In this week’s Creative Loafing, Cliff Bostock ruminates on the concept of “civil discourse.” I’m using snark quotes there because his point is basically that while a lot of people pay a lot of lip service to the idea, it doesn’t actually happen very much.
Being an eternal optimist, I’m confident that civil discourse is possible - but only if those of us who are interested in it put our collective foot down and refuse to tolerate abuse, hate speech, threats, silencing, and other such bullshit that most certainly does not fall under the umbrella of Free Speech.
Further, this means wishy-washy assholes like Kos who’re showing their true colors in light of the recent discussions about online bullying and such, should continue to be called on their bullshit.
Civil discourse does not preclude disagreement, emotion, and anger. Nor does it mean never dropping F-bombs or constantly being that saccharine, passive-aggressive version of “nice.” It doesn’t mean never calling someone an asshole; if they’re behaving like an asshole, they should be told as much. What it means is not threatening people; not silencing people; not mistaking ad hominem attacks for “debate;” giving people the benefit of the doubt if they haven’t been behaving like overgrown 2-year-olds; and remembering, first and foremost, that behind the words on the screen is a person with feelings.
Frankly I don’t think we can accomplish this goal by letting bullies walk all over us. Trying to take the high road and ignore their childish antics is fine, so long as the actions/words in question are merely childish antics. When it gets to the point of completely derailing conversation, trying to take over someone else’s space - and certainly when it gets to the level of threats - silence is not sufficient.
The word “threat” here refers to threats of physical violence as well as threats of blackmail - e.g., “If you don’t do what I want you to do, I will reveal personal information about you that could result in potential harm (e.g., loss of a job) to you and your family.”
So, getting back to Cliff Bostock’s column… What spurred me to write about this particular approach on Take Back the Blog! day was this:
I have learned that the only thing bigots understand is being treated with the contempt they treat others.
It makes sense, because really, why try to be reasonable and rational with a person who has proven to be neither reasonable nor rational?
And I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that an important thing to keep in mind, of course, is being mindful of the line between putting the assholes in their place, and not expending too much energy on them. This is a line that I think all of us are constantly redrawing, and we should feel free to approach one another about where that line should be. I, for one, refuse to let would-be abusers keep me from living my life and being the change I seek in the world.
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