Reader says Civility actually encourages disagreement, conflict, and the passionate exchange of ideas
I’m curious how a brainstorming meeting about respecting others, complete with disagreement, could become “social intimidation tactics”, disallowing the raising of an eyebrow. And as per the intro Patrick Henry graphic, I’d like to include the rest of Henry’s statement: “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” Patrick Henry was a slaveholder.
Democracy requires disagreement. It’s only in totalitarian societies that dissent is silenced. Civility actually encourages disagreement, conflict, and the passionate exchange of ideas. Civility provides a platform for debate. Civility is not antithetical to free speech. We all have a lowest common denominator and our exercise of free speech can devolve into insults, verbal abuse, or hate speech. And while I think we can generally find a more grown-up way to express ourselves, I am single-minded about free speech being the cornerstone of a free society.
The problem is, when the mud-slinging starts, we can all get dirty, and whatever the “political debate” was about does too. In a democracy, not only should everyone have a voice, but it is the civic duty of everyone to use that voice. Insults, character assassinations, namely a suspension of civil, respectful disagreement – that silences dissent.
