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3/10/2018 11:20 pm  #1


Good article on civility and one's convictions

I liked this article by David French:

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/civility-isnt-surrender/

I agree with him that civility is important. I try to overcome the impulse to see political difference as too much like ideological warfare, though it can be hard.

Still, as French notes, too often the call for civility or respect is taken to mean one should give up one's beliefs, especially if one is on the right:

"So, yes, if you allow yourself to be convinced that kindness means silence, that compassion somehow requires you to cede the marketplace of ideas to other voices, or that (even worse) the very expression of your ideas is somehow hateful, then for you “civility” is surrender. If you would rather be seen as well-mannered than fight for your fundamental values, then you need to rethink your priorities.

I can promise you this: If you’re a social conservative, and you insist on believing that marriage is the union of a man and a woman, that sex is defined biologically and not psychologically, and understand that no person has a “right” to kill a child in the womb, then you’ll be called “hateful” and “bigoted” no matter how winsome, kind, or civil you try to be. While the church obviously struggles with imperfect and flawed messengers (and always will), the message itself divides and inflames.

Our true moral obligations are complicated. They’re simultaneously dependent on and independent of our listener’s response. You have an obligation to speak the truth even when the truth hurts. Harming your opponent, however, isn’t your goal. You’re seeking to persuade, yet you know the very act of attempting to persuade can also enrage. Yes, you should love your enemies, but you also have to understand they’re still your enemies."

 

3/12/2018 4:09 am  #2


Re: Good article on civility and one's convictions

And Vox Day answer's Mr. French's call:

There is no improving our political discourse. We're currently in a cold intra-imperial war. Call an enemy an enemy, a traitor a traitor, and a cuck a cuck. Don't worry about civility or mainstream approval, concern yourself with speaking the truth, or at the very least, speaking in a corceptive manner that leads the listener to the truth.

David French is doing the opposite here. He is communicating in a deceptive manner. Because, while it is technically true that civility is not surrender, civility is one of the weapons used to help encourage and impose surrender on the right.

Everything the Left does is in bad faith. How could it not be, when they serve the Father of Lies? One absolutely must assume bad faith on their part in all circumstances, based on the evidence of their behavior over the last 100 years. (ref: http://voxday.blogspot.com/2018/03/cucks-defending-cucking.html

Respect is a two-way street. Cucks deserve to be called Cucks. Traitors need to be called Traitors. 

American society is gone. All there is, is a Marxist takeover. They call you Racist, you call them Traitors. Simple as that. 

Does not Nature teach, "Fight Fire with Fire". Is that not commonsense? 

 


"We are not in the world to give the laws...but in order to obey the commands of the gods".
~ Plutarch, priest of Apollo at the Doric Temple of Delphi.
 

3/12/2018 6:30 am  #3


Re: Good article on civility and one's convictions

Jeremy Taylor wrote:

I liked this article by David French:

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/civility-isnt-surrender/

I agree with him that civility is important. I try to overcome the impulse to see political difference as too much like ideological warfare, though it can be hard.

Still, as French notes, too often the call for civility or respect is taken to mean one should give up one's beliefs, especially if one is on the right:

There is an important difference between being outspoken or harshly critical of another viewpoint, and debating in bad faith (for instance intentionally misrepresenting your opponent, wife-beating questions and appeal to thought-terminating cliches). Politeness depends on context and thus can be discarded should one's interlocutor do so, but the latter ought not to be engaged in at all if one can help it.
 

 

3/12/2018 12:35 pm  #4


Re: Good article on civility and one's convictions

DanielCC wrote:

"...intentionally misrepresenting your opponent..."

Democracy lives on demagoguery. The Left is calling everybody a "fascist"; it is what the Left is doing. They called President Reagan a fascist and they are calling Trump a fascist. 

The definition of a fascist is socialist+nationalist=Fascist. One has to be a socialist first. But that distinction is not made by the Left. Everything on the "right" in America (there is NO right in America, anyway), is Hitler. Hitler is everywhere. 

To fight Leftist demagoguery requires a rhetoric that puts the Leftist on the defensive. If the the good-natured Americans can not stop the Left, then America will surely descend into a physical civil war. The Left must be stopped now with words---or it is going to get worse, much much worse. We are already seeing that the Left is censoring and punishing people by making them lose their jobs. They are creating a totalitarian culture thru their demagoguery. 


"We are not in the world to give the laws...but in order to obey the commands of the gods".
~ Plutarch, priest of Apollo at the Doric Temple of Delphi.
 

3/12/2018 2:16 pm  #5


Re: Good article on civility and one's convictions

Jeremy Taylor wrote:

I can promise you this: If you?re a social conservative, and you insist on believing that marriage is the union of a man and a woman, that sex is defined biologically and not psychologically, and understand that no person has a "right" to kill a child in the womb, then you'll be called "hateful" and "bigoted" no matter how winsome, kind, or civil you try to be.

For me it's relatively easy to handle being called "hateful" and "bigoted" and the like. Those are emotional insults and by those the opponent has basically conceded the intellectual debate.

It's much harder when I state those conservative or traditional or natural-law propositions and I am met with "You don't understand!" Because this is an intellectual insult. It implies that what I said was thoughtless, that I don't have (or even cannot have) anything to back it up, that I perhaps go against facts or, whatever the scientific facts are, I am somehow interpreting them wrong or missing out on them, and that my interlocutor has something new to tell me to inform me.

In such a situation, in the past I was invariably moved to go into argument mode. Particularly defenders of homosexuality or of same-sex marriage are easy to be led into self-contradiction that they notice even themselves.

But here's the thing. The world is not won by arguments. For example the same-sex marriage thing again. Who won the rational argument? The traditionalists did. The proponents of same-sex marriage have no rational argument. Yet they won the political battle, which was the real battle, the decisive battle in the war. The real war is not won by rational arguments. It's won by appeal to emotion and by manipulating people's vices.

What's the way forward in such a doomed world? Lately, my standard response in such conflicts is, "I have tons to say on this subject, based on experience and reflection. If you want to argue, go first." Hardly anyone wants to argue. This tactic also makes no friends, but we should not want such friends anyway. Neighbours is bad enough.

 

3/12/2018 3:51 pm  #6


Re: Good article on civility and one's convictions

Cuck is a vulgarian term. I couldn't imagine Russell Kirk or Edmund Burke throwing it around.

I think manners and civility are a basic part of traditional conservatism. Did not Burke suggest that the genuis of Christendom lay in the twin spirits of religion and chivalry? We should not debase ourselves just because the times are debased. I acknowledge too that the tradionalist and Christian often feels under siege today, but we should not forget that the people we oppse are human beings, made in the image of God.

That said, civility and respect should never mean we stop defending our beliefs. All too often this is suggested. Homosexuality is an obvious example. Throwing around slurs should be avoided, but defending traditional, Christian sexual morality shouldn't be abandoned because it offends some. Obviously, I realise most of those asking conservatives to be silent out of civility and respect on such issues don't agree with us anyway.

     Thread Starter
 

3/12/2018 4:42 pm  #7


Re: Good article on civility and one's convictions

I was not polite. I did not even look at the article at first. Now I see it's about politics. That particular discourse cannot be helped in any way. Politics is the way of the world and you cannot get anything Christian out of it no matter how you try. You will get only compromises (in every sense of the word).

 

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