On Civility

[HondurasKeiser]

In a thread about civility, can we be civil with each other? On a Christian forum, can we go beyond being merely civil with each other? Can we build on our common identity in Christ and our common belief in following what Jesus said and did?

This seems like special pleading. Who here is saying we can't be civil on this forum? Who here isn't being civil? Who says or writes as though we don't share a common identity in Christ. No one. You're hung up on the idea that many of us feel as though that in the wider culture liberals are less civil than conservatives. A brief perusal around the culture seems to confirm this and it feels like an exercise in belaboring the point to begin to list examples. Haidt's study also seems to confirm this. It's not possible for a conservative to find common ground let alone be civil with someone who thinks their views are based in hate and do violence to their identity. All of that is beside the point...here on MennoNet we generally conduct ourselves with civility; so to plead and imply that maybe we don't strikes me as unhelpful and an unnecessary distraction.

[Szdfan]

On Jonathan Haidt’s blog, he says the following about understanding Trump’s appeal:

I’d say the key to understanding Trump’s appeal is to look beyond values. We’re all accustomed to thinking about a range of conservative and progressive values, and Trump’s phenomenal success can’t be understood just by re-arranging values into a new recipe. The key is to be found in the work of political scientist Karen Stenner, whose research showed that there are three very different psychological types of people who have been supporting the Republican party since the 1980s: the “laissez faire” conservatives, who are not conservative at all, they are classical liberals who oppose government intervention in markets (like Rand Paul); the “status quo” conservatives, who are the classic Burkean conservatives, cautious about change, and highly responsible and conscientious (Jeb Bush and John Kasich); and the authoritarians, who are the most malleable or changeable depending on the political environment (Trump). In times of low moral threat, when they perceive that the country is relatively unified and the moral order is not being subverted, they are not particularly intolerant (Stenner finds). But, when they perceive that the moral order is falling apart, the country is losing its coherence and cohesiveness, diversity is rising, and our leadership seems (to them) to be suspect or not up to the needs of the hour, its as though a button is pushed on their forehead that says “in case of moral threat, lock down the borders, kick out those who are different, and punish those who are morally deviant.” So its not just rising immigration and diversity that has activated American authoritarians — it may be our rising political polarization itself, which has activated and energized a subset of the electorate that is now lionizing Trump as the first major candidate in a long time who has spoken to their fears and desires.

I think this post suggests the following:

1. Not all conservatives are the same. Haidt points to three psychological profiles as identified by Karen Stenner: “laissez faire,” “status quo” and “authoritarian.” In other words, conservatives are not monolithic.
2. Of the three types, Trump appeals most to the “authoritarians,” who during times of societal change and stress desire to “lock down the borders, kick out those who are different, and punish those who are morally deviant.”
3. While I think it’s possible for some types of liberals and the first two types of conservatives (“laissez faire” and “status quo”) to find some areas of common ground or at least respectful conversation, one of my takeaways from Haidt’s post is that it may not be able to find common ground with authoritarians. At least I’m not sure how to find common ground with people who wish to banish those who are different from them or punish those they’ve decided are morally deviant, especially when they determine that the “morally deviant” includes me.
4. For me, what Haidt describes here rings true. On both MennoNet and in real life, I’ve observed all three types of conversatives. While I’m able to have good conversations and relationships with many conservatives, I’m less successful with “activated authoritarians.”

I haven’t read Haidt’s book that was referenced in this thread. Based on what Haidt writes here about Trump, I suspect that Haidt’s views are more nuanced than is being presented here.

[temporal1]

jeremy,
don’t overlook this from Mr. Haidt:

One of the many ironies in this quotation is that it shows the inability of a theater critic
-who skillfully enters fantastical imaginary worlds for a living-
to imagine that Republicans act within a moral matrix that differs from his own.
Morality binds and blinds.

Let’s repeat Haidt again.
Haidt explains how conservatives can understand the aspect of liberals, but liberals cannot understand the aspect of conservatives:

The results were clear and consistent.
Moderates and conservatives were most accurate in their predictions, whether they were pretending to be liberals or conservatives. Liberals were the least accurate, especially those who described themselves as “very liberal.”
The biggest errors in the whole study came when liberals answered the Care and Fairness questions while pretending to be conservatives. When faced with questions such as “One of the worst things a person could do is hurt a defenseless animal” or ”Justice is the most important requirement for a society,” liberals assumed that conservatives would disagree.

This is interesting.
i try to imagine how these dynamics come about.

from personal observation over decades, what i sense is, conservatives tolerate a lot, ignore, maybe are too ambivalent .. pretty much, “live and let live, it’s a free country.”

conservatives falsely presume, libs will understand they are tolerating-compromising on things they do not agree with, but will allow, based on the “common understanding,” there will be mutual respect/reciprocation.

one important example was, “consenting adults.”
conservatives generally believed, ok, i do not believe in fornication, sodomy, etc., but - “between consenting adults,” along with, “who are they hurting?”

conservatives digest this as, “ok. we compromised. this was huge.” along with the really big error, “NOW THEY’LL BE HAPPY.”

no. they are not happy. (what??!)
unrest continues, margins continue to be pushed, battles won-lost. nobody’s happy.

(i see) conservatives contributing to the problems by ignoring, outside of God’s Will, there is no happiness on earth. trying to appease sin on earth with tolerance “looks good on paper,” but, results are in: No. Fail. Attempting to bypass God’s Will won’t work out.

eventually, conservatives are roused to the point of (protest). this causes waves.

for liberals, now accustomed to just doing whatever, not corrected, so believing “they are right,” become livid.

if Mr Haidt’s observations hold water, this might be part of why.

conservatives have listened, have compromised, have tolerated - while liberals experienced none of those things. they are not accustomed to listening to others. they are only in the habit of pushing their beliefs, eventually expecting to get their way. push-push-push. today, even their highest leaders call for thoughtless “resistance.” resistance for the sake of resisting.

funny, one of the earliest red flags i heard from obama to his supporters was, “be obsessive!” (what?) what does that mean? that does not sound healthy.

this is not preparation for either understanding, or communicating.

i have never attempted to express these thoughts before.
just things i’ve wondered about over the years.

yes. i am speaking in sweeping generalities, there are always exceptions.

however, generalities have a place. exceptions should not be the rule on every matter.
via ACLU, et al., we’ve come close to minority rule. it may be wise to step back from it.

[Josh]

I think part of Haidt’s point is that a healthy society avoids getting polarised that badly.

Unfortunately, the left decided to do things like forcing people to allow men in women’s locker rooms anytime they want to (which is the law in California), suing a cake baker for not printing a blasphemous message on a cake, putting a little pizza ship out of business for not wanting to cater a gay wedding, declaring that a country that is over 5% illegal immigrants needs to have even less control over immigration, and loudly shrieking that virtually any conservative is a racist, like they did to McCain and McCain voters in 2008.

That’s a great way to awaken the authoritarian streak in a lot of otherwise centrist people. Most people I know who voted for Trump voted for Obama in 2008. You may want to let that sink in for a while. (I phone banked for Obama in 2012. Let that sink in too.)

After telling conservatives for about a decade they are racist, anti-gay, and hate immigrants, I suspect a lot of them decided to quit caring what liberals think about them. And liberals also don’t care what conservatives think (although they haven’t in a long time).

As a Christian, the wickedness of the world being imposed on me isn’t personally that big of a deal; I’m more concerned with the lure of wealth and worldly entertainment than I am about men in women’s locker rooms, for example. At the same time, I respect and understand why conservatives feel marginalised and disrespected.

If you don’t like authoritarianism, read and re-read what I wrote above a few times and try to do so without becoming offended.

[Josh]

At least I’m not sure how to find common ground with people who wish to banish those who are different from them or punish those they’ve decided are morally deviant, especially when they determine that the “morally deviant” includes me.

Szdfan,

This is exactly how conservatives feel. Stop and consider how many conservatives in a typical large metro area and workplace have to pretend to be liberal to avoid losing their jobs or being socially ostracised.

How do we find common ground with each other?

[Szdfan]

At least I’m not sure how to find common ground with people who wish to banish those who are different from them or punish those they’ve decided are morally deviant, especially when they determine that the “morally deviant” includes me.

Szdfan,

This is exactly how conservatives feel. Stop and consider how many conservatives in a typical large metro area and workplace have to pretend to be liberal to avoid losing their jobs or being socially ostracised.

How do we find common ground with each other?

Oh, I recognize and understand that. I’m not saying that what you’re feeling isn’t real or understandable. I’m a liberal who lives in a rural, deeply conservative area. While Democrats did really well in Colorado in the last election, the only Democrat who won in my town and county was the coroner. And he ran unapposed. And is also a pharmacist. And is super popular. And is conservative.

I’m not saying your feelings aren’t real. I am saying that conservatives aren’t the only ones feeling them.

[Josh]

Oh, I recognize and understand that. I’m not saying that what you’re feeling isn’t real or understandable. I’m a liberal who lives in a rural, deeply conservative area. While Democrats did really well in Colorado in the last election, the only Democrat who won in my town and county was the coroner. And he ran unapposed. And is also a pharmacist. And is super popular. And is conservative.

I’m not saying your feelings aren’t real. I am saying that conservatives aren’t the only ones feeling them.

Part of Haidt’s point is that conservatives can understand people like you, but liberals can’t understand someone like me. (Consider how many times on MN my rhetoric has been compared to the Third Reich.)

That leaves us in a real quandary. What would you like us to do?

[Bootstrap]

...here on MennoNet we generally conduct ourselves with civility; so to plead and imply that maybe we don't strikes me as unhelpful and an unnecessary distraction.

You do, and most people do, and I really appreciate that.

In a thread about civility, can we be civil with each other? On a Christian forum, can we go beyond being merely civil with each other? Can we build on our common identity in Christ and our common belief in following what Jesus said and did?

This seems like special pleading. Who here is saying we can't be civil on this forum? Who here isn't being civil? Who says or writes as though we don't share a common identity in Christ. No one.

I don't think it's helpful to assign blame, but I do think there are people who have been uncivil at times, that comes and goes. I think some posts in this thread have not been civil.

To me, we really do have work to do on discussing political events and figures as Christians, from a Christian perspective. And I think we have work to do on treating each other as brethren in Christ rather than debate partners.

It's very hard to have a conversation that starts by saying "look, as Christians, the anger and division and fear mongering and hate mongering we see around us is just not OK, what do we do about it"?

You're hung up on the idea that many of us feel as though that in the wider culture liberals are less civil than conservatives. A brief perusal around the culture seems to confirm this and it feels like an exercise in belaboring the point to begin to list examples.

When I look around, what I see is different from what you see.

On MN, I don't know if it would be possible to have a calm, reflective discussion of uncivil rhetoric and demonization across the political spectrum, trying to list examples on both sides. I find that surprising, because I expect to be able to do that here. I can do that with my family, in my church, at work, and with Southern Baptist friends, across political lines. To me, it feels like that generally gets short-circuited because people immediately use partisan politics as their lens, starting by deciding who is liberal and who is conservative, not by measuring things like civility without consideration of political labels.

Your initial post implies that Hillary Clinton's threat to be uncivil is a problem but Donald Trump's rhetoric is not, blaming the problem entirely on the left. If we listed examples of angry, divisive rhetoric from both Clinton and Trump, do you think we would find a long list of examples where Clinton is uncivil but very few from Trump?

Later posts implied that there is a lot of left-wing political violence and terrorism. If we listed examples of these, do you think we would find most of them are on the left and very few are on the right? There are lists of these things, some events happened as this thread was being discussed. I think we would find plenty on the right too.

In fact, it's easy to find conservative commentators and politicians speaking out against these things on the right.

Haidt's study also seems to confirm this. It's not possible for a conservative to find common ground let alone be civil with someone who thinks their views are based in hate and do violence to their identity.

I think I was the first to post about Haidt's work on this forum. And in fact, Haidt's work is mostly about ways to find common ground across the partisan divide. Did you listen to the talk between Russell Moore and Haidt? I think it's useful.

[Bootstrap]

Oh, I recognize and understand that. I’m not saying that what you’re feeling isn’t real or understandable. I’m a liberal who lives in a rural, deeply conservative area. While Democrats did really well in Colorado in the last election, the only Democrat who won in my town and county was the coroner. And he ran unapposed. And is also a pharmacist. And is super popular. And is conservative.

I’m not saying your feelings aren’t real. I am saying that conservatives aren’t the only ones feeling them.

Part of Haidt’s point is that conservatives can understand people like you, but liberals can’t understand someone like me. (Consider how many times on MN my rhetoric has been compared to the Third Reich.)

That leaves us in a real quandary. What would you like us to do?

I'll respond to your question, but let me also ask the same question of you - what would you like me to do? How can I be more civil with you?

For what it's worth, on Haidt's test I register as a conservative, high in all five values:



But I think you are misinterpreting Haidt. Not only does he believe it is possible for people to understand each other across partisan divides, he is urging people to do so. The Haidt thread starts with a conversation between Haidt, a liberal Jew, and Russell Moore, who is the Ethicist for the Southern Baptist Convention. They seem very convinced that they can do this. I think some people are quoting Haidt out of context to imply that Haidt does not believe in the very thing that he spends most of his time urging people to do. (I don't think they are doing this intentionally, it's just a sound bite that doesn't consider the main point Haidt is making.)

As Christians, we have a whole lot of values in common. I wonder if it would be easier to discuss these things in a thread that simply banned terms like liberal, conservative, Democrat, Republican, etc. I think they blind us sometimes. None of these are identities I accept for myself, I would appreciate it if you would avoid trying to impose them on me. I take heat for being too conservative in some other circles, especially on topics like abortion, gay marriage, and transsexuals. I don't want to be asked to defend labels I do not associate with.

Speaking for myself, I think you could do better simply by treating Szdfan as a person whose feelings matter, assuming he is not out to get you, and not assuming everybody who talks about something negative is talking about you. On several occasions, I have posted things that really were not about you and did not mention you, and was quite surprised that you assumed they were accusing you.

I think you could do better by assuming that we are honestly saying what we believe and feel, asking follow-up questions, not casting things in partisan terms. I think you could do better by not putting labels on us and pounding on those labels.

I think you could do better by providing exact quotes when something we say bothers you and avoiding blaming generalizations and stereotyping.

And I think you could do better by asking us what we think and feel, reflecting on what you think and feel, and trying to frame the conversation as a conversation among Christians about what we see in That Other Kingdom around us.

[Josh]

None of these are identities I accept for myself, I would appreciate it if you would avoid trying to impose them on me.

Most the engagement with me the past 2 weeks has consisted of you and PeterG trying to impose a pro-Trump identity on me. It’s frustrating.

My statement “I don’t accept that identity” wasn’t enough; instead, PeterG tried to hold a trial where I had to prove I’m not anti-Trump. See how divisive this gets?