Actor Richard Dreyfuss urges civility in politics, life

American civilization is in a precarious state, the political environment has never been more toxic, and there is a dire need for more civility in our daily life, actor-activist Richard Dreyfuss said Tuesday at a Newsmaker event at the National Press Club.

Dreyfuss, best known for his Oscar-winning performance in 1977's "The Goodbye Girl", announced “The Dreyfuss Initiative,” a plan to reinstate civics education in public schools.

“We have come to live in a common soullessness,” Dreyfuss said. “We are the richest nation on earth, and yet we can’t find money here to educate our children.”

Technology, Dreyfuss said, is one of the major causes of our national unease. The Internet, he said, needs to create “a standardized methodology of research.” He called Twitter "an aberration.”

Dreyfuss, who has studied political science at Oxford’s St. Anthony’s college, said he's had a long interest in American history. But the initiative, he said, grew out of the many speeches he's given to schools and civic groups in recent years and his "anxiety about the future."

The initiative, to be run by Washington author and political consultant Scot Faulkner, is dedicated to better informing young students of their heritage, and U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, he said.

“Civility is not not saying negative or harsh things, or the absence of critical analysis,” he said.“It’s friendly discourse, that’s what it is. It’s tolerance. It would cost us nothing to bring civics back.”

-- Richard Lee