Civility

On Lame Appeals for Civility

Trey Gowdy issued one on his show last night. The man needs to stiffen his spine and realize that our political opponents are enemies with whom we share insufficient common ground for productive debate. They don't need debating but defeating. He did guest a Dem pol who talked some sense and seemed decent, but the guy was an outlier who apparently hasn't yet grasped that his party is and has been for some time a hard-Left outfit.

Here at MavPhil my tone is 'edgier' than on Substack and on Facebook it is edgier still. A good writer can write in different tones and voices depending on his audience.

See my Leftists and Civility over at the Stack for a measured partial statement of my views on this topic.

Civility is for the Civil

A reader sent me a graphic to accompany one of my aphorisms:

Civility is no virtue if a cover for cowardice.

The meme is crude, but I see little point these days in being polite to our enemies. As another of my aphorisms has it,

Be kind, but be prepared to reply in kind.

But don't be misled by what I am about to post. You must heed Glenn Beck's GRAVE WARNING.

Civility is no virtue if a cover for cowardice.

Leftists and Civility

Latest Substack article.

Dennis Miller on Obama, and the Art of the Verbal Counterpunch

(This is a repost, slightly redacted, from 9 October 2014.)

Last night on The O'Reilly Factor, the sharpest comedian out there uncorked the following:

He makes Narcissus look like he invented self-effacement.

In battling the Left, it is not enough to have facts, logic, and moral decency on one's side; one must turn the Left's Alinskyite tactics against them by the use of mockery, derision, contumely, and all the weapons of invective to make them look stupid, contemptible, and uncool.

For the young especially, the cool counts for far more than the cogent.

This is why the quintessentially cool Miller is so effective. People of sense could see from the outset that the adjunct law professor and community organizer, associate of former terrorist Bill Ayers and the 'reverend' Jeremiah Wright, raised on leftist claptrap and bereft of experience and knowledge of the world, would prove to be a disaster as president — as he has so proven, and as even Leon Panetta the other night all but admitted.

But Obama came across as one cool dude and that endeared him to foolish voters.

Civility is a prized conservative virtue, and one wishes that such verbal tactics would not be necessary. But for leftists politics is war, and it is the foolish conservative who fails to see this and persists in imagining it to be a gentlemanly debate on common ground over shared interests. Civility is for the civil, not for its enemies.

Some time ago I heard Miller quip, in reference to Melissa Harris-Perry, that

She is a waste of a good hyphen.

A nasty thing to say, no doubt, but not as nasty as the slanderous and delusional things she had to say about the supposedly racist overtones of the word 'Obamacare.'

Conservatives should not allow themselves to be hobbled by their own civility and high standards. As one of my aphorisms has it:

Be kind, but be prepared to reply in kind.

And I don't mean that merely on the verbal level.

The Main Thing is to be Polite: Or So Rod Dreher Seems to Think

As you may have gathered, I have a high opinion of Rod Dreher. A friend and I are currently working through his The Benedict Option. But the scent of Never-Trumpery is large about him. His Trump Summons Demons begins as follows:

Tonight at a rally in North Carolina, the President of the United States criticized Rep. Ilhan Omar, which he is certainly entitled to do. But listen to the crowd: “Send her back! Send her back!” Did he try to stop them? Of course not.

Where does he think this is all going to go? This is horrifying. Republican members of Congress need to stand up right now and say that this is unacceptable behavior in a president, whipping up a mob like this.

Dreher adds:

There are things worse than a president who is radically pro-abortion, opposed to religious liberty, and favoring open borders. It’s having a president who recklessly endangers the lives of people for the sake of winding up a mob.

A perspicacious comment by one 'Seoulite':

Future scholars: these sentences exemplify the "Polite Conservative" . . . . According to the Polite Conservative, someone who actively supports the annual murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings (radically pro-abortion), the punitive imposition of radical progressivism and the trouncing of freedom of conscience in the public space (religious liberty), and the actual destruction of the nation itself (open borders); such a person is preferable to someone who insults the Polite Conservative's sense of decorum and acceptable discourse.

Above all one must be polite and courteous, even as an invited guest insults you in your own house, even as uninvited guests smash the windows and clamber in, even as the house itself burns and knives are at your children's throats, you must be polite and not wind anybody up.

Could I have said it better? I doubt it. But that this intelligent person fears to appear under his real name says something about the state we are in and the nature of our enemies.

On Civility and a Concession to Hillary

Civility is a good old conservative virtue and I'm all for it. But like toleration, civility has limits. If you call me a racist because I argue against Obamacare, then not only do I have no reason to be civil in my response to you, I morally ought not be civil to you. For by being civil I only encourage more bad behavior on your part. By slandering me, you have removed yourself from the sphere of the civil. The slanderer does not deserve to be treated with civility; he deserves to be treated with hostility and stiff-necked opposition. He is deserving of moral condemnation.

If you call me a xenophobe because I insist that the federal government do what it is constitutionally mandated to do, namely, secure the nation's borders, then you slander me and forfeit whatever right you have to be treated civilly. For if you slander me, then you are moral scum and deserve to be morally condemned. In issuing my moral condemnation, I exercise my constitutionally-protected First Amendment right to free speech. But not only do I have a right to condemn you, I am morally obliged to do so lest your sort of evil behavior become even more prevalent.

Examples can be multiplied, but the point is clear. Civility has limits. One ought to be civil to the civil. But one ought not be civil to the uncivil. What they need is a taste of their own medicine.

One must also realize that 'civility' is a prime candidate for linguistic hijacking. And so we must be on our guard lest the promoters of 'civility' attach to this fine word a Leftward-tilting connotation. We must not let them get away with any suggestion that one is civil if and only if one is an espouser of liberal/left positions.

We now come to Hillary. “You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about,” she said.

I agree with this one sentence. The Dems have transmogrified into a destructive, hard-Left party. We cannot be civil with these extremely uncivil and vicious and violent and mob-stoking scumbags who want to destroy what we of the Coalition of the Sane stand for and care about.

Under the rude tutelage of President Trump, some Republicans are making the transition from pussycon to warrior. One surprising example is Lindsey Graham whose stones have finally descended, to put it crudely. Too bad it took the outrages against Kavanaugh to set the cojones in motion.

Donald J. Trump, as uncouth and flawed as he is, is a necessary corrective to the extremism of the Democrat Party. We are very lucky he came along at just the right time.

Now read this: Trump Against the Pussycons.

Is Civility Still Possible?

James Schall appears to return a negative answer. In the course of so doing he clarifies the concepts of the civil, the uncivil, and uncivilized.

Trump Against the Pussycons

'Pussycon' is a crude moniker for those I have variously described as milquetoast conservatives, yap-and-scribble do-nothings, and bow-tie boys. Esther Goldberg:

The hanky-clutching, cluck-clucking, tsk-tsking faction of the Conservative movement is in for a rough and bumpy ride over the next four to eight years.

They’re the ones who wanted a Republican president who looked like the male manikin on top of the wedding cake. You know, like Mitt Romney. And who were shocked when they got one who wore a baseball cap and spoke with a Queens accent. Like Al Capp’s S.W.I.N.E. (Students Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything), they are perpetually offended by everything Donald Trump says and does. By the fact that he simply exists.

I call them the Pussycons. They’re demanding a prissiness from Republican politicians, a refined politesse that distinguishes them from the swinish multitude. For George Will, you had to be able to imagine him “in an Iowa living room, with a macaroon in one hand and cup of hot chocolate balanced on a knee.” A George H.W. Bush, dangling a tea cup. Or a Mitt Romney, so much more elevated than his 47 percent of “takers.”

Continue reading “Trump Against the Pussycons”

Diversity Worth Having

Diversity worth having presupposes a principle of unity that controls the diversity. Diversity must be checked and balanced by the competing value of unity, a value with an equal claim on our respect.

Example. One language only in the public sphere makes possible many voices to be heard and understood by all. To communicate our differences we need a common language.

Talking with one another is preferable to shooting at each other. Polyglot 'cultures' are more conducive to shooting than to talking.

Trumpian Propositions

From a reader:

a. If Trump is the nominee, the Republicans will win the election.
b. If Trump is the nominee, the Republicans will not win the election.
c. If Trump is not the nominee, the Republicans will win the election.
d. If Trump is not the nominee, the Republicans will not win the election.

I think (a) could be true, but you think it's false. You think (b) and (c) are true.

Anyway, some dismal grist for your blog.

Grist for the mill; blog fodder for the Bill.

I agree that (a) could be true. That is an epistemic use of 'could.' It means that the Republicans' winning is consistent with what we know. I don't say that (a) is false. What I say is that the Republicans' losing is also consistent with what we know. We don't know much. We are just thinking up scenarios and guessing at probabilities.

It could go like this. Trump 'inspires' people to vote in the general who usually don't. (He already has in the primaries and caucuses.) We all know people like this. They typically maintain, falsely of course, that there is no difference between the two major parties; it's Tweedledum and Tweedledee. If Trump gets enough of these types to emerge from their hills and hollows to vote for him, then he could conceivably beat the despicable Hillary. The latter, after all, is not that popular due to her mendacity, her lack of principles, and her merely personal ambition. And Trump's thuggishness has unmistakable populist appeal.

Or it could go like this. The uncouth Trump keeps up the demonstration of his lack of gravitas and his general unfitness for high office and large numbers of conservatives become disgusted enough to refuse to vote for him. A small subset of these will take it a step further and vote for Hillary. The opposition of conservatives, Democrats, and the groups he offends such as women, Hispanics, and Muslims will then seal his fate.

How will it go? Nobody knows.

I don't maintain (b) or (c). My reader needs to be more of a reader and less of a projecter.

Whoever gets the Republican nod, you must vote for that person. If it's Trump, then you must vote for Trump. And this despite the manifest negatives that his star-struck cult followers cannot bring themselves to admit. I won't repeat the litany. You know it by now if you have been paying attention. But I will mention something he did during last night's debate that really ought to be a nail in the scumbag's coffin: he made a reference to his penis. Horribile dictu.

And you think this guy is worthy of the presidency?

There is also a serious question whether the guy is serious or just playing us all for fools. He knows the presidency is in reach. If he is serious about attaining it, why would he engage in vile antics that he knows will undermine him? Either he is not serious or he has atrocious judgment. Either way he is unfit for the presidency.

But despite his manifest unfitness, you must support him if he gets the nod. For there is one who is more unfit. You must roll the dice! Why? Because we know what Hillary will do, while we do not know what Trump will do. He might actually do something worthwhile.

Don't forget: the coming election will not only determine who will be president but will also affect the composition of the Supreme Court. We are at a tipping point.

…………………………..

D. G. comments:

Another possibility, perhaps – he is serious, and his judgment is perfect as to the character of a large portion of the American people. He knows what they like. The miserable truth is that he may be correct in his judgment.

Mizzou and Public Spaces: The Right to Photograph

This from reader J.J.C.:

I'm sure you've heard a lot about the Mizzou [University of Missouri] protests so I'll spare you the details. But one particular debate caught my eye. Some of these student protesters claimed that the press has no right to photograph them because to do such is an intrusion on their privacy (obviously the press has a legal right to do such). Some people respond by saying that since Mizzou is a public space (it's a public university) you have no right to privacy in public spaces. But of course you still have some right to privacy in public areas (the right not to have your person searched without a warrant, the right to use a bathroom without people watching, etc.) So what are the moral grounds (as opposed to the legal grounds) for saying that the press should have unrestricted access to photograph things in plain view in public spaces?

Protests and demonstrations occur in public, and for good reason: the whole point is to make public one's concerns. So there is something deeply paradoxical about protesters who object to being photographed or televised. It is paradoxical to go public with one's protest and then object to reporters and other people who give you publicity. It is incoherent to suppose that a space in which one is noisily protesting and perhaps disrupting normal goings-on can be a 'safe space' into which the public at large cannot intrude, even at a distance, with cameras and such.

Paradox and incoherence aside, the protesters have no moral right not to be photographed given that they have occupied and disturbed the peace of public spaces. Does the press have the unrestricted moral right to photograph things in plain view in public spaces? No, not an unrestricted right. But surely they have the right to photograph what is in plain view in a public place if the ones photographed are protesting or demonstrating whether peacefully or violently.

Suppose a couple are enjoying a tête-à-tête under a tree in the quad. Does a roving photog have the moral right to snap a photo? I say No. He has a moral obligation not to do such a thing without permission. So I would say that is not just a question of good manners, but a question of morality.

The True Gentleman

Here, via Volokh:

The True Gentleman is the man whose conduct proceeds from good will and an acute sense of propriety, and whose self-control is equal to all emergencies; who does not make the poor man conscious of his poverty, the obscure man of his obscurity, or any man of his inferiority or deformity; who is himself humbled if necessity compels him to humble another; who does not flatter wealth, cringe before power, or boast of his own possessions or achievements; who speaks with frankness but always with sincerity and sympathy; whose deed follows his word; who thinks of the rights and feelings of others, rather than his own; and who appears well in any company, a man with whom honor is sacred and virtue safe.
– John Walter Wayland

Leftists and Civility

The Right has not cornered the market on civility, not by a long shot. But in my experience, liberals and leftists are worse in the civility department than conservatives. If you don’t agree with me on this, then this post is not for you. To try to prove my assertion to libs and lefties would be like trying to prove to them that such major media outlets as the New York Times tilt leftward. To achieve either goal, I would have to possess the longevity of a Methuselah, the energy of a Hercules, and the dogged persistence of a Sisyphus – and I still would not succeed.

So, given that conservatives are more civil than libs and lefties, why is this the case? One guess is that conservatives, for whom there is a defeasible presumption in favor of traditional ways of doing things, are more civil due to a natural piety with respect to received modes of human interaction. Civility works, and conservatives are chary about discarding what works. They were brought up to be civil by parents and teacher who were themselves civil, and they see no reason to reject as phony or ‘precious’ something that is conducive to good living. They understand that since we live in a world of appearances, a certain amount of concern with them is reasonable. They also understand that by faking it a bit, one brings oneself to actually feel the emotions that one began by faking. For example, by saying ‘Good Morning’ when I don’t quite feel like it, I contribute to my own perception of the morning as good.

But leftists, many of whom are of a rebellious and adolescent cast of mind, have a problem with what they perceive to be phoniness. They are always out to unmask things, to cut through the false consciousness and the bourgeois ideology. Connected with this hatred of phoniness is a keen sensitivity to hypocrisy. So when Bill (William J.) Bennett was caught wasting money on the slot machines in Las Vegas a while back, the libs and lefties pounced and denounced: "Hypocrite!" they cried.

So pouncing and denouncing, they proved that they do not know what hypocrisy is. Although Mr. Bennett’s behavior was suboptimal, it was neither illegal nor immoral: he’s got the dough to blow if that’s his pleasure. Given his considerable accomplishments, is he not entitled to a bit of R & R?

A hypocrite is not someone who is morally perfect or who fails to engage in supererogatory acts. Nor is a hypocrite one who preaches high ideals but falls short. Otherwise, we would all be hypocrites. For if everyone is, then no one is. A hypocrite is someone who preaches high ideals but makes no attempt at living up to them. The difference is between failing to do what one believes one ought to do and not even trying to do what one says one ought to do.

The leftist obsession with perceived phoniness and perceived hypocrisy stems from an innate hatred of moral judgment, a hatred which itself seems fueled by a confusion of moral judgment with judgmentalism.

So perhaps the answer is this. Leftists are less civil than conservatives because they do not see civility as a value. They don't see it as a value because it smacks of a bourgeois moral ideology that to them is nothing but a sham. Adroit unmaskers and psychologizers that they are, incapable of taking things at face value, they think that none of us who preach civility’s value really believe what we are preaching. It really has to be something else, just as the desire for democracy in Iraq really has to be something else: a desire for economic and military hegemony.