Thomas Feakins argues in ZNet that civility--at least, the " shallow North American" version of it--is not virtue but vice. "In this harsh new world," he laments, "we are putting politeness and decorum above substance."
Feakins goes on to give several examples of how putative concerns about civility conspire to deflect the substantive criticisms lodged by assertedly "uncivil" critics. In sum, for Feakins, making a moral imperative of civility inures solely to the benefit of the status quo.
I'm ambivalent about the idea of civility. I do agree with Feakins that "shallow" civility is vicious in just the way he says. However, Feakins ignores the notion of what I'll call "deep" civility--the kind of civil engagement practiced (publicly, anyway) by Martin Luther King, Jr., say, or Mohandas Gandhi. If that sort of civility doesn't set a normative example (perhaps it is impracticably supererogatory), at the very least it's a morally commendable characteristic that shows we don't need uncivil discourse to challenge the status quo. (This is not necessarily contra anything Feakins says, incidentally; I may just be drawing a distinction he presupposes.)
Feakins also ignores the clear vices of incivility. For example, one of the terrible effects of the breakdown of civil discourse is the partisan Manicheanism it engenders. Whatever your views about the relative level of intellectual honesty endemic to conservative and liberal worldviews respectively, the more we identify our opponents with their worst beliefs and epistemic practices, the more we abstract out the good that is almost always in them.1 That's a pretty high price for society to pay--particularly when incivility is so often merely cathartic or emotive. (I leave open the question of whether carefully tailored incivility can be discursive and/or socially constructive.)
Now, regular readers of this blog will be quick to note examples where I myself have practiced plainly unconstructive incivility.2 If I think deep civility is so great, they will wonder aloud, then why would I indulge myself with such uncivil musings? I can only answer that those readers will be right to call me out on my blatant hypocrisy.
On the other hand, they can go screw themselves.
(Via Brian Leiter.)
1This reflects both the liberal sentiment that a person is more than his or her worst acts and the Judaeo-Christian notion that we should love the sinner even if we hate his or her sins. (Query whether there is any corresponding ideal in secular conservative thought.)
2Some readers, horribile dictu, may find such practice the one redeeming quality of this blog.
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