The word “civility” has two very different meanings.
It’s been nearly a decade since I first started advocating for political civility, and I’ve received a lot of positive feedback over the years. Many people agree that this is something our country needs. But now and then, when I mention civility to friends, I sense skepticism—or even, occasionally, hostility.
Whether they say it or not, I know what some of my fellow progressives are thinking: “civility” too often translates to “niceness.” At some point, you have to let go of being nice to the other side, and that time is now—a climate-change-denying white nationalist is in the White House, and Republicans are still supporting him! It’s time to fight!
I hear you.
But I want to explain what I mean by civility. After years of thinking and reading about this word, I’ve come to realize it actually has two different meanings that are fundamentally opposites. I’m advocating for one meaning, but I don’t want to be misunderstood as advocating for the other.
In this endeavor, I often feel like quoting Inigo Montoya: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
(Or at least, I do not think you mean what I mean!)
“Civility” sometimes means tolerating injustice.
Lisa Woolfork, a professor at the University of Virginia who organizes with Black Lives Matter Charlottesville, describes the problem with one kind of civility in a 2018 piece on CNN.com. Naive white moderates, she writes, have at times prioritized civility over justice, and the results have been disastrous:
Last year, Charlottesville granted permits for men in Nazi uniforms and Klan robes to march in our streets. Charlottesville failed to prevent and then failed to prosecute men using lit torches to attack undergraduate students… And when community members respond in grief and rage…we are targeted with social pressure under the polite gaze of white moderates, with demands to simmer down and behave with “decorum,” a code word for complicity. They say they want peace and quiet, but they’ll settle for just quiet. Politeness and civility are the very actions that brought us here in the first place.
(Hers is the third piece down on this CNN page reflecting on Charlottesville a year after the violence there.)
She makes an excellent point. And Charlottesville is only a recent example—this same criticism has been leveled at white moderates for many decades. It was eloquently articulated by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in his 1963 “Letter from Birmingham Jail:”
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not…the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice…who constantly says, “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action…”
So I want to be abundantly clear. While I’m definitely advocating for one kind of civility, I agree that the other kind—tolerating hateful, oppressive, or violent propaganda for the purpose of keeping the peace—can be complicit, weak, and dangerous.
But, like I said, there are multiple meanings to “civility.”
The word is used differently in the modern civility movement.
Every month or so, I stumble across yet another civility organization. There are dozens of them popping up all over the country, especially since Trump was elected. They seem to blossom overnight like mushrooms, sometimes lasting for years, sometimes sinking back into the earth after just a short time.
When I had the idea to co-found my own civil-dialogue organization back in 2011, it felt like an earth-shattering and instantly compelling idea. And it was compelling…but I was far from the only one to have it. It turns out this lightbulb would go off for many others across the country too.
So when we formed Reach Out Wisconsin, we unknowingly joined a growing number of similar organizations promoting civil dialogue across political difference. Many of these groups still don’t know about each other—there’s even a whole category of civility groups that are working to connect all the groups! I’ve found at least three of that kind of umbrella organization.
This is a truly grassroots movement. It’s messy and disorganized and invigorating.
But among most of these organizations, there’s a typical use of the word “civility,” which is defined here by the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD):
By civility we do NOT mean politeness, decorum, agreement, bipartisanship, or unity. We think disagreement and debate are good things. We think America is well served when political parties represent different viewpoints and then compete vigorously to recruit voters to their side. Civility as we pursue it is the ability to disagree with others while respecting their sincerity and decency. (Emphasis added. Most of this definition was taken by NCDD from CivilPolitics.org, another civility-research organization.)
Why not try some new terms?
By the time I read that definition, it was already the one I’d been operating by for years. In fact, when I found it, I had already written my own version of it in this blog post, so that finding it forced me to go back and rewrite some of the post!
As is typical in a sprawling grassroots movement, I had reinvented a wheel I didn’t know was already invented.
This definition of civility doesn’t mean biting your tongue. In fact, I feel that by this definition, it may actually not be civil to bite your tongue when you disagree. Disagreeing with others is right there in the definition—we just care how we disagree when we do.
I think the confusion around “civility” comes from a basic language problem. We need two different words to convey its two meanings, but in English, we have only one. One solution I’ve found is to create my own terminology.
Why not distinguish between the passive civility Woolfork and King describe and the active civility for which I and others are advocating? These two forms of civility are fundamentally different, and maybe these different terms can help.
Passive Civility
Passive civility is the “bad kind”—tolerance for the sake of politeness. It arises from fear of conflict, and its goal is to end any conflict as quickly as possible. It asks people to stop communicating with each other in order to meet that goal.
With passive civility, conversation is reduced to safe topics or to silence. Because it cares only about ending conflict, and not about justice, it always preserves an unjust status quo. Changing the status quo takes time, effort, and tension. Passive civility abhors tension.
Passive civility is when you sense the other person might dislike what you have to say, so you stop yourself from saying it.
Passive civility doesn’t ask anything of us, except to simmer down and be quiet. It doesn’t challenge us, except to hold our tongues and continue tolerating whatever injustice may already be in place. And it allows us to rationalize our own cowardice in not speaking up. We can disguise our fear of conflict behind a curtain of politeness.
Active Civility
Active civility, on the other hand, is about speaking up. Rather than shutting down communication, active civility requires communicating. It’s about asserting our beliefs, which is the “active” part. It’s also about striving to see the humanity in the other side, which is the “civility” part.
It involves saying, at times, “You are wrong,” or even, “What you’re doing is evil.” But it also involves refraining from saying, “You are evil.”
Active civility is when you sense the other person might dislike what you have to say, so you say it as well and compassionately as you can. But you still say it.
Active civility has the potential to address injustice. If we don’t speak up when something seems wrong, then we may be tolerating injustice. That doesn’t seem civil to me: it’s uncivil to the people being wronged, whether or not they’re in the room. Active civility recognizes the importance of speaking up.
Dr. King’s Active Civility
In upcoming posts, I’ll write more about what active civility looks like in practice and why I think it’s a useful tool. (This will build on posts I wrote many years ago, for instance here.) In general, it means avoiding contempt and personal attacks while focusing on reasonable, heartfelt discussion of the issues. It also usually involves listening to the other side’s views and feelings, even if we utterly disagree with them or are offended by them.
There’s plenty of room in active civility for passion, anger, despair, and even heated argument. This isn’t about shutting off emotions in order to have a sterilized, “rational” discussion. It’s about constructively, honestly communicating—about facts and reason, but also about feelings and personal stories.
Rev. King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is a great example of active civility. He was writing in response to a group of white clergymen who had written an open letter urging local activists not to take part in civil rights demonstrations. Calling for “law and order and common sense,” they’d written that the demonstrations were “unwise and untimely.”
Although most (though not all) of the clergymen were genuinely committed to desegregation and other civil rights causes, they stressed going through the proper channels rather than breaking laws—however unjust those laws may be. “When rights are consistently denied,” they wrote, “a cause should be pressed in the courts and in negotiations among local leaders, and not in the streets.”
In a way, what they were calling for was passive civility. They wanted the cessation of public tension, the dissolution of the demonstrations’ energy and passion.
But meanwhile, King knew that tension was essential to his cause. “I must confess that I am not afraid of the word ‘tension,'” he wrote. “I have earnestly worked and preached against violent tension, but there is a type of constructive nonviolent tension that is necessary for growth.”
King’s letter is humble, respectful, and earnest. It’s also passionate, open-hearted, and at times angry. It firmly rejects the clergymen’s letter, providing thoughtful reasoning for that rejection. All of that is active civility.
Active civility is more challenging than passive civility.
Active civility is challenging in a different, more deep-down, more rigorous way. It involves opening space in ourselves for humility and expansion—for the tension that’s necessary for growth, as King said.
There’s a special tension that comes from revealing our beliefs to others, honestly relating our heartbreak and anger to them, and still listening to them even if we find their views deeply disturbing. Engaging in this kind of conversation takes courage.
I’m not saying I always get it right and stay civil, or that I’m particularly courageous and always manage to speak up for my beliefs. I’m just saying that when I advocate for civility, active civility is what I mean. It’s active civility that I strive for in my own life.
Too many people are confused about “civility.”
Although there are a plethora of civility organizations popping up all over the place, there are also a number of skeptics who’ve been railing against “civility” lately. Some of these, like Woolfork, are arguing against passive civility. But others seem to be vaguely ranting against the word itself, not realizing it has multiple meanings—and even advocating for active civility without realizing it.
For instance, in an NBC opinion piece, Evan Siegfried writes that “Calls for civility are self-serving and one-sided. We need to stop dehumanizing our political opponents.” Although his title bashes “civility,” his op-ed actually supports what the civility movement is advocating.
“It’s not about ‘civility,’” Siegfried writes. “It’s about recognizing that the people with whom we disagree are also human and deserving of being treated with decency.”
That is active civility—as long as we do express our disagreement.
I don’t advocate for civility because I’m uncomfortable with tension and want everyone to “just be nice.” I advocate for civility because I passionately believe that how we communicate matters. It impacts whether our message gets across, whether we’re truly heard, and thus whether we can make real progress as a country.
What I want isn’t niceness. It’s reflection, sincerity, passion, humility, and courage.
Well written – thanks!