Is civility always appropriate?

[Swatopluk]

Find out where he eats (is there a FOX canteen?) and bribe the prersonnel to put a laxative into his meals every time he crosses certain lines as far as mendacity is concerned. Occasionally switch to anti-laxatives.

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

I may be wrong, but I respectfully disagree with my dear sibling Bob. I may not know much about Hannity, but the humanity in me wants to believe that he must have some iota of rationality in him, somewhere. He just gets a lot of attention and money out of spouting things that sound irrational to us. It's his job.

If I was unfortunate enough to be involved in an argument with him, I would simply try to state my point. If he took what I said (should I be allowed to utter it at all) and twisted it around to make his point seem stronger, that's his bad. I might be upset with him for doing so, but showing my annoyance, or waging any kind of war through aggression, censure, or discrediting would be playing his game and running the risk of looking like an idiot to the idiots who follow him.

Sometimes the most civil thing we can do is walk away.

I guess, growing up around fundamentalists, I'm more cynical than dear Opsanus.

If such as Hannity have any rationality left, it is buried so very deep, that it is akin to a seed, buried in concrete:  no amount of watering is gonna germinate that seed, not until the concrete is broken or at least, cracked.

Walking away is an option, I suppose.

But that simply leaves the work of undoing Hannity's evil to someone else.

Society, being what it is, there are times when the *only* recourse is an action you'd otherwise view as uncivil.

Is war ever civil?  Hardly.

In the case of the Hannity's of the world, who's very methodology is based on uncivil discourse?   Your options are limited, and none of them are civil, if you wish to undo the evil he's causing.

Sometimes, the only way to get water to that seed-- is with a jackhammer or dynamite.

If you'd rather not, that's commendable; but eventually someone's gotta go in there with a backhoe or something....

++++++++++++++++++++++

Find out where he eats (is there a FOX canteen?) and bribe the prersonnel to put a laxative into his meals every time he crosses certain lines as far as mendacity is concerned. Occasionally switch to anti-laxatives.

There ya go. 

[Opsa]

But all that will do is cause him to spout more crap! 

How do we get him to think rationally?

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

I guess, growing up around fundamentalists, I'm more cynical than dear Opsanus.

This. I live with people who are, in some ways, fundementalists and rational discourse with them on their fundie topics is like talking to a wall. I don't even try at home, but elsewhere I use the tactics I mention elsewhere and find it effective.

But all that will do is cause him to spout more crap! 

How do we get him to think rationally?

They are rational people, on any count that doesn't involve their fundie views. On those topics, nothing but a good verbal dressing down and/or the school of experience is going to do anything, imo.

I suppose I don't necessarily picture the application of civility as occurring in a public arena, debate-style, against a firebrand*, just my imagination, or is this a Amrikan thing?  but moreso in everyday interpersonal interactions.  So I start with the premise of keeping conflict minimized when interacting with a stranger / new acquaintance, rather than presupposing conflict and civiling the way out of it.

_{*We certainly get exposed to fewer virulent pundits up here}

This. I prefer polite debate but am not opposed to getting muddy. I refuse to be anything but civil in everyday life.

[Opsa]

Y'aaarrrggggghhh an inspiration to us all, m'dear Scrib!

_{Excuse my poirate!}

[Lindorm]

Sometimes the most civil thing we can do is walk away.

Sorry, Opsanus, but here I must disagree with you. As Sibling Zono and others have stated, that is tantamount to giving them a walk-over victory. To continue with the Hannity/US Neo-con mafia example, they have repeatedly shown that they are perfectly willing to do anything, up to and including starting war on falsified pretexts, in order to further their own goals. To simply walk away from them and let them continue uncheckered is, in my opinion, an abrogation of your responsibilities towards your fellow humans.  Civil and rational discourse only works when there is a willingness to be civil and rational on the other side of the table, too.

The trade union I am active in does a lot of work with "illegal immigrants" ( the very idea that a person can be illegal by virtue of existing is something I consider utterly perverse). A lot of these people work here in Sweden in shitty jobs, with no security whatsoever, exploited by ruthless employers who always have the easy option of calling the immigration authorities if the paperless people are too troublesome, won't have sex with the restaurant owner's son, get injured on the job or simply don't feel like paying them even their shit wages. When dealing with this kind of employers, civility simply is not an option. A nice little chat and an appeal to their humanity would just end with Carlos, Maria and Jesus in police custody, perhaps having been severely beaten up by the employer's thugs beforehand.

While I do agree with you that we ought to and have to strive for a society where civility, humility and rationality are respected, I am firmly of the opinion that we are forced to use some decidedly un-civil methods in order to get there -or else we will just get steamrollered. By all means walk away from some petty intrigue behind the office coffee machine, but there are times when you simply have to make a stand and get both your hands and ideals dirty.

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

Sometimes the most civil thing we can do is walk away.

Sorry, Opsanus, but here I must disagree with you. As Sibling Zono and others have stated, that is tantamount to giving them a walk-over victory. To continue with the Hannity/US Neo-con mafia example, they have repeatedly shown that they are perfectly willing to do anything, up to and including starting war on falsified pretexts, in order to further their own goals. To simply walk away from them and let them continue uncheckered is, in my opinion, an abrogation of your responsibilities towards your fellow humans.  Civil and rational discourse only works when there is a willingness to be civil and rational on the other side of the table, too.

The trade union I am active in does a lot of work with "illegal immigrants" ( the very idea that a person can be illegal by virtue of existing is something I consider utterly perverse). A lot of these people work here in Sweden in shitty jobs, with no security whatsoever, exploited by ruthless employers who always have the easy option of calling the immigration authorities if the paperless people are too troublesome, won't have sex with the restaurant owner's son, get injured on the job or simply don't feel like paying them even their shit wages. When dealing with this kind of employers, civility simply is not an option. A nice little chat and an appeal to their humanity would just end with Carlos, Maria and Jesus in police custody, perhaps having been severely beaten up by the employer's thugs beforehand.

While I do agree with you that we ought to and have to strive for a society where civility, humility and rationality are respected, I am firmly of the opinion that we are forced to use some decidedly un-civil methods in order to get there -or else we will just get steamrollered. By all means walk away from some petty intrigue behind the office coffee machine, but there are times when you simply have to make a stand and get both your hands and ideals dirty.

What can I sat to this well-worded post?

But...   

Oh, and   

[Opsa]

I agree. There are times when we have to take action.

I could have been clearer. Walking away is reserved for the occasional closed-minded, close-eared, distraction-factoid-shouting powerless bigot who is making a point of not listening, anyway.  Not for people who really need to hear the other side.

I do believe in non-violence, however. Martin Luther King was very good at not walking away while also not contributing to a hateful scene. To me, that is more powerful than hitting back, and takes much more courage. Hitting back is just reacting.

I would like to ask how you feel about the following scenarios:

1) Two opposing people get in a brawl and wind up killing each other. How do you think this helps the cause of each side?

2) Two opposing people get in an argument. One speaks in shouts and threats, one speaks like a rational person. Mr. Shout winds up killing Mr. Talk. How do you think this helps the cause of each side?

There are no right or wrong answers, just opinions.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

2) Two opposing people get in an argument. One speaks in shouts and threats, one speaks like a rational person. Mr. Shout winds up killing Mr. Talk. How do you think this helps the cause of each side?

Context is everything, if those two guys are in a regular bar with witnesses and all Mr. Shout would likely go to jail and/or have to assume the consequences of his actions.

But if Mr. Shout is in a position of power and/or has no witnesses he may perfectly get away with it.

One cannot underestimate the likelihood of an opponent using force successfully.

[pieces o nine]

2) Two opposing people get in an argument. One speaks in shouts and threats, one speaks like a rational person. Mr. Shout winds up killing Mr. Talk. How do you think this helps the cause of each side?

Putting this scenario into the Faux News et al v. Planet Earth  context, Mr. Shout will dance onto his studio set, the next day and all days thereafter, swinging his clasped hands above his head in victory, as the mostly white, mostly ill-informed, hand-picked studio audience screams its approval. They will cheer that a limp-wristed, panty-waisted, egg-headed, elistist, reality-based, liberal moonbat got his -- oh yeah!  -- and gloatingly threaten others that it's 'better Red* than dead' in today's America. They will repeat, ad nauseum,  that a Tremendous Victory for Truth, Justice, and the Amurkin Way has been won. Horribly, they may even give a shout out to JC for 'anointing' their Mandated Cause. Competing Mr. Shouts will alternate between sycophantic public praise and furious private resentment that they didn't think of trying this themselves.





Anyone attempting to point out that a crime was committed will be shouted down for hating America first, of taking the event out of context, and for violating Mr. Shout's -- and by extension, Mr. Shout's entire television and radio audience's -- Constitutional Right to Free Speech.


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
* Red = Red State, of course.
Not the fascist-liberal-socialist-communism it used to mean.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Anyone attempting to point out that a crime was committed will be shouted down for hating America first, of taking the event out of context...

Wait, I've seen that one before, when was it? Oh yes, when the constitution and the Geneva convention were violated to remove habeas corpus and torture suspects, in Guantánamo and abroad....

[Opsa]

Okay, let's try a third scenario:
) Mr. Shout and Mr. Talk get into a disagreement, which becomes a fight. Mr. Talk kills Mr. Fight. How do you suppose that will play out?

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

That is a loose-loose scenario, Mr. Talk will loose either by letting Mr. Shout get away with it or by silencing him forcefully, which I guess is the point, after certain level of nastiness civility becomes an abstract concept with not much use aside from the civil one's sanity/self image.

Being not confrontational myself I much rather walk away in many cases but the reality is that it isn't possible, nor desirable all the times.
---
The trick here is how exactly can you drown a voice in the less violent way possible and without generating sympathy for the objective. Those in the authoritarian side do so by dehumanizing their victims so that shouting, playing dirty, and getting forceful doesn't generate sympathy ("they're less than human for being/think different therefore they had it coming").  When you have higher standards such tactics aren't viable.

The only thing that I consider functional in certain cases is something similar to what the Patriot Guard Bikers do at funerals, which is peaceful but with an intrinsic threat of force. Gandhi and M.L. King understood that and used it, but you need large numbers, a good organization and the conviction from the participants that if things get ugly they can't run.

[Opsa]

Those in the authoritarian side do so by dehumanizing their victims so that shouting, playing dirty, and getting forceful doesn't generate sympathy ("they're less than human for being/think different therefore they had it coming"). 

YES! This is why we must not dehumanize our enemies, either. We have to keep things in perspective, even when we disagree. When we just call Hannity a nazi jerkface, we are not winning an argument, just as he is not really winning an argument by calling us naive communists or whatever names he can dish out. Only his followers will think he's won, but they will think this even as they follow him off the side of a cliff. Who cares who they think wins?

It's content that needs to be addressed, not the person spouting it.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

It's content that needs to be addressed, not the person spouting it.

Yes and no, if the person is a psychopath with an agenda that can impact many the person needs to be addressed too. The question is how to address him/her without helping him or betraying our principles.