We are, once again, at a moment when people are calling for civility. My persistent complaint about American “political” discourse is that it is so rarely policy argumentation. Policy argumentation requires that participants argue (not just make assertions) on seven points: there is a need (aka ill), it’s serious, it won’t go away on its own, here’s what causes it; here is my plan; my plan will solve the need I identified, my plan is feasible, and my plan won’t cause more problems than it solves. American “political” discourse usually involves people arguing need and how it’s serious and then asserting a plan, and not even touching on the other points. (If that—sometimes they just assert need and engage in fear-mongering about it being serious.)
And the calls for civility are a perfect example of that truncated way of talking about important policy issues.
So, according to the “call for civility” argument, what is the need? Sometimes the need is political: we have a polarized Congress, in which any kind of compromise or finding common ground is demonized, when a Speaker brags about an unprecedented level of obstruction and is praised for it.
Sometimes the need is cultural: we are looking at a level of politically-motivated violence not seen since lynching was always on the table as a consequence-free way to terrorize dissent, with violent protests and calls to silence speakers (and sometimes the speakers are advocates of violence).
Sometimes the need is about tone: Kavanaugh’s temper tantrum was unprecedented and would have put the kibosh on any previous Supreme Court nominee (Dem or GOP), we have an Administration that engages in an unprecedented level of trolling, and major political figures and pundits who have accused the last four Presidents of being fascists, racists, and morally bankrupt. Thanksgiving dinners, social media interactions—it’s all ugly name-calling.
I’m willing to grant that the political and cultural needs are serious; the seriousness of the name-calling is a little more vexed. One of the reasons it’s vexed is that various kinds of “name-calling” are treated as equally serious because the need for this case is a little vague—the need seems to be that people are made uncomfortable, or have their feelings hurt. In this case, the problem with a major political figure saying something racist is that he hurt the feelings of members of that race. That “need” case makes hurt feelings the need/ill. In that case, anyone having their feelings hurt is a political problem that must be prevented. People who are called “racist” have their feelings hurt; people who are told that their information is false feel bad. Thus, if our “political” discourse defines the need or ill as having feelings hurt, then people who are racist, and are told they are racist, can present the ill of their hurt feelings as just as valid as a person who can’t get an apartment because of racism.
That’s a very clear example of the fallacy of false equivalency. But, if you accept the false case about the “ill”: that our problem is that we have a public sphere in which people have their feelings hurt, it seems reasonable. It isn’t reasonable. Don’t accept that false case about the ill.
Our problem is not that people have their feelings hurt.
Every good policy case has a coherent narrative of causality—what caused our current situation? A few (but not all) of the political and cultural arguments have really interesting and plausible narratives about how we got here. The tone/name-calling argument is a very old and appalling one.
The basic argument behind blaming tone is that violent actions come from two sources: aggressive and defensive. People who have vehemently held beliefs engage in violence, and so vehement rhetoric leads to vehemently held beliefs, and therefore to violence. Therefore, to reduce violence, people need to care less. That’s an actively bad argument—caring passionately about our world is our responsibility. It is not a vice. It does not necessarily lead to violence. And much promotion of violence doesn’t come from people who care very much about the argument they’re making—sometimes passionate rhetoric is just a way to get votes, clicks, viewers, money.
The defensive one is even worse: it’s that vehement (and uncivil) rhetoric on the part of a marginalized group is responsible for the violent reaction on the part of the majority. This is, for instance, the logic behind the 1961 decision, the clergy who opposed King, and the current bizarre notion that saying something racist is just as bad as being called racist.
The whole argument for “civility” is that our problem is that people are vehement, and their vehement claims about their situation make other people get angry, and so now we’re all angry. So, we should all be less angry with each other by using nicer tones and being less vehement.
I see no reason for people not to be angry about the water in Flint, or unemployment rate in West Virginia, the number of unarmed people shot by police officers, discrimination in hiring, the use of torture in convictions, class sizes in public schools, an economy that seems to have no hope for advancement for people born into poverty.
Anger is rational under many circumstances, and many people are reasonably angry that they are not being treated as equals. Many people are unreasonably angry that they are not being treated as privileged. Many are angry that they are being treated badly because of complicated economic factors out of their control—that group is particularly prone to believing incoherent narratives of scapegoating. (For instance, they believe they are losing jobs to illegal immigrants when they’re losing jobs to automation or globalization.)
Our political problem is not that people are angry and therefore vehement and therefore seem uncivil. The “let’s be more civil” plan is completely incoherent—it doesn’t have a narrative of causality that would mean people being nicer to each other is the solution. It fails on the point of solvency.
After about 1835, it was common for people to say that the vehemence of the abolitionists caused slavers to become more entrenched in their position. That’s historically false, but rhetorically interesting. Were that argument true, then either there would have been a way to criticize slavery that slavers would have found persuasive, or a “civil” (as people are using the term now) criticism of slavery was impossible. It’s the latter.
There was no criticism of slavery that would not make slavers feel bad. There was no criticism of slavery that would not be an attack on what slavers were doing—profiting by trading in humans. Thus, if we aspire to a public discourse in which no one is criticized for what they’re doing, or made to feel bad about their actions, we have a discourse in which slavers should not have been criticized for their actions.
As long as we have some vague sense that what’s wrong with our current political situation is that people saying things that hurt the feelings of other people makes politicians engage in obstructionism (a narrative of causality that is tenuous at best) then we won’t solve the problem.
People are getting violent and engaging in obstructionism not because of people being rude, but because major media promote the notion that we are in a war, and that violence is our only possible response. In other words, we are in a world in which public discourse about politics is about a war of two identities—good versus evil. We are arguing about identities and feelings instead of about policies.
Calls for civility—meaning a world in which everyone is nice to one another, and no one’s feelings are hurt–are about a fantasy of a world in which there is no actual disagreement. We don’t need a world in which people feel good. We need a world in which people argue vehemently. But we need a world in which we argue, vehemently, about policies—not a world falsely bifurcated into two sides in a zero-sum relationship. We need democratic discourse.
Calls for civility can kill earnest conversations about important issues.
I think that sometimes that is the goal of calling for civility–to kill uncomfortable conversations.
I could not agree more with this post. It certainly means that the author is in my in-group and thus I’ve been spending the last half hour coming up with even more reasons she is right. But how do we get back to a place where the argumentation necessary to, at the very least, ask better questions of our politicians about their intentions isn’t so painful and divisive? What will cause normal intelligent moderates to stop running from the room every time politics is brought up?
Most debates on substantive policies, I suspect, are rooted in differences in values, which are held as sacred, and hotly contested.
My sense is that people know themselves, and know that this can easily lead to violence. Just as witnesses can tell if a confrontation might turn physical.
True, the media blows up features of reality and distorts. I’d ask, was there anyway the Civil War could have been avoided?
You’re hope is that, I sense, if people stuck to reality, the differences in values would seem trifling, compared to the solutions to real problems – so, for instance, if people realized that immigrants weren’t stealing their jobs, Trump’s base would be flushed down the Potomac.
I think part of the polarization is that a certain way of life and a certain place in the world are being threatened and that Trump is rallying these Bruce Springsteen Americans by yelling USA USA.
That’s bigger than policy, I’d guess
Well, that feeling of being under threat is an emotional response to a situation, in this case, illegal immigration. But the emotional response should not be allowed to stand uncontested; it should be debated. Emotions are a valid tool in debates, they can be used there. But implying that a certain emotional response is beyond the reach of rational debate because it is “bigger than policy,” well, I think that is just plain wrong.