This big op-ed in yesterday’s NYT, which I read on the plane (on real paper!), is one of the worst op-eds from the Left I’ve ever seen in the Paper of Record. It should be much better given Roxane Gay‘s training and background, which Wikipedia describes this way:
Roxane Gay (born October 15, 1974) is an American writer, professor, editor, and social commentator. Gay is the author of The New York Times best-selling essay collection Bad Feminist (2014), as well as the short story collection Ayiti (2011), the novel An Untamed State (2014), the short story collection Difficult Women (2017), and the memoir Hunger (2017).
Gay is the Gloria Steinem Endowed Chair in Media, Culture and Feminist Studies at Rutgers University.
Of course the headline attracted me because I always ask readers to be “civil”, and by that I simply mean address and dismantle arguments, not people. No name-calling. Be courteious, but by all means muster up as much passion as you want.
In this piece, which you can read by clicking below or finding it archived here, Gay makes the mistake of repeatedly conflating “civility” with “absence of passion” and, in fact, also with “agreeing with Republican/Trumpy policy.” In the end, she equates civility with bigotry!
I’ll first mention what I see as “civility” in a discussion, which is one of the definitions given in the Oxford English Dictionary:
Behaviour or speech appropriate to civil interactions; politeness, courtesy, consideration. In later use frequently with negative overtones: the minimum degree of courtesy required in a social situation; absence of rudeness.
“Absence of rudeness, courtesy, and politeness” pretty much sums up what I mean by “civility”, and what I like to see in the comments. Yes, we all slip sometimes, but being rude and impolite, all things equal, is not going to help you convince somebody else. And, by and large, the readers here are civil, and I’m proud of that.
I’m not sure why Roxane Gay thinks that civility isn’t a virtue, but she surely does. I’ll give some excerpts below.
Gay somehow thinks that civility is a fantasy because people who push “civility” are often Republicans now (i.e., fans of Charlie Kirk), or they are bigots and think that being civil justifies bigotry. A few quotes:
Civility is the mode of engagement that is often demanded in political discourse; it is the price of admission to important political conversation, its adherents would have us believe; no civility, no service. But civility — this idea that there is a perfect, polite way to communicate about sociopolitical differences — is a fantasy.
The people who call for civility harbor the belief that we can contend with challenging ideas, and we can be open to changing our minds, and we can be well mannered even in the face of significant differences. For such an atmosphere to exist, we would have to forget everything that makes us who we are. We would have to believe, despite so much evidence to the contrary, that the world is a fair and just place. And we would have to have nothing at stake.
In the fantasy of civility, if we are polite about our disagreements, we are practicing politics the right way. If we are polite when we express bigotry, we are performing respectability for people whom we do not actually respect and who, in return, do not respect us. The performance is the only thing that matters.
Civility obsessives love a silver-tongued devil, wearing a nice suit, sporting a tidy haircut, while whispering sweet bigotries. The conservatives among them push for marginalized people to lose their rights and freedoms and, sometimes, even risk their lives. They will tolerate a protest but only if you congregate in an orderly fashion, for culturally sanctioned causes, and if you don’t raise your voice or express anger or overstay your welcome.
Gay might just as well have said “civility” is the same as “bigotry” or “a love of Trump.” But who among us conflates the words that way? And so she defines its opposite, “incivility,” as “being passionate about good liberal views. But you can be passionate without being rude. Why doesn’t she see that? (I’ll give a good example shortly):
Within this framework, incivility is refusing to surrender to hatred, refusing to smile politely at someone who doesn’t consider you their equal, refusing to carve away the seemingly unpalatable parts of yourself until there is nothing left. To be uncivil means pointing out hypocrisies and misinformation. It means accurately acknowledging what people have said, with ample documentation and holding them accountable for their words and deeds.
It means protesting injustice while recognizing that protest isn’t supposed to be demure or mindful. It means exercising one’s constitutionally protected right to free speech. It means believing in science and factual information and public education and other such heretical ideas. Civility is a cage that we’re supposed to lock ourselves into and then we are expected to be grateful for our incarceration.
And the notion of two groups— civil and not — is predicated on the idea that we’re all playing by the same rules, and we’re standing on equal footing, untroubled by the inequities and bigotries of the world. As I said, civility is a fantasy, because our political discourse never happens in a vacuum. It happens in the beautiful mess of the real world. It is naïve, at best, to believe civility is more important than who we are, what we stand for and how.
Politeness and courtesy are things that should be afforded anyone, even one’s enemies, though I grant it’s often hard to maintain such a demeanor these troubled times. But what do you have to gain by being rude except blowing off steam? Or does Gay somehow construe “uncivil” in a new way? At any rate, for her, ‘incivility” equates to “protest against Trumpism”, and thus is a virtue:
Within this framework, incivility is refusing to surrender to hatred, refusing to smile politely at someone who doesn’t consider you their equal, refusing to carve away the seemingly unpalatable parts of yourself until there is nothing left. To be uncivil means pointing out hypocrisies and misinformation. It means accurately acknowledging what people have said, with ample documentation and holding them accountable for their words and deeds.
It means protesting injustice while recognizing that protest isn’t supposed to be demure or mindful. It means exercising one’s constitutionally protected right to free speech. It means believing in science and factual information and public education and other such heretical ideas. Civility is a cage that we’re supposed to lock ourselves into and then we are expected to be grateful for our incarceration.
And it’s clear her opponent is not civility, but Republicans and Trump. That’s fine with me, but why couch it all in “civility” terms?
Whatever political norms may have once existed have been shattered time and time again since the beginning of the second Trump presidency. In this new abnormal, we can only gape, with incredulity, at the many ways in which our democracy is being torn asunder — the undue influence of billionaires, the dismantling of vital government programs, the relentless pursuit of undocumented immigrants and ensuing incarceration in inhumane facilities and an ever-growing list of other, uniquely American horrors. But to speak these truths is uncivil, impolite, un-American. To speak these truths means you are one of them, outside the protection of the leaders of this country.
Well, I don’t speaking these truths means that you’re uncivil or impolite, for you can speak them with passion but also without name-calling, calls for death, and so on. Gay adds other insupportable statement, at least according to the definition of “civility” I see around me and try to employ here:
And the notion of two groups— civil and not — is predicated on the idea that we’re all playing by the same rules, and we’re standing on equal footing, untroubled by the inequities and bigotries of the world. As I said, civility is a fantasy, because our political discourse never happens in a vacuum. It happens in the beautiful mess of the real world. It is naïve, at best, to believe civility is more important than who we are, what we stand for and how.
She even equates incivility with resistance to the Jim Crow south by protestors in the Sixties. What she means, though, is not “civility” but ‘nonviolence,” something completely different. The lunch counter sit-ins, in which black had ketchup and coffee dumped on their heads, were examples of both civility on the part of the protestors (and incivility on the part of white bigots), but also of nonviolence and moral passion. It’s a mystery to me why Gay bangs on about the Civil Rights movement as some sort of evidence against the efficacy of civility. In fact, I think that nonviolence and civility go hand and hand, and, at that time, was a good strategy: one that ultimately gained black people their rights. But Gay emits this nonsense:
Nonviolence didn’t mean passivity. It was a strategy, intended to reveal the brutal contrast between the tactics of the oppressor and the experiences of the oppressed. Nonviolent, civil protest was met with rank incivility, which is to say that the hypocritical way in which we presently understand civility and incivility is nothing new.
Calling for civility is about exerting power. It is a way of reminding the powerless that they exist at the will of those in power and should act accordingly. It is a demand for control.
Civility is wielded as a cudgel to further clarify the differences between “us” and “them.” It is the demand of people with thin skin who don’t want their delicate egos and impoverished ideas challenged. And it is a tool of fearful leaders, clinging to power with desperate, sweaty hands, thrilled at the ways they are forcing people, corporations and even other nations to bend to their will but terrified at what will happen when it all slips away.
This is balderdash. Maybe conservatives calling for people to lionize Charlie Kirk, and extol his “civility”, are trying to wield poer, but we’ve seen plenty of argument about how, while Kirk may have been civil, that could have been a schtick or a ruse. But what kind of ruse? Perhaps he wouldn’t change his mind about much, but he would always be polite. Was that a bad thing?
In the end, I get the feeling that the whole column stems from Gay being somewhat unhinged about Trump—unhinged to the point where she writes a whole essay to argue that a word that means one thing actually means another. I have bolded the first sentence as it makes no sense to me:
As a writer, as a person, I do not know how to live and write and thrive in a world where working for decency and fairness and equity can be seen as incivility, where it can result in threats on my life, or those of my family; where I worry about a rogue Supreme Court trying to legally nullify my marriage; where I worry about my neighbors and community who are vulnerable to unchecked power. I worry and I worry and I worry and I feel helpless and angry and tired but also recognize that doing nothing is not an acceptable choice.
Every single day I read the news, and I can hardly process it all. I keep wondering when we will reach a cultural breaking point, when finally the Trump administration will go far enough to shove us out of the comforts of our day-to-day lives. I look at our elected leaders, especially the Democratic ones, and hardly recognize them. I’ve written, many times, about how no one is coming to save us, but I never imagined that our leaders would agree, that they would comply with so much in advance, that they would rely as a political strategy more on embracing conservative policies than on standing up for progressive ones.
Of course Gay is a “progressive,” which is fine, but has she been called “uncivil”? When she gets threats on her life, do they say she should be killed because she’s uncivil? Who ever said she should do nothing about the politics that upset her because doing something is “uncivil.” (Note that she seems to be angry at the Democrats who aren’t opposing Trump strongly enough. That anger is perhaps what will make her reach the breaking point.)
I surely agree with Gay’s politics far more than I agree with Trump’s. And I admire those who, in the face of a country going downhill fast, are working hard to stop the slide, futile though their actions may be. But you don’t stop the slide by simply changing the meaning or words. Indeed, semantic change seems to be one way that “progressives” think they can win political victories. It is one of the main tactics of wokeness (three examples: “violence”, “woman”, and “equity”, with the latter once meaning “fairness” or “impartiality”).
For a living example of how civility can go hand in hand with passion, and even change people’s minds, I give you Natasha Hausdorff, legal director of the UK Lawyers for Israel. Below she’s being rudely interrogated about Israel by members of the House of Commons. She’s deeply passionate about Israel, but you will see or hear no incivility in her words or demeanor. You don’t have to listen to the whole thing, but pick almost any ten-minute segment to see what I mean. You may not agree with Hausdorff, but you have to admit that she’s civil in the face of hostile opinion. She is what Roxane Gay thinks of as a human oxymoron.
Nothing to add from me.
I read this piece by James Lindsay last week, and I think it addresses the problem with Gay’s ideas: “No, the Woke Won’t Debate You. Here’s Why.” Call them what you will—Progressives, Woke, Communists, Neo-Marxists—they all believe fundamentally that Western Civilization is structured from top to bottom to oppress them.
🎯
So what is their alternative to civil discussion and public debate?
“Civil” to me is basically this:
a) Giving all parties a chance to speak
b) Not engaging in ad-hominem attacks on the speaker or threatening them physically
As long as you are interrogating someone’s IDEAS, go ahead and use salty language and even ridicule. This is exactly what Richard Dawkins did in The God Delusion.
Another example, if you are a socialist, and want to describe capitalism as “a deeply flawed, oppressive and ultimately stupid way of running an economy…” then go right ahead! As long as you have evidence for your position, I’m all ears.
But it is obvious that today, many on the Left violate both a) and b) with impunity. A) is often violated by hecklers disrupting speakers at college campuses, or even pushing to have such speakers “disinvited” before the event even occurs. And attacking people personally with no thought given to actually rebutting their points seems to be the default mode of engagement for people on the left…leading down a slippery slope to physical attacks.
Re providing evidence for one’s position, progressives seem to be not only uninterested in evidence, but view it as part of the oppressive racist xxx-phobic white heteronormative … … power structure. Asking for evidence is a violent act.
It’s often a matter of context. “The woke” might not sensibly debate you in a tense situation, e.g. a public one, maybe when their friends and comrades-in-arms are present. But in my experience, if you get them one on one in a calm situation, over coffee or a pizza, and if you engage rather than attack, they’ll discuss things with you.
The vast majority of them are, after all, not monsters, and are actually genuinely interested in justice and concerned for the poor and downtrodden, which can serve as a basis for reasonable dialogue.
Well, I do think that many of them, especially the non-professional ones, have bought into the message without understanding the context or the implications.
To Ms. Gay and her friends we are just dead branches in the garden, and one does not water the dead branches.
“I worry and I worry and I worry and I feel helpless and angry and tired but also recognize that doing nothing is not an acceptable choice.”
Someone needs to check on her meds and get back to her Sophomore studies. Is that a taste of the discourse she likes?
Re. “Politeness and courtesy are things that should be afforded anyone, even one’s enemies …”
But I think instead of “enemies” here you mean simply “those with a different opinion” or our “ideological opponents”.
Isn’t “enemies” properly used in reference to those with whom we can no longer debate and whom we want to or are forced to fight physically or militarily? Those whom we in fact no longer afford politeness and civility?
friend/enemy distinction
Carl Schmitt developed this component as a political strategy in The Concept of the Political (1932).
Roxane Gay’s piece therefore is creating conditions to produce the friend/enemy distinction.
But I doubt it was PCC(E)’s intent to adopt her stance.
Hoo boy – I made an error – Small tech note, I get it – I do this too : but I try to put a name next to quotes, otherwise I assume it’s the article. Sometimes I’m too hasty.
So yes – I thought that was Gay’s quote, but this seems consistent anyway with my humble opinion, which is mine, which is that Roxane Gay knows exactly what she’s doing – drawing the reader’s thought into a friend/enemy categorization on purpose.
I.e. it is manipulative. And I hold no one to blame for that.
Civility is especially important when dealing with one’s enemies or potential enemies. It’s called “diplomacy”, one of the (few?) professional activities in which hypocrisy is a cardinal virtue; don’t leave home without it.
Roxane Gay doesn’t like civility? Ok, so Roxane; I think you are a deeply stupid, arrogant and ignorant piece of human shit who doesn’t deserve a minute more of my attention. Into the toilet you go; on permanent ignore.
+100
I love to argue passionately, Irish heritage runs strong. The more passionate I get, the more closed my mind becomes to any other perspectives and the more I want others to be convinced of the correctness of my point of view. Fun while it lasts, for me anyway, but very off putting to others who are not so convinced. It’s only when my adrenaline dissipates that I can begin to think respectfully of the points others have raised. And I only learn something new when that adrenaline is gone. Folks who don’t need to or want to learn and who don’t give a rip about relationships, can forego civility. It hasn’t been a winning strategy for me but being passionate and sure of my point of view can be a lot more fun while the arguments rage around me.
Sorry to be argumentative, but where is the evidence that the Irish are particularly passionate about arguments compared to other groups? I often wonder how true these ethnic stereotypes are, and whether people are simply using them as cover for boorish behavior.
“Wow, that Fred sure was drunk and belligerent at the party!”
“Oh that’s okay, his paternal great-grandfather was Irish. You know them Irish, right!”
“Oh, ok all good then. But what about Lisa, she kept going on and on about selling me timeshares. It was obnoxious.”
“Yeah but her 3rd cousin is from Latvia. You know those Latvians and their timeshares right….”
My entire thesis is evidence free Jeff. Just my experience. I grew up with an Irish-American mother who was a firecracker waiting to explode and remember a supposed Irish saying of “Is this a private argument/fight or can anyone join in?” Liked it so adopted it as true.
My experience is not dissimilar, but the Scots are stereotypically more canny¹ 🙂. I have found the martial art Passhibuaguresshibu to be an effective means of controlling my temper while still taking no prisoners. I’m not fully proficient, so I sometimes do lose my shit, which I usually later regret.
. . . . .
¹ A.k.a devious
Playing bridge and walking around a small lake were my workarounds Barbara. One for competition, the other for relaxation. Needed both since my Irish is much stronger than my canny Scots. 😉
Roxane Gay seems to think that “civility” means not disagreeing with someone or not criticising them. She’s utterly wrong on that (though this idea is widespread in woke thought, for example disagreeing that a “trans women” is a women is, to them, the height of incivility).
Gay seems to be just another out-of-her-depth DEI hire, appointed for ticking identity boxes rather than the quality of her ideas.
Ms. Gay writes, “But to speak these truths is uncivil, impolite, un-American,” all rather civilly. She undermines her own argument with… civility. I think she’s deeply confused.
She’ll probably be on Amanpour & Co. tonight. These are the people the left is swooning over. We’re sunk.
“The time for action has passed; now is the time for senseless bickering”
(a riff on Churchill).
“The people who call for civility harbor the belief that we can contend with challenging ideas, and we can be open to changing our minds, and we can be well mannered even in the face of significant differences.”
Yes. And we should be able to contend with challenging ideas. We should be open to changing our minds. Those are good things, Roxanne.
“For such an atmosphere to exist, we would have to forget everything that makes us who we are.”
You should not be confusing your beliefs with “who you are.”
“We would have to believe, despite so much evidence to the contrary, that the world is a fair and just place.”
Not at all.
“It is the demand of people with thin skin who don’t want their delicate egos and impoverished ideas challenged.”
Ms Gay is indulging in projection here. On the one hand, “The people who call for civility harbor the belief that we can contend with challenging ideas”. As she opposes civility, I presume she cannot contend with ideas that challenge her own.
“…refusing to surrender to hatred, refusing to smile politely at someone who doesn’t consider you their equal.”
This is a big problem, right here: the assumption, by so many on the left, that Republicans/conservatives are all motivated by hatred, that everyone who opposes DEI is a White Supremacist, that everyone who opposes gender identity ideology hates “trans” people and wants them dead, that the United States is on the brink of Fascism (or already there).
If you think that way, then of course calls for civility will seem hollow, because you perceive yourself to be at war with half the citizens of your own country. Your very life is at stake! Red Alert!
Catastrophism is a propaganda technique that works. Anybody who’s ever donated to a political party, candidate, or rights organization has received messages saying that the world and everything good in it is on the verge of collapse if we don’t DO SOMETHING (usually meaning, “donate,”) RIGHT NOW. As a way of living, it’s a sign of neuroticism. As a political strategy, it amounts to crying “wolf!” every time you see a puppy, and in the long run it’s bound to lose.
Excellent comment Lady M.
[pressing the “Like” button]
Amen Sister.
It appears as though she thinks that civility will not allow her to achieve the goals for which she is advocating. Maybe she thinks that people in power won’t change if she is civil, that they can just politely listen and then go on as before. She seems to imply that the behaviors of those in power can only be changed by something other than civility, something more. Or maybe she means something less.
So now it should be out there if you are having a verbal discourse with Ms Gay try to be uncivil, it’s what she wants and especially if you really mean what you say. 😏
Civility it seems to her is a sign of weakness, of submission? but of course it is order, a comprehension, validity of your argument thus far, coolness, ability to listen.
We don’t have a lot of that to spare these days and that applies to anywhere on the damn planet! eh, was that uncivil hmm…
Nah, this is uncivil:
Just look at her headshot. The eye-rolling smirk should be accompanied by copious drool; maybe it’s been Photoshopped.
I hesitated to mention that — it’s a nice way to get in trouble these days, particularly with people like Gay, by mentioning anything at all about the way a person looks — but the very shot itself seems inherently unserious to me.
I guess she thinks that if you agree with her you’ll think it’s cool, since presumably it is mostly intended to (uncivilly) dismiss with an eye roll all of the awful people who might be misguided or irredeemably evil enough to disagree with her. You’ve been preemptively mocked.
Or maybe that’s overthinking it. To me, in the end, it’s like she doesn’t even take herself seriously. Really, she just looks like a goofball.
Someday I’ll overstep and land head-first in the shit. But IMO this lightweight would not be reckless enough to bring a defamation suit — the discovery process would humiliate her. And I expect there are some NGOs that would help fund my (our 🙂) legal costs. I don’t particularly go looking for trouble, but I also don’t cross the metaphorical street to avoid it. Bullies, somewhat like dogs, can sense fear, and also the lack thereof. I despise bullies.
If I’ve badly misjudged this, stay tuned for the GoFundMe appeal….
The simplest explanation for this execrable essay is that Roxanne Gay isn’t very smart.
Ultimately, an Op-Ed, book, movie, or music album review is one person’s opinion.
These people in day-to-day ‘polite society’: The feminist who takes offence at a man holding a door for her. The black speaker who won’t take questions from whites in the audience. The indigenous woman who deliberately stares through you rather than acknowledge a hello.
Acknowledging another individual as an equal or as a neighbour or just as a human being with his or her own legitimate concerns is asking too much of them? Do they ever learn to trust others or to put themselves in another’s shoes — which actually takes a certain amount of imagination and maturity. Eg, John Rawls’ ‘veil of ignorance’ and its Enlightenment antecedents don’t come naturally.
But withholding civility only alienates others and sets up a cycle which closes off any possibility of improvement.
“… withholding civility only alienates others …”
I have a quote for that :
“It is now time to lay hold of the positive aspects of the Hegelian dialectic within the realm of estrangement.
(a) Annulling as an objective movement of retracting the alienation into self.”
See
Karl Marx
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 for more about how alienation is a central aspect of Marxism.
This quote broke my word-salad meter. I can read the words, and the grammar looks OK, but WTF?
Plus, it completely fails to objectify the material hermeneutics of the praxis.
I asked GPT-5 for a translation into simple English. Its head didn’t explode, but the best it could do is:
Less salad, but still, WTF? I am not interested in examining (b)…(z), much less the less “useful parts”.
Private property is human self-estrangement, to Marx. Positive transcendence of private property returns man to his true social self.
IMHO that has a lot to do with alienation as a condition for Revolution.
See the same book – I paraphrased.
To quote someone who actually makes sense, the economist J K Galbraith wrote, “Wealth is not without its advantages, and the case to the contrary, although it has often been made, has never proved widely persuasive”.
Word salad is an example of an exceedingly civil way to explain the quote. I still need a bit of salt before I can digest it.
Like I said, Passhibuaguresshibu.
Hái!
I recently had a discussion with someone who I think agreed with me on gender ideology, but insisted that using a trans-identified person’s “preferred pronouns” was a matter of basic respect dictated by the social contract. Failure to do so was not only rude, but cruel.
I argued that the social contract recognizes circumstances and context. The request for cross-sex pronouns (directly or by implication) isn’t an ordinary request, and in the middle of a heated cultural debate regarding the truth of whether or not men who identify as women actually are women, polite fictions are counterproductive. We lose the language to make our point. Being civil enough to respect people’s requests doesn’t extend to unreasonable requests. It shouldn’t be automatic.
My gentle disputant argued that, for most people, it was and should be. The way of the world is to ignore politics and law when having personal interactions. What was at stake then was cruelty vs basic humanity. There is no problem with saying “Ma’am, you need to use the Men’s room.” It leads nowhere but to gratitude for referring to them respectfully.
I don’t know. Perhaps my idea of respect, like Jerry’s idea of civility, is reduced to the fundamentals.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Do not call me him or he
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Or you’ll be R.I.P.
Sock it to you
Sock it to you
Sock it to you
Sock it to you
….
© 2025, no charge for noncommercial use, all other rights reserved.
Never use the wrong pronouns
While I’m gone
Never use the wrong pronouns, I’ll knock you down
All I’m askin’
Is for a little respect when you speak of me
(Just a little bit)
Or (just a little bit) (when you speak of me) (just a little bit)
Else
😀
I think your gentle disputant is mistaken, Sastra. S/he is confusing civility in discussion and debate with irresoluteness in compelling someone doing something wrong to stop doing it. In a debate, if the other side won’t be civil, you just carry on being civil for the benefit of the maybe persuadable audience (as the highly disciplined Ms Hausdorff does), abandon the debate, or resort to incivility yourself if you’re that way. What happens happens. By contrast, the only acceptable outcome after finding a man in a woman’s changing room is that he be induced somehow to leave and deterred from re-offending. “Look you. You need to use the men’s room,” is all anyone in authority (which could be a woman therein) needs to say. The Sir or Ma’am honorific is unnecessary, and is a bit of a guess anyway. You don’t know that he “prefers” “Ma’am.” If the interloper challenges, “Why? I’m a woman,” Authority responds, “No you’re not. You’re a man. Now put your hands behind your back so I can cuff you. You’re under arrest.” All the pronouns used here were second-person. No “uncivil” challenge to demanded third-person pronouns but still the facts were made clear. If the arresting officer wants to protect herself from any tut-tutting she can write up her arrest report referring to the dude as “subject” in all third-person references without using pronouns at all. “During the pre-arrest phase, subject removed subject’s erect penis from under the dress subject was wearing and taunted complainant and this Officer with it.” This must be Police Report-Writing 101 by now.
Where there might be a case for diplomacy would be if a man in makeup and a dress needed to be removed from a nightclub because intoxicated but wasn’t violating a women’s space. The bouncer might well choose to say, “Ma’am, you’ve had a bit too much to drink and I’m going to escort you out. We’ve called you an Uber but you’ll have to wait on the street outside.” This might, (as opposed to calling him “Sir”) avoid escalation which would require the bouncer to lay hands on him. The bouncer needs to remember that even if he calls him “Ma’am”, he is still dealing with a drunk man with male muscles and fists. Be ready for violence. Don’t expect female hostesses to eject “her”, you know, woman-to-woman like.
(No Edit button.)
The logical trap with “Ma’am you need to use the men’s room” is that it invites the response, “Why should I? You just acknowledged that I am a woman when you called me ‘Ma’am’“. This is why the activists set that trap.
If the woman calls 911 to complain there’s a transwoman in her change room, the dispatcher is going to respond, “Uh, isn’t that where they’re supposed to be?” “There’s a man in my change room!” is more likely to get an automatic response to a sexual assault in progress.
Roxanne Gay is a bright, talented writer capable of excellent craftsmanship and insight. This was a poor essay. When I read it, I thought she was taking civility and incivility and redefining the words into meaninglessness. She slps ans sldes about, losing clarity and focus. She needed a stronger editor on this one.
Congratulations on your display of remarkable civility.
In the last week or so, “The Thinking Atheist” (not to be confused with “The Friendly Atheist”) interviewed “The Science Communicator,” Dave Farina ( BA in chemistry, master’s in science communication), an apparent kindred spirit to Augustin Fuentes (examined in detail by our host) in that he denies the bimodal (gamete size/mobility) of biological sex. The title of the Thinking Atheist episode, “Dave Farina: The Scumbags I’ve Debunked,” is a portent of his dulcet-toned modus operandi in the below link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4j-REoGZmE
The apotheosis of civility, he directs his scathing, off-color name-calling at various people including Andrew Wakefield, the Discovery Institute and RFK Jr., but also especially and vehemently (not bearing quoting in this post – out of regard for civility) at Bill Maher regarding Maher’s Israel/Palestine and anti-Woke positions (min 30:00-32:40). With “just-so” claims uttered from Mount Olympus he is insultingly dismissive of Professors Dawkins-Coyne-Pinker collectively regarding their biological sex and anti-Woke positions, likening them to third graders and too old to learn anything new (min 40:30-47:30). (As if name-calling constitutes rational argument and evidence. Who is anyone to differ with Farina?)
Well, as Professor Dawkins noted on his website several years ago with a photographic montage of books written by his detractors, “Every dog has its fleas.”
A few days ago at my university an invited speaker described her research on the new practice of university instructors revealing to students some important and potentially stigmatizing personal traits (the instructor has a mental health disorder, or an addiction, or has a specific religious faith). The supposed benefit is increased feelings of belonging for students who share that trait and will feel they have a role model and will feel less stigmatized. (The project was focused on feelings, and there was no word on whether the practice actually helps students learn.)
The speaker’s research suggested that most instructors are reluctant to do this for many obvious reasons. Near the end of her seminar, she complained that it’s hard to change such aspects of academic culture, and noted that it will probably change only “one retirement at a time.” Similar to that metaphor that academics are “third graders and too old to learn anything new”. I took it a different way: that she was acknowledging that her data were probably not capable of changing the minds of her audience. I was surprised and disappointed (and a little bit insulted) – it was a weird way for the speaker to admit failure.
In medicine, and probably in the other regulated professions, this would be a gross boundary violation, subject to discipline if a patient (or a third party such as a nurse overhearing it), complained about it. The stony indocility on the part of her research subjects suggests, encouragingly, that professional boundaries are within the ken and common sense of laypeople* and don’t have to be inculcated. You were right to feel disappointed and insulted by her lack of insight.
(* I’m assuming that university professors don’t have professional teaching certificates and licences as for K-12; that’s why I’m calling them laypeople.)
Thanks! You’re right most professors at research universities have no professional teaching certification or licensing (and in most cases no professional training to teach). I think this is a good thing – we’re researchers who mentor and coach students toward knowledge and understanding of some specialized slice of reality, and we do it in whatever way seems best for that field of knowledge. Some university instructors who only teach disagree and think we all need retraining as teachers first, and as researchers second.
Instead of “laypeople” I prefer to call university professors “amateurs” in the old and true sense of the word (“one who loves”), which I learned from you right here at WEIT a couple months ago!
I’ve worked with quite a few professors who did not love their Teaching Load.
I’m of the view that the worst thing to have happened to education was its professionalization.
@jb maybe we agree but I think the worst thing to happen to education was Faculties of Education 🙁
Re most instructors being reluctant to reveal to students some important and potentially stigmatizing personal traits, for many obvious reasons —
(1) Did anyone remark that revealing (e.g.) that one is a Furry might indeed help paraphiliacs “feel less stigmatized”, but what about the other 98% of the class who feel like rushing for the exits?
(2) As with the once-common job interview question, “What is your biggest weakness”, just lie. It helps to prepare such a lie ahead of time so it seems more natural. The example I was given is “I lose my temper in traffic and SHOUT in the car”.
(3) What kind of sh_th_l_ university would even contemplate such a policy? (Please don’t name names; this is a rhetorical question.)
There, I fell much better now.
I recently saw a three panel meme made of stock photos of a woman in front of a panel of three, with speech balloons:
PANEL MEMBER: What’s your greatest weakness?
WOMAN: Honesty
PM: I don’t think that honesty is a weakness
WOMAN: I don’t give a shit what you think
Damn! I was told the interview was not being recorded.
(Stupid intrusive interview questions seem to have been par for the course, without regard to race, sex, age, or national origin.)
I’ve overcommented so briefly:
(1) The speaker works in Arizona and has many Christians in her classes. She said it’s not clear whether revealing a 2SLGBTQI++ (whew) identity helps gay students more than it turns off Christian students. She noted it’s nuanced. Best part of the seminar.
(2) The speaker emphasized not everyone should reveal these identities. It was implied that if everyone in a biology department did this then students might not know who to take seriously. Like that scene from Spartacus, “I’m trans!” “I’m trans!” “I am trans!”
(3) Lots of universities 🙁 Teaching dossiers include innovations like this, and are an important basis for promotion and salary advancement.
Being angry and argumentative against those with whom you disagree (and that is of course because they are wrong) is simply not a good strategy because the walls go right up. Gay is mainly giving in to expressing emotions and to putting on a performative show.
It’s ironic that this comes shortly after a WaPo post that Jerry had up about a former Muslim creationist. I don’t agree with the article on everything, but they had a good understanding about how expressions of disdain will backfire:
“Understanding these dynamics [those being the different worlds of secular science versus immersive but very family oriented religion] can illuminate the current quagmire of science and politics. When people of faith and political conservatives see their views mocked, dismissed or ostracized, they begin to see science not as a method but as a tribe they’re not a part of. And once science becomes just another tribe, its authority collapses.”
“Civility is a purple unicorn that farts rainbows. But a purple unicorn that farts rainbows is just a fantasy. This proves that civility is just a fantasy.”
I hope that I can recover from the diminution of my IQ that I suffered by reading the first few quoted paragraphs of Gay’s opinion piece. The stupid, it burns. But this is what results from an education founded on the idea that the only reality is power: a complete incapacity to grasp the idea, let alone participate in the practice, of rational disputation.
And, not that they’ve actually ever thought about it, how do The Marching Morons expect to retain that power?
The moron’s entire essay can be reduced to one line: Civility is just white supremacy, transphobia and Islamophobia, doncha know?
” …incivility is refusing to surrender to hatred, refusing to smile politely at someone who doesn’t consider you their equal, refusing to carve away the seemingly unpalatable parts of yourself until there is nothing left.” Gay neglects to mention (although it peeks out in the last clause) that incivility is also: striking a pose/self-congratulation. This was crashingly obvious ~7 years ago, when the heroic feat of staging a parade (to oppose Trump) was pompously titled “The Resistance”—as if all the Maquis did in Nazi-occupied France was to occasionally stage a parade.
You’re spot on, Jerry. This article is one of the most execrable opinion pieces I’ve ever read. Moreover, it’s so childish, ignorant and short-sighted that I don’t even think it needs to be rebutted. Practically anyone with brains and a bit of common sense can easily see she’s dead wrong and why that’s the case.
She talks about people being marginalised and repressed without acknowledging that it is her enormous privilege which allows her to broadcast such confrontational and objectionable positions. If it weren’t for certain of her characteristics, she would be denied the right to express such views without severe personal repercussions. But, due to her privilege, she is seen as virtuous and brave, even though all she is doing is acting like the people she hates most.
If I may be incivil myself for a moment, she seems to me to be a stupid, angry and arrogant woman. It’s evident she would rather vent her outrage and piss people off than drive real and lasting change. Why on Earth is she being given column inches?
She also moans that “no one will save us”. Who is us, and what do they need to be saved from??
“Where are we going? And why are we in this handbasket?”
Christopher Hitchens embodied what it was to be both civil and passionate, in my view. I don’t recall him ever demeaning his opponents in a debate, but he sure as hell ripped into their arguments and the hypocrisy of their beloved institutions. At times, they must have felt exceptionally uncomfortable under the heat of his rhetoric, or indignant, or even outraged. But he never made it personal.
Civil does not mean polite. Or nice. Or quiet.
You can be civil and still be a thorn in the side of those you’re fighting against.
Although at this point I hardly need add anything to the discussion, as pretty much all that needs to be said has been posted above, I cannot help also stating my opinion that this is one of the most pathetic and worthless pieces of trash I have read in in some time. If it is uncivil of me to say so, then so be it. Under the circumstances i am not too bothered.