Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
Fuck your Outrage
In a post titled Fuck your Civility, Chris Clarke writes,
My point: it is not civil to discuss things quietly and collegially while people are dying because they can’t afford medicine. It is not civil to speak in even, chuckling sardonicism as one beleaguered wild place after another is paved for profit. It is not civil to calmly raise logical arguments against torture, against kidnapping, against using nuclear weapons on civilians to show our resolve.
I'm not going to get into the civility meta-debate right now, largely because the main pro-civility argument is a pragmatic one, so to make it I need facts I don't have. But I'd like to point out at least two points that most anti-civility advocates neglect.
First, some people don't respond by outrage to everything. I know I stopped being outraged at American atrocities after Abu-Gharib. For me, outrage requires some element of surprise, so when I already have a conception of the US Armed Forces as a group of barbarians who excel at turning countries into rubble, my only response to yet another torture scandal is "Bears shit in the woods, and the US engages in atrocities."
Second, I'm not going to make any apologies here: I'm sick and tired of the style police. I'm tired of people telling me not to turn anti-choice pseudo-dilemmas into laughing stock. But I'm even more tired of people who decide that because I can field an argument more complicated than "right-wingers are evil, evil, evil!" I'm somehow complicit in conservative stupidity. Bickering about civility is about as useful as bickering about Oxford commas (by the way: everyone who omits Oxford commas is an evil fascist, I tell you!). My style is wonkish; deal with it. I don't criticize Maryscott O'Connor for "Rage, rage against the lying of the right"; don't criticize me for "The right is wrong because of these reasons."
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a person is morally bound to
a person is morally bound to be uncivil when discussing important issues. What if, when discussing a particular issue, it's more persuasive to be civil? Are you still bound to tell someone to go fuck himself because you think that what he's advocating would lead to more suffering?
As I mentioned in a comment still held up in moderation, Gordo, i intended no such thing, and I think a careful reading of the post to which Alon links will show that.
To each his own
Some people are good at ranting, and some are good at persuading. Ultimately, it takes all kinds to make a successful movement.
But it's hard to take seriously the implication behind Clarke's words: a person is morally bound to be uncivil when discussing important issues. What if, when discussing a particular issue, it's more persuasive to be civil? Are you still bound to tell someone to go fuck himself because you think that what he's advocating would lead to more suffering?
It seems to me that if a person really does care about improving the human condition, and there are a lot of misguided right-wingers who fit in this category, then you might be able to have more impact by using facts and reason, rather than vituperation.
That's what I called the pragmatic argument
The main honest argument for civility - here distinguished from exhortations of people who think they have an inalienable right not to be offended - is a pragmatic one: "It works better at convincing the masses." The problem is, I have only seen circumstantial evidence for and against it; hence my post's comment that I'll refrain from making that argument.
Good points, Alon. But I
Good points, Alon. But I think you may have misunderstood my intent. I certainly didn't mean to insinuate that everyone must shout all the time, or seethe continually. If you can respond calmly and directly to people who advance ridiculous and offensive ideas, more power to you. I can myself, most of the time. I get paid to do so in print, in fact, for a non-profit advocacy organization.
My argument wasn't directed at you, or people like you. It was directed at people like Tacitus, who seem to expect that their outrageous abuse never be returned. My point in the material you quote was not a condemnation of the people who speak calmly. It was merely that when the topics discussed are that outrageously vile, civility has been left behind whether or not the liberal respondent uses placid, cajoling words or logical argument. You may act in a civil manner, in other words, but it is not a civil discussion.
Shorter version: I wasn't saying fuck YOUR civility.
Yeah, I think I misunderstood
I thought your post was directed not toward the right, but toward the pseudo-left - that is, the excessive compromisers who have turned being liked by the other side into a fetish. Ordinarily that's not a group I defend, but sometimes attacks on it leave me feeling that the author's not just attacking the Clintonites but also tarring by association everyone to the right of Ralph Nader.
Obviously I can't reasonably disagree with you on your calling out of Tacitus, then. Although he's relatively civil for a wingnut, he comes off as having a symbiotic relationship with the Freepers' contingent, in which the Malkins and the Hindrockets spout degrading crap (pun intended) and then Tacitus makes sure that their inalienable right to be talked to like kings isn't infringed.
Civility
Consider a trial, where the prosecutor lays out the evidence that the accused kidnapped children, tortured them, dismembered their bodies, and dumped them in the forest.
The court proceedings themselves are 'civil' -- no profanity-filled screaming at the accused. However, the conclusion is far from kind. There is nothing at all inconsistent with providing evidence by which one can reach the reasoned conclusion that the accused are guilty of some grievous wrong.
The result is a "middle road" in the civility debate. It consists of rational argument that supports conclusions that are, themselves, put in the harshest moral terms.
Conclusions such as: "The Bush Administration is claiming that its NSS phone call database is legal. Yet, clearly, this administration believes that it is above the law. If Bush were to ask Gonzales for a legal opinion defending a "final solution" to the Jewish problem, I fully suspect that Gonzales would do it -- claiming that the President had the authority to exterminate any group in the country that he alone deemed to be a threat to national security."
It is a harsh conclusion, yet one that I think is well supported by available evidence.
Civility
A lot of people would call what you've just said uncivil. The bulk of attacks aren't at people like the Rude Pundit, but at mainstream liberal bloggers who post far more indirect fascist/Nazi comparisons than the one you've just made. For example, rightists like to call Krugman a shrill hack, even though he's neither shrill nor a hack.
As I said, I think it ultimately boils down to style. I don't have a good screaming style, so I pass over the outrage pieces unless they're something I haven't seen other blogs deal with. I do have a decent bloviating style and a good analyzing style, so I focus on pieces that call for good analysis or prediction or problem-solving.