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Bring up
the subject of civility and you'll, inevitably, wind up in a sideshow
having little to do with the subject.
Civility doesn't mean never having to say you're sorry. It doesn't
mean baby-proofing all conversation to ensure its inoffensiveness
for the most delicate of sensibilities. Nor does it mean couching
all claims as tepid statements of personal preference that cannot
be refuted, or defended, or cared about one way or the other by
much of anyone, since they don't actually claim to say anything
about the actual world.
Rudeness is, of course, rude. As such, it can distract
from—and, therefore, undermine—whatever point you're
trying to make. Impoliteness can be impolitic. But, sometimes,
it's called for—sometimes it's just the thing to jar your
listeners into considering that which they were previously unable
to consider. And sometimes it's funny (and, therefore, beautiful;
and, therefore, true and good). All of which could be a fascinating
subject for discussion, polite or impolite, but none of which
is what civility's really all about.
Civility has to do with citizenship, which is to say it has to
do with responsibility. To speak as civilized people, as citizens,
requires that we be responsible—to one another and to the
truth (and the good, and the beautiful). It requires that we be
responsible for our words, that we be willing to stand by them.
This is why I'm impatient with the whole ''I' statements' approach.
It has its place, I suppose, in family therapy and the like, but
it undermines responsibility. It aims to force us to phrase statements
in a way that cannot provoke offense, but it winds up also forcing
us to phrase statements in a way that makes their content irrelevant.
Thus, in the name of 'civility', I've been told that I shouldn't
say, "FEMA's response to the flooding of New Orleans was
a national disgrace." Instead, I should say, "I think
FEMA's response..." or "FEMA's response made me feel..."
And, suddenly, we're not talking about FEMA anymore, but about
me. An objective declaration is reduced to a subjective
preference and, thus, I'm relieved of responsibility for the truth
or falsehood of my claim.
This seems to me to be is a cowardly, irresponsible way
to talk. It's, in other words, uncivil. Let me repeat this
with a less significant example. "The Ramones rock!"
is a statement—albeit an ambiguously defined one—about
the world, about our shared reality. "I enjoy the music of
The Ramones" is a statement about me. You can agree or disagree
with the former, but not the latter, which is irrefutable but
also—as far as the world and our shared reality goes—irrelevant.
To be civilized, to live together, we need to be able to talk
about the world we share. We need to be able to discuss art, politics,
religion, economics, science, and all the other vital components
of our civilization—not just about our own feelings. This
conversation doesn't always have to be nice, but it has to be
honest. And it has to be responsible. That's what "civility"
means.
I could be wrong, of course; but that's precisely the point. I've
stated something that can be either right or wrong. It can be
engaged, evaluated, debated—and thus, possibly, refuted.
That's the nature of civil conversation.
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