Why we should stop arguing about civility

Too often, when there is some controversial public action, we have an argument about civility—whether the action violated norms of civility, and whether there should be more or less civility. That whole argument is a red herring.

The civility/incivility binary is what people in rhetoric call ultimate terms (or, more precisely, binary paired terms). It’s fallacious all the way down, first by assuming that actions can be divided into that binary (even making it a continuum doesn’t help), and then pretending that there are objective measures of civility/incivility—that it isn’t a judgment strongly influenced by in-group/out-group thinking. The civility/incivility argument gets us nowhere, and we need to walk away from it. There are two other arguments worth having: one about fairness, and one about strategy.

1. Why the civility/incivility argument is a waste of time

In rhetoric, we talk about “ultimate terms” which are terms where arguments go to die. They are terms that are all connotation and no denotation (freedom, terrorism, rights, political correctness, fascism).[1] People think they know what those terms mean, but they get really mad if you ask them to define those terms. They’ll say, “You know what I mean.” Ultimate terms are generally defined by opposition to an equally imprecise term (civility is not incivility).

Ultimate terms are often loyalty terms (by using those terms you’re showing your membership in some group), and so asking for a precise definition shows you aren’t loyal to that group. (If you ask a certain kind of person to define terrorism precisely, they’ll get really mad; if you ask another kind of person to define neoliberal precisely, they’ll get really mad.) A lot of times, an ultimate term means “not loyal to in-group” (that’s what “politically correct” means, for instance). Ultimate terms are in some kind of binary, with a good ultimate term (what one scholar of rhetoric called God terms) associated with the in-group and the bad one (Devil terms) with the out-group (conservative v. liberal or progressive v. neoliberal). Again, people get really mad when you say they’re using something as an ultimate term.

Another sign that something is an ultimate term is that it is either only used for the in-group or only used for the out-group. So, for instance, no one says that their in-group engaged in incivility and that the out-group engaged in civility. They’re terrorists; we’re freedom fighters.

There is another problem with the concept of civility, and I wrote a long and pedantic book about it: people tend to assume that civility is an objective standard, but we think civility has been violated when we feel offended. (This is a version of complementary projection, when we project our own feelings and reaction on to someone else—I feel offended, so you were offensive.) When the in-group is hostile to the out-group, we don’t feel offended, so it isn’t incivility.

In other words, people in power always control the rules of civility. The rules of civility never apply equally to all groups.

As a side note, I will say that the ignorant nostalgia about civility really gets on my nerves. No, people did not used to be more civil. Charles Sumner was beaten into unconsciousness on the Senate floor. So, just stop clutching your pearls.

The civility/incivility argument is toxic at the base. Walk away from it.

2. The fairness argument

One characteristic of a rational argument (that is, a useful, not necessarily unemotional) argument is that people are willing to listen to one another, and that the rules of the argument apply equally to all parties.

Sarah Sanders has actively advocated allowing private businesses, such as restaurants, to refuse service on the grounds of ethics.[2]

That just happened to her. She has no right to complain about it.

That is the argument we should be making. Not the civility argument, but the fairness one. On what grounds is she saying that the Red Hen did anything wrong?

There are four.

People have tried arguing that the two cases aren’t comparable because discrimination on the basis of religion is prohibited but it’s okay to discriminate on the basis of politics–that’s exactly reversing what the ruling meant. A private business is allowed to serve or not serve anyone, unless their choices about serving are discriminating against a protected class. Anyone can throw someone out of their business if it isn’t discrimination on the basis of race, gender, religion (unless it’s done for religious reasons–at least that’s now the argument being made by people who lost this argument once before).

There is a second argument, which is that discriminating on the basis of religion is okay, but not on the basis of politics–and that’s a really interesting one. This is, in fact, the argument the neoconservatives and fundagelicals use a lot. They believe that they have sincere religious convictions for their actions, but other people don’t. It’s why they put “sincere” into the “religious convictions” criterion. They sincerely believe that they are right, and that everyone knows they are right, and some people pretend they aren’t. (I also wrote a really pedantic book about this.) One really important aspect of sloppy Calvinism (and there’s a lot of it around) is the assumption that the truth is obvious and so people who are acting on sincere religious belief will always be GOP. They think it’s a violation of their religious beliefs that they have to pay taxes to support abortion, while ignoring that it violates the religious beliefs of Friends, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and various others to pay for war, and a violation of many Christians’ beliefs to pay for the death penalty. The people who cheered the cake ruling don’t actually want religious freedom for everyone; they want the freedom to force their religion on others.

The third argument is the consequence of inoculation. A lot of conservatives believe that “liberals” believe that we should be entirely tolerant and never judge anyone. The neocon propaganda machine has been really effective at spreading three messages: 1) “liberals” have contempt for anyone who does manual labor; 2) Democratic candidates promote abortion; 3) “liberals” advocate complete tolerance and therefore are total hypocrites when they criticize anyone. All three of those are wrong, and rely on a lot of false equivalencies–no, calling someone racist is not just as bad as being a racist.

The fourth one is important for understanding why so many people are repeating the argument that Sanders is a victim of incivility (which is all part of the snowflake right whingeing about being victims of everything). It enables a kind of preemptive hostility and discrimination. The narrative is that “liberals” (a devil term) promote total tolerance of anyone, and so something like the Red Hen incident show that liberals are just as intolerant as the right AND don’t have God on their side. Any and all incivility on the side of the in-group is wiped off the slate because we just did it too. (This is another red herring, but it’s one we need to point out, and that’s tricky.)

If the argument is civility/incivility then the neoconservatives can dodge the fairness argument. The “you’re not tolerant” is also a red herring. The fairness argument is where we need to keep the debate.

3. Effectiveness

Are lefties justified in shouting neoconservatives out of restaurants? Yes. Absolutely.

Is it rhetorically savvy? No. This article  explains why, and the books in the links are really good and worth reading.

Whenever someone makes this argument—that it’s rhetorically unwise to shout people out of restaurants–, there tend to be three responses. First, a lot of people respond with “But it’s justified to respond with deliberately outraging protests.” It is. I agree. That isn’t the argument.

Second, a lot of people respond by saying that doing nothing or trying to please the extremists on the other side doesn’t work. I agree. But that’s an instance of trying to think about this issue from within the civility/incivility binary, linked to a binary of “us” and “them,” and we need to get away from both of those binaries. I don’t think we can persuade Sanders, or die-hard Trump supporters. But there are others who are open to persuasion—not immediately, and not easily, but it’s possible. And there isn’t a binary between being “nice” to Trump administration members and shouting at them in restaurants. Both of those are bad choices, and they aren’t our only ones. We have more choices.

Third, a lot of people present deductive arguments as to why deliberately outrageous arguments should work. I don’t care whether they should work; I care whether they do. I’d love for them to work; a part of me cheers every time someone shouts a homophobe out of a business, and I’ll admit to enjoying seeing Nazis punched. But I honestly can’t think of any times that it’s worked well for the left. It can sometimes work for the right, in that it gets what is inaccurately called “the middle” (not really the middle, but the intermittently authoritarian) to want more law and order because they fall easily into the “both sides are just as at fault” narrative and increased order would seem to be a solution to that problem. We should do what has worked.

Neoconservatism has made an unholy alliance with fundagelicals to promote unrestrained capitalism and authoritarian neo-Christian policies in the US, and to support an openly apocalyptic foreign policy (that is, one explicitly oriented toward nuclear war in the  Middle East). That’s bad. And as long as we argue about civility, they’ll win the argument.

They’ll lose the argument if it’s about fairness, and that’s the argument we need to have.

[The image is from MLK’s debate with Kilpatrick on NBC, available here.]

[1] In some circumstances, the terms can be used precisely. “Fascism” and “neoliberal” are, among political theorists, very precise terms, for instance. If the term is not being used as an ultimate term, then the person using it can define it without getting mad.