Is civility always appropriate?

[beagle]

Jesus overturned the money-lenders stalls, rational humanist icons like Dr Who  get seriously angry regularly. Is civility always appropriate?

(Usual rules. No kicking, biting, gouging or parliamentary/congressional language).

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

I guess you could go one step further: is peaceful resistence always appropiate?

If the voices of intolerance drown everything else which is the path to follow?

When you are competing for attention with the fanatic attention whores how can you call attention to a desirable behavior if the nasty one is the one followed by everybody else?

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

I think it is, usually. But, not always.

The example that comes immediately to mind for me is that yelling (or something similar) can be acceptable when attempting to commandeer attention when the opposing side is screaming. Find an opportune moment and yell just enough to stop them. Works, from my observation. Another instance is when absolutely nothing else has worked and you are trying to get someone to stop doing something.

Peaceful resistance is the best option unless they are using all-out lethal force, imo. And even then, context is what matters. Large numbers = media attention to your cause and that the Man does to protesters (like the Civil Rights movement and India's bid for independence). Smaller numbers, it's the best way not to get shot or arrested (or both). Lethal force used against protesters in large numbers (relative to the number of protesters) would make violent protestation ok with me.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

I guess civility and/or peaceful resistence work by shame the other, but will not work if the offending side has no shame to begin with.

Hitler could not be shamed or contained leaving blunt force as the only viable alternative, but in grayer areas how can you 'motivate' someone like,say, Glenn Beck into civility?

There must be a way but it's a formidable challenge.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

Ahh, but that's context isn't it? A bunch of 'race-traitor' (or whatever you want to call them) German women in Berlin thwarted Hitler when the Nazis attempted round up their Jewish husbands and half-Jewish kids. Peacefully, too. The Nazis couldn't afford to crush the protests and eventually had to give in.

All right, in an instance like Beck civility won't work, will it? That I'll give, I think. But I certainly don't have to resort to verbal un-civility. Silence and a mocking, condescending expression might make him either talk himself into a hole so I can pin him there (where upon braggarts start to stutter) *or* make him just shut up.

[Swatopluk]

The problem with the Nazi examples is that they switched from open to disguised methods. Euthanasia was also only stopped briefly and then started again but this time in secret (although anyone who wanted to know knew). Extermination camps were built in Poland, out of (direct) sight. There were even 'concessions' with the names of KZs, so people could pretend they were not living next to them. Unfortunately this "we don't show, so you can pretend not to see" tends to work very well in most places. The 'true' scandal of Abu Ghraib was that photos got out shattering that unspoken consent. What's worse though is that now torture has become acceptable enough for a majority, a significant part of which not even needing the euphemisms anymore (cf. recent polls* about what to do with the undiebomber).
Sorry, getting 

*admittedly biased questions but the general tendency is there even subtracting that.

[Darlica]

To give a proper answer to that question we would first need a for us common and definitive definition of the word Civility.

Personally I see civility as a behaviour thing, it's about playing by the rules, which is mostly a good thing, but one should keep in mind that rules change and different people have a different set of rules. If you arranged a match between a soccer team and a rugby team and then let both teams play according to the rules of their own game the the soccer team would be run over and the rugby team would stand out as rude and violent. However they where still playing by the rules their rules...
So as usual it is all about the context.


IMHO civility is a good thing, on internet and in ordinary social situations, if you define it as avoiding to use rudeness, personal attacks and general shit flinging even when your opponent lower him or her self below that certain line.

Now on a greater scale It becomes much more difficult. 
Sometimes people in a position of power use "let's be civil about this" as a way to quiet down opposition, to stop people from rocking the boat.
In that situation Civil Courage becomes more important. Being civil should never mean that you allow other to use you as a doormat, make you doubt your right to question things -loudly if need be, or that you shouldn't blow the whistle and make a wrongdoer stand by his/her actions.

Civility in War means following the Geneva convention: keep your prisoners of war safe and don't torture them, don't attack civilian targets like homes schools and hospitals, and don't use raping the female population as a strategic weapon.

I don't think "civility" is the answer against fundamentalism (religious, political or whatever), violence and general intolerance.
IMHO the answer is Civil Courage, which doesn't really exclude the use of violence or foul language, but civil courage is also to open up to strangers or open your homes for those in need, to question your own view of the world.
In short to stand up for those more vulnerable than you, no matter religion, colour of skin, ethnicity or sexual orientation for that matter. 

[Lindorm]

I must say that I am siding with Swato and Darlica here.

Civility as in keeping a reasonable level of discourse and trying to act in a generally respectful and open manner is something I am all for. However, when we come to the subject of civility as following the dominant rules of discourse and not upsetting things, it gets a bit more murky. Stopping mudslinging in a political campaign is fine, but stifling criticism of the actioons of public figures is not.

Playing by the rules is fine, but when those rules are stacked against you and designed to keep you down, you have no choice but to either accept your opression or resist and break the rules. And sometimes, that might mean that you have to use violent methods to defend yourself. While non-violent protest is fine, and a method that I personally much prefer, sometimes violence might be the only way out. To tell someone that they cannot take action to defend themselves when they are living under attack smacks of both hypocrisy and holier than thou paternalism - c f various do-gooders who only wanted/wants to bring charity to "pauvres honteaux", decent, god-fearing (and authority-fearing) poor who know their place.

I sometimes feel that our current society's focus on non-violent and well-behaved protest is also due to a lack of historical knowledge, and later compromises and agreements, aimed at promoting the status quo. How many have heard about all the other indian resistance groups against the british occupation, the ones that were opposed to Gandhi and his peculiar agenda (for example, his concept of social justice for casteless did have it's limits)? How many today know that one of the big arguments for female suffrage used by the US suffragettes was that if suffrage was granted to black men, but not white women, it would mean that black men ruled over white women -a completely untolerable and immoral position, according to several leading suffragettes. 

A very interesting discussion of morality and resistance is Robert Williams' book "Negroes with Guns", about his experiences in the civil rights movement in the USA in the fifties, and how he helped african families in the US South to organize armed resistance groups against Ku Klux Klan lynch mobs.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

I'll chime in, likely re-stating what others have already said.

Civility works well, if all sides are willing to take part. 

If, on the other hand, you have one or more sides who somehow think "compromise" is spelled with only 4 letters, and refuse to entertain any point of view other than their own?

Who, routinely, presume that there are but two points of view, encompassing all?  Theirs and the exact opposite of theirs (as they imagine the exact opposite might be).

To those sorts of folk, civility is a complete waste of time, energy and voice.   A fine example comes to mind, in the form of a creationist:  Demsky. Even when forced in a courtroom to admit that what he's pushing is wrong, the very next time he appears in public, he pushes the same disproved arguments, as if he'd never admitted he had been wrong previously.

Civility does not work on his sort, because his sort has the appearance of civility, while his actual behavior is anything but.

I think the only recourse, aside from simply ignoring him, is to resort to uncivil action; chiefly, behaviors that are derisive, mocking and so forth.  Or, better, humor.  Scathing sarcasm, and such.

I think that humor can sometimes get past artificial barriers that nothing else will.   Take the success of The Daily Show, as an example.  It uses humor to side-step the normal process, and in reality, is often quite scathing in it's criticism of various politicos.  If the show had taken a serious tone, it would've been cast down long before now.  But, utilizing the media of humor, it can say what it says, and get away with it.

Obviously, even scathing humor is insufficient to stop the likes of Beck and his cronies.   If history is to teach us any lessons, that is. 

At times, the only recourse is violence.

As Spock once quipped:^₁    "If all the logical choices are exhausted, the only logical thing to do, is something illogical."  In some instances, the only recourse is to lock someone up, or worse-- end their very lives.

So, most of the time, civility Just Works.

Most of the rest of the time?  Humor can be an effective substitute.

Violence, as usual, is an ultimate last resort.

We are apes, after all.   Civilization is a very, very thin veneer.  At the best of times.

______________________

_{¹ in the original series, the episode, "Spock's First Command" (I think that's the name..) The episode where Spock is in command of a shuttle with some crew, on a dangerous planet.  Okay, that's still too general-- the planet had giant rock-throwing apes, who beat on the grounded shuttle.  There was some problem with the transporters, naturally.  They lost some fuel, due to something or other, and only had low-planet orbit. Spock, taking a gamble, dumped the rest of the fuel, igniting it in a flare, allowing the Enterprise to lock-on, and teleport everyone to safety.  The comment was at the end.  McCoy's response?  "In a pig's eye. You just can't admit you acted on your feelings."  Spock, "There's no cause to be insulting."}

[Griffin NoName]

Quentin Crisp was always civil.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Quentin Crisp was always civil.

Never heard of him, but a quick perusal of Wiki is enlightening.



Edit:  linky:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quentin_Crisp

[Darlica]

Quentin Crisp was always civil.

Yes, even as a Naked Servant...

I do however think that a lot of people found him immensely rude for just existing.

[Griffin NoName]

I do however think that a lot of people found him immensely rude for just existing.

It was also unfortunate when he described HIV as a "fad"......... but he went on to learn otherwise.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

If he hadn't had such strange views for being a gay man (HIV a fad? Homosexuality a disease?) I would have liked him an awful lot. I still kind of like him, even still.

[Griffin NoName]

If he hadn't had such strange views for being a gay man (HIV a fad? Homosexuality a disease?) I would have liked him an awful lot. I still kind of like him, even still.

Re. HIV I think he was genuinely ignorant of what it was all about at the time he made the remark.

Re. homosexuality a disease....... it's hard to remember he lived most of his life with it being illegal and all the ignorance and hate that went with that. We had him to stay with us and so had the opportunity to see the man behind the public face. He was genuinely a frightened man and deeply scarred by his experiences. It gave me an even greater respect for what he achieved and who he was. We had loads of people stay with us, but none touched me so deeply.