Do you think "incivility" can be used as a tool for positive change?
I have been reading a lot of the articles on uncivility. A big complaint is politicians don't like the power it gives people. Which I understand can be bad, but it also seems like for the first time in a long time, the average person has a way to impact these high powered politicians. Ordinarily there is nothing we can do, we can't touch them when they continually do things not in the best interest of the people they represent. They do shady things, and we have to go with it.
They are arguing uncivility is dangerous because it creates the problem of officials being scared to make decisions based on how they will be impacted. If a judge rules one way, and the masses start making his life hard, they say it isn't really fair to the judge. Which makes sense.
This is the information age. We have access to so much more going on than adults did before us. We actually have platforms to be heard on a large scale. Which means pressuring these people to do right through "uncivility" could be harnessed and used positively to enforce change. If the people making these decisions that are not in our best interest have something to lose, maybe they will finally start doing right by us.
What are your thoughts on this aspect of the uncivility debate going on right now?
In any democracy, power is (supposed to be) "lended" from the people to their politicians. The word "Democracy" itself means "rule of the people". The declaration of independence of the US works under the idea that it is based on the Authority of the People. I think there should be a lot more of popular control over political decisions than what most democracies currently do.
We don't have platforms to be listened to, though. So we have to get loud enough to the point that they're unable to ignore us.
The meat of a protest is that it bothers people who have the power to change something. Since we don't have the means to meet them on their own terms (that is, lots of money and political clout), we are forced into an adversarial role.
Sarah Sanders being (politely, from all I can tell) turned away in a restaurant is really a tiny action. Sarah herself decided to make it a big issue. If anything, she gave people ideas on new ways to needle the political class.
The admin she works for likes to shock, insult and boast. That's uncivility, and their complaints about uncivility are hypocrisy.
Very well said. I agree entirely.
It feels like an escalation, and I don't like where that road leads in today's climate.
I agree with you. People respond differently to that type of behavior with non-response on one end of the spectrum to violence on the other.
Incivility is a form of disrespect and while I agree that there are folks out there that do not deserve respect (as respect is earned), incivility will only harden their positions rather than promote change, imo.
I agree. This ties into one of my thoughts on the subject. Yes, it is disrespectful, but at the same time it is the only tool we really have. It is kind of negative to look at it that way, and it is a little sad that it is our only real recourse right now to pressure change where needed. I think it could be used positively by the right people. But too many people will just abuse it and twist it.
Unfortunately, uncivil behavior can become the rule rather than the exception and becomes habitual behavior and as such, loses its impact. I've certainly encountered people in my life who are like this.
Thoughtful people using this behavior may not have any impact on those who are contemptuous of others as their norm. Its a minor annoyance if anything to people like that.
Its a conundrum. I think in certain areas this type of behavior can be effective, can bring about pressure or at the very least point out hypocrisy. But that is highly circumstantial and directed.
Do you have any specific ideas on how that might be utilized in effective ways as I seriously would participate but with caveats?
That is very true.
As far as ways to use it. I would think if you had a corporate big wig making a lot of money doing something to hurt the environment or something hypocritical, using incivility to point that out could bring unwanted attention and force them to change their practices. As far as super specific, no I don't right now. It's partly why I started this discussion. To see how others saw it to maybe spark more thoughts. I think this is really fascinating in general. To me it ties into, politicians and people in power don't like when they are negatively impacted and so they are lashing out in a way. Like we will do whatever we want and then something puts them out and all of a sudden it's, "Hey that is uncalled for!"
Methods of civil disobedience and protest are the surest paths although this administration and MNCs are seemingly unaffected.
Public shaming of individuals might have an impact but its risky as in public spaces, uniformity isn't guaranteed. I was shocked the restaurant that tossed Sanders out was in VA. Rarely however are there circumstances that allows the majority of us to confront individuals in public spaces, most of them are well insulated from the unwashed masses save things like Town Hall meetings, etc.
I appreciate your probing of this idea, perhaps what is required is a general sense that it is alright to be bold and to be confrontational when the circumstances are right.
I'd say that is a good way to look at it.
I hadn't really equated it to civil disobedience as a whole. I mean I didn't think real deep into it all. That definitely ties into it and makes me want to dig deeper on the topic.
I do agree with this and it is why I started this discussion.
WaPo has an interesting article this morning on the topic of Incivility.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/06/27/does-incivility-hurt-democracy-heres-what-political-science-can-tell-us/?utm_term=.3d8d309abb28
Here is another bit of definitional analysis that delves into thins: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-are-these-civility-arguments-really-about/
I am pretty convinced that as far as the health of society is concerned, rudeness is fine. Protests are fine. Hate speech (however tough to define sometimes) isn't so much. Inciting or endorsing violence is not fine (though it's only illegal if it's specific, I guess). Refusing a public figure service because of their public service? That's fine. Refusing someone service because of how they identify, whether it be ethnicity/race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, etc., not so fine. Refusing someone service because of their political beliefs? Why would it even normally come up, but I mean if you're engaging in speech on private property, it is definitely someone's right to ask you to leave.
The line is hard, and almost exclusively depends on what we mean by incivility and what about it is so bad.
Thanks.
Edit:
I just feel like they are trying so hard to label this toxic. Failing to live up to their democratic ideals? get out of here.
Yeah. This is an unfortunate statement and I might add hypocritical. WaPo knows mud slinging as it participates in grand style.
All that being said, I stand by my previous statements about incivility and its applications.
Small acts of courage count. Additionally, many people formally and informally boycott corporations and their products/services which is a passive way to help bring about change. Now, social media is another tool which can be utilized to affect change.
Civil Disobedience has a long and storied history. It is well worth a good long read about if you aren't more familiar with it and the legacies produced. Going back in time into the 60's and 70's with MLK, women rights and Vietnam war protests and more contemporaneous time which includes Occupy Wall Street, Pride and Keystone XL pipeline (to name just a few).
What is troublesome to me is how progress made through the sacrifice of countless numbers of people can be turned back so easily and quickly.
Can you please elaborate?
Civility keeps the conversation as, well, a conversation. Once you stop caring about arguing like a decent human being, that's an erosion of the respect you have for the person you're arguing against. Once tempers get involved, it's easy for conflicts to escalate to shouting matches or even physical altercations (though that can't happen in an online argument, but still).
We're not going to get anywhere if we keep pushing the debate further into tribalism. Calling open season on anyone who disagrees with you is the next step towards a dangerous conflict.
That is my thought too. I was reading more and more articles and started to wonder if it could be structured positively when certain situations arise. It just made me start thinking of things differently. I feel like it can be used as a tool if done right, and it highly depends on the issue and your tactics. it could help protesting or even boycotting certain things for sure.
You'll need to define "incivility" first. I've seen it used to refer to anything from someone using the word "fuck" ("for fuck's sake!"), through general bigotry, to a hate-filled personal attack, and everything in between.
What is "incivility" to you?
I think this is the only possible response I can come up with for this particular question. Before I can ever wrestle with what role, positive or negative, "incivility" has in making change happen, I have to know that we understand it in the same way, and that's far from certain with such a fuzzy term.
I mean, some people thought NFL players kneeling during a national anthem was uncivil. Some people think flag burning is uncivil. Some people think stealing signs are uncivil. Some people think delivering threats to people's personal safety is uncivil. The standard changes just about as often as the situations we come up with.
In the main, I don't see disruption as uncivil necessarily. I don't think it's uncivil to go out and stop traffic for an hour with a protest march. That would seem to me to be one of the ideal ways to express civil disobedience, as you're causing to violence to any person, though you're getting in somebody's faces and yelling about the issue that ails you. I don't think it's uncivil to quietly kneel during a national anthem to draw attention to the plight of other people who look like you. I don't think it's uncivil to protest the removal of a confederate statue--though we get into some sketchy visual imagery problems when people bring tiki torches to such an event to talk about how white America is the ideal America, and it's certainly uncivil to drive your car into counter-protestors and then brag about it online (shoutout to my boy from Maumee, Ohio, btw, you piece of shit).
So in this particular context, I'm struggling to see what is uncivil behavior that is also a positive force of change in this environment. To protest isn't to be uncivil. So long as you're not kicking anyone, looting anything, or causing anyone any harm (other than the emotional harm of speaking your truth, I guess), I'm pretty okay with just about any protest.
Personal attacks? That's not so great. The reason it's not so great is because it stops discussion. You no longer can talk to someone after you've personally attacked them and expect them to hear you. It's not gonna happen.
Hate speech? Not so great. The words come laden with an advocated use of power against a group of people and will probably make them feel threatened or at minimum quite unhappy. Again, it's very difficult to get anyone to hear you if you're engaging in this behavior.
Violence? Really bad. Probably don't do it? I mean, it's always a method of extremely last resort, but it's chance for success is so low that it's barely even worth mentioning as a legitimate means of forcing positive change in the US at least. It backfired extremely badly when protests of the neo-nazi rally in Toledo in 2005 turned violent, for example. If you have a good model, and you have a realistic shot at achieving your aims, maybe. Even then, better be sure to exhaust all other reasonable options first.
Maybe you want to rally your side by personally attacking your opponents, using hate speech to talk about them, or some shit. There is something to be said for getting people riled up enough to call their representatives and engage in their democracy, but you do need to make sure you're careful enough that those people are relaying accurate portrayals of what they're upset about to their representatives, or they're likely to get dismissed out of hand. So much for getting people heard by their government, eh?
Maybe you just want the extra likes on facebook or twitter or something. Well, this sort of rhetoric can be quite effective at rallying peopel to click like. Unfortunately, clicking "like" or its equivalent on social media is not the same as being actively involved on an issue. I would not consider this sort of behavior "positive change" unless it kept people nonviolent if they would otherwise have committed violence to express their views (highly unlikely, btw).
So I'm currently leaning on "no, incivility doesn't bring positive change" so long as we understand that protests are not included in my understanding of "incivility" at all.
I feel like they are using incivility as a blanket term for anything to give them a broad spectrum to retain any foot hold / leverage they have. When I talk about incivility, I don't mean anything violent or too extreme. Just kind of outside pressure to let these people know their decisions / actions aren't appreciated / liked. That is the whole point of this discussion though so I don't want to pin it down. A big part of my question was, could it be harnessed and used in a more positive way. When I say harness I mean keep it from being something extreme like standing outside someone's house with their family inside screaming they are a bigot. Basically, can incivility be used as a tool in a structured / reasonable way to finally give these politicians something to lose to pressure them into doing right by us. Or would the negatives just be too great and people just abuse it?
Edit: Incivility
Nope. That's not helping.
I have no idea what this conversation is about. I feel like there's about 500 pages of context I'm missing. I obviously haven't been reading the right articles.
Sorry to have wasted your time.
I'll try and explain a bit better. They are arguing that by fostering incivility, it gives the public too much power. It creates fear in officials such as judges or district attorneys. If they are so afraid their personal lives will be impacted by a decision, they cannot do their job. Which makes sense. It isn't fair for a mob to form and harass a judge in their day to day life because they made a tough call.
But at the same time, I kind of feel that in the right situations with the right circumstances, "incvility" can be used to pressure politicians in certain positions to do right by us. But I am also conflicted because of the whole net neutrality thing. Ajit Pai was hit by incivility, but he made so much money from the deal he didn't care. So I was just wondering that possibly in the right situation, with the right people - maybe what they are calling "incivility" could be used as a tool to pressure them not to do wrong by us for a change.
They are basically calling anything incivility at this point. Not liking a decision is being labeled as incivility because they want to create this idea that incivility is this big toxic thing so everyone sees it as toxic and it hopefully goes away. I am wondering if there is a way to keep it from being toxic and using it responsibly. They are basically twisting the word so when someone simply doesn't agree with them all they have to do is say you're being incivil right now. it's a new method for them to be dismissive.
I think the officials have good reason to fear. But I also think that they aren't being very smart politically. When you deal with large masses of people, especially with a wide range of goals and interest, style is everything.
What I mean here is that a group will tend to model their behavior on that of the ones they see in authority. The U.S. is at a rough place now, because our President came to power precisely by playing on the incivility you're speaking of.
To be fair, 'everyone else' was doing it too. But Mr. Trump had no qualms about lowering the bar, and it's been going down ever since. His position, that of a recognized authority figure in U.S. culture, gives tacit permission to the entire country to act this way. I'm old enough to remember that when Mr. Clinton was in office and had basically no consequences from his behavior with Monica Lewinsky, the media significantly lowered the bar on what was considered appropriate to print.
There's nothing currently to suggest that civility is any kind of behavior to model. Certainly, lowering the bar results in an eventual bottom at the lowest level possible. In other words, the bar is always moving. It's direction is what needs to change. Those of us who have worked in a hierarchal business have seen the power of the CEO's actions and style affecting the entire organization.
As usual, all of this is my considered, but personal opinion.
I don't want to just comment that I agree, but I really don't have much to add. (Because I do completely agree.) Trump definitely played on it. It's why a lot of people were shocked when he won and eyes opened about how people were looking at things.
On a side note. Clinton was in office when I was in second grade. I remember because we had a fake election where we voted, and I voted for him.
Edit: I should have said - The 93 election.
incivility also means various forms of physical violence. A human is a dangerous creature, and there's very little keeping it from unspeakable horrors. Civility is the system we have agreed upon to prevent needless death.
To put the shoe on the other foot... Trump and many of his supporters were extremely uncivil and from their point of view, they are doing a lot of good with it.
To me, the question is can Democrats be uncivil and achieve their goals? I say it's high time to try something besides being nice. I personally believe most of the republican platform is un-American and dangerous to the entire planet. Why can't the Dems use fear based messaging and in-your-face tactics? The difference is that most of the time Dems have a thing called facts and the truth to back up these tactics.
There is certainly a line to be drawn, but it's far from where we are now.
Too true. Good questions.
Incivility is used for change on a daily basis. There is a reason that various ideologies are stronger in certain communities than they are elsewhere.
People aim to fit in. This means adopting the behaviours, beliefs and thoughts of those around you. This leads to an easier life, because if you don't do so then those people make your life harder in a variety of ways.
This works for both positive and negative change. It's not something that inherently favours good or bad, it just is what it is.
People in receipt of incivility will either change their behaviour for an easier time or be driven into leaving the roles that attract the incivility. One way or another it achieves what the people being uncivil want in the current circumstances.
Speaking from a European perspective, it kinda looks a lot like incivility is being used against people who are using incivility against other people. I see this as a particularly effective approach - if lgbt/ethnic groups are being treated with incivility then treating the people who treat them with incivility is an effective way of teaching these people empathy. If they have received the behaviour that they are dishing out then there is a good chance that they may start to learn what their actions are and how they effect other people.
Is it nice? No.
Does it work? Absolutely yes.
And what of the people that simply retaliate the incivility or even worse escalate the incivility to violence? Being an asshole to someone rarely gets them to change their minds. It usually just broods more hatred and victim complexes. Usually in preschool or elementary school we teach children that name calling and violence (ie incivility) is not how to behave. If you truly want to change someone's belief's and behavior, have an honest conversation. It actually works: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/kkk-klu-klux-klan-members-leave-black-man-racism-friends-convince-persuade-chicago-daryl-davis-a7489596.html
Traditionally, it would seem that the intended means for people to effectively channel their political discontent is through voting - if a politician does something that you dislike, you are encouraged to vote for a candidate who is running on a platform that you agree with more. While this approach works on paper, the issue is that the people who wield real power (read: the economic elite) aren't able to be voted out of their position of influence. The real source of power (be it political or in another form) doesn't come from the politicians in "control" of our government, but rather the few businesses and individuals who can afford to lobby those politicians into complacence.
Incivility has been used to create positive change.
The right for women and minorities to vote? Only won after uncivil protests.
The 40 hour work week, child labor laws, and workplace safety protections? Only created after extremely uncivil protests.
Segregation in public places? Only ended after uncivil sit ins.
Segregation in public services? Only ended after uncivil boycotts of city bus services.
Civility is a tool of the empowered - is maintenance of a cruel and unequal status quo civil? MLK was considered uncivil by the conservatives and moderates of his time. His Disneyfication and status as THE civil rights icon are only because those in power would rather have more MLKs than Malcolm Xs and Bobby Sealses.
So what's keeping people from forming a mob and going to a politician's house, storming the front door, and dragging them out into their front yard to publicly shame them?
How is it any different from how they seek to please people for reelection purposes? That seems like a much bigger problem than "incivility".
The salt march Ghandi orchestrated worked out nicely. Before it Indians had to buy salt from Great Britain and were punished if they made it themselves. Cue a lot of Indians making salt at the same time over India, Great Britain does not have the resource to enforce the law and Indians win.