On/Against civility in Professional Philosophy

In the corridor or the classroom or the seminar, civility is at least an aspiration – that we speak and listen to each other in a civil manner: it is an aspiration within an existing community – hence the political overtones of the word. Why should we bother? Civility is an attitude displayed in the content of what one says, revealed by tone or linguistic choice, but it is fundamentally an attitude to another person – of taking them seriously, of treating them with respect and care, and without prejudice. This, I take it, matters intrinsically – just because whatever enterprises we are engaged in, we are engaged together. This explains the shock and outrage and the sympathy for its target when civility seems to be cast aside. MM McCabe [at Feministphilosophers]

Among the few great joys of the recent philosophical blogosphere are the contributions by Mary Margaret McCabe, a distinguished philosopher.* Her blog posts are subtle, and she treats her readers like adults; moreover, she practices what she preaches. Even so, I was disappointed by her post because it does not really address known objections to the view that she puts forward. I have in mind, especially, an argument articulated by Johnson and Kazarian in a widely read piece at NewAPPS. In particular, they noted that the  demand for "civility" ("collegiality," etc.) is "the sort of requirement that only works, practically speaking, in very homogeneous communities." Even though I think Johnson and Kazarian overstate the homogeneity required, there is no doubt that civility is only possible when a lot of agreement is presupposed. In the class room this agreement is stipulated, but elsewhere it cannot be taken for granted.

Now, McCabe is not naive; her post is worth reading because she is very  sensitive to the fragility of civility. As she puts it "civility is [always--ES] under construction." This strikes me as the right stance. Even so, she goes on to claim "but it continues to be an aspiration." Yet, as she notes in the quoted post above, civility presupposes "existing community." The problem is that even professional philosophy is not an existing community and has not pretended to be one in living memory. My own group -- analytical philosophy -- has shown itself systematically willing to be unreceptive to, and frequently  dismissive of (etc.) to outsiders (Continental, Feminists, Straussians, cultural theorists, etc.). It would be all wrong to just point to one particular blogger's public persona, and to ignore both the years of complicity of the 'professional haves' in such behavior as well as to overlook the revered role of sneering and putdown in our tradition (and, perhaps, the history of philosophy more generally): from Russell onward (Anscombe, Geach, Carnap, Ernest Nagel, etc.) sneering and the elegant putdown have had a treasured role in the tradition (and others). So, it would be perverse to aspire to something that is probably not possible and, along the way, becomes a club/stick to silence critics and promote (unwanted) conformity without a prior accounting of the role of incivility in the tradition. Indeed, "The future of collaborative discourse is more important than its past," but the very idea that historical trajectory can (largely) be dispensed with is, itself, a move in philosophical history with itself (a problematic) history.

Moreover, a lot of extremely polite and civil folk are not really engaged in "the possibility to speak and to listen together." (In a zero-sum environment [jobs, grants, journal space, etc.] this may be unavoidable.) But civility, as operationalized in certain modes of expression, is not the proper response to polite condescension or the argumentative brush-off nicely formulated. The odd locution of the previous sentence, is partly a consequence of Prof. McCabe's tendency to treat expressions of anger as the contrary to civil behavior.** Sometimes we treat another with respect for their person-hood and care by getting angry at them (ask any parent); we signal that we take their attitudes seriously enough to be willing to signal that they have crossed some line. Finally, sometimes our own person-hood and respect for self demands from  us that we get angry at another. Reactive attitudes are an intrinsic part of one's persoon-hood and one of the means toward expressing respect; recognizing their value may well be intrinsic to establishing community. (This is not to deny that due to power differences, the norms of expressing anger may vary with status.) Rather, given the huge potential for abuse that comes with the civility standard, I would wish that we focused more attention on concrete steps at building community and reducing the existing scope of abuses of power.

* See, especially, this piece "Thebes and Gaza."

** In conversation, Amia Srinivasan encouraged reflection on the positive role of anger.

Comments

[Mary Margaret McCabe]

Mary Margaret McCabe: Thank you very much indeed for this thoughtful response as well as for your far too kind words – and I am so sorry to disappoint! Thank you, also, for the link to Johnson and Kazarian, which I had not seen, and which helped me to think about where we may or may not disagree. Perhaps the starting point is that I have been talking about attitudes, rather than merely forms of speech; it is the attitudes of civility that seem to me to be vitally important, but very difficult to form and to maintain. The attitudes are represented by the speech; but it is not the speech, but the attitudes that matter most (as several of my correspondents today have observed).

I think that there are three separate issues that you address: the question of what counts as a community and where that falls short; the club-and-stick question about silencing what is represented as uncivil; and the role of anger.

Perhaps the ‘what counts as a community?’ question is the trickiest. I guess that we are all part of all sorts of communities all the time, both inside the academy and outside it. Surely the groups we belong to have, in fact, vague boundaries, overlaps, embeddings and so forth, all the way out to humanity as a whole (as the Stoics would have said); and the attitudes of civility may allow us to cross the boundaries, keep the borders open, rather than slamming them shut. In the same way, might not philosophers reasonably think of themselves -- not as analytic or whatever -- but just as thinking with some others (whether the others be other philosophers, from whatever kind of group, or other humanists, or scientists or just whoever)? Anyway – my thought is that when we do this subject or any other with others; or when we talk with others in our institutions or outside them, we are best served and so is everyone else if we seek the attitudes of civility. Those attitudes, if the boundaries are properly porous, will allow us to listen, and to be heard.

This thought may have got damaged, perhaps, by an association between civility and collegiality, the latter of which may coincide with institutional boundaries and constraints which are unhelpful or pernicious and damaging to what we do. This is where your club-and-stick worry comes in, I take it; and this is about regulating the language that people use (in some cases where that regulation may fall also under state legislation), or about using their language as a ground for regulating their behavior. But this institutional abuse of the notion of civility should not, I think, outlaw the attitude that matters, any more than it should lead us to think that our institutions are the only communities there are.

None of this precludes our expressing outrage or even fury to someone with whom we do indeed share civility; but it does, perhaps, show that outrage or fury should not replace civility. Part of my point was that anger is not the same sort of thing as civility; not an abiding attitude nor a policy nor a stance. For speaking and listening, what matters is the real civil deal – the relations of civility, rather than its tone.

Just a footnote on the role of ‘sneering and the elegant putdown’: yes of course – amusing, often repeated over and over (although the better and funnier stories are kindlier). But what happens to its target? And what happens to us, when we think that this is the way to proceed?

[Eric Schliesser]

Thank you for this elaboration, Prof. McCabe!
I guess, I can imagine (well I know the type) a philosopher that is animated by anger (at injustice, at fate, etc.)--so that the attitude is problematic from your vantage point. I think that for such a philosopher anger could still be constitutive not just of her practice but even of her notion of civility (in your attitude focused sense which I like).

[Mary Margaret McCabe]

Thank you! Perhaps there might be a distinction to be had here -- between someone who is, as you say, animated by anger at injustice; and someone whose anger dictates their attitudes *to other people*. It seems to me very worthy to be regularly angered by injustice, and to do and say something about it; and still to occupy a settled attitude of civility in one's relations with others (the openness and hearing and listening). There is a different situation where someone's anger informs and affects how they deal with others (they may be just splenetic!). In that case, the spleen hampers their relations with others in speech and hearing, not least because it makes others anxious about how they engage with them. Does that help?