JOSH CHAFETZ ON CIVILITY
Daniel W. Drezner cited and linked to a Josh Chafetz post on civility which I like so much that I want to repeat it here:
This really amazes me. Are people really so sure of themselves that they simply cannot acknowledge that anyone who disagrees could be intelligent? Have they no humility whatsoever? Of course we all think we’re right — if we didn’t think we were right, we’d change our opinions until we did. Maybe I’m just naive, but it really does amaze me when people claim that everyone who disagrees with them (on topics where general opinion is relatively divided — I’m not talking about largely uncontroversial opinions like “slavery is wrong”) is either malevolent, stupid, or both.
Why is it so hard to acknowledge that, on almost every issue, there are people on both sides who are both intelligent and well-meaning? That doesn’t mean that neither side is right, or that you should give up arguing for your side. It just means paying the other side some respect, listening to their position, trying honestly to grapple with it. I’m not saying that there aren’t malevolent and/or stupid people out there — but they’re on both sides of every issue, and on almost no issue is everyone on one side stupid and/or malevolent. It’s fine to point out when someone is saying something stupid (or when someone is being malevolent). If they’re malevolent and/or stupid often enough, it’s fine to conclude that they, as people, are malevolent and/or stupid. But to conclude that everyone who disagrees with you is ipso facto malevolent and/or stupid … well, I envy your certainty, but you frighten me. That kind of certainty is precisely what extremist movements of all kinds — left and right — are made of.
