of accepted social usages; it often means neither polite nor rude.
American pundits have had a great deal to say on the 'coarsening' of public discourse and behaviour. This public fascination with purportedly novel, allegedly bad behaviour raises three questions: is it really new, is it really bad, and is it serious enough to warrant the attention paid to it?
'Incivility' or 'coarsening' has been discussed under several headings:
1) What may be subsumed under 'the nerve of those people!': demands, or more accurately, requests, by groups who previously had no access to or influence over the form of public discourse, that the names by which they have been called be changed to eliminate negative attributions: 'woman' for 'girl' and 'lady'; 'disabled' or 'challenged' for 'handicapped'; and many more.
2) The increasing use in public venues of language generally recognized as vulgar, especially by, or within the earshot of, those who had traditionally been protected from it. 'Ass' has become almost a commonplace on prime-time network television, and the censors even tolerate the occasional 'shit'.
3) The increasing public use, often by popular role models, of language both traditionally vulgar and contemporaneously 'politically incorrect': for example baseball star John Rocker's diatribes against 'faggots', 'niggers', foreigners, and just about everyone not like himself.
4) 'Agonism', defined (inTannen 1998) as 'an automatic warlike stance. A kind of programmed contentiousness ... to accomplish goals that do not necessarily require it.' Agonism is not the use of explicitly offensive words per se, but the use of oppositional language in order to gain points in debate through polarization and ridicule of the opposition.
5) Road rage, air rage, and other 'rages' much discussed in the media: the allegedly increasing tendency, on the part of drivers, airplane passengers, and others, to behave in a hostile fashion to others in their environment.
6) The use of emotionally explosive and vitriolic language in places of high gravitas. Congresspersons have become much less courteous toward one another, both in address and reference. In 199S, Newt Gingrich, then Speaker of the House of Representatives, was quoted by his mother in a television interview as calling first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton a 'bitch'; around the same time another called his openly gay colleague Barney Frank 'Barney Fag'. Around the same time, the governor of California referred to the LIS Congress itself as a 'bunch of whores' (Sandalow (99S), in late 1995 Congressman James Moran, a Democrat, shoved a Republican off the floor of the House 'in a routine argument. Moran was first elected in 1990 in a race in which he said he'd like to rip his opponent's face off (Levin and Roddy 1997)