Nasty personal abuse poisons public space and turns people off of politics. I was not worried that the attacks on Rakesh would scare him off, but would rather scare off lurkers, just as the general sectarian abuse of the left scares off possible activists. Many of them look at these nasty exchanges, shake their heads and say, if this is what you do to supposed allies, imagine what you would do to your opponents if you took power?
Now, civility does not mean lack of militancy. In fact, it can be the essence of effective militancy. One of the reasons I admire Malcolm X, and why I think he claimed such a following, is that he was the master of promoting militancy with civility. He could make the harshest, sharpest denouncement of white supremacy in the middle of an Oxford debating hall. His very civility allowed no mental shield for people to dismiss his comments as blind anger but pushed his critique to the core.
And when he sparred with fellow black activists, he was harsh in principled denunciation of the uselessness of their methods (in his mind) but never demeaned them as people. In person, every report I have seen showed a personal courtesy towards other people.
In that sense, both he and Martin Luther King shared that use of civility as a weapon to carry their message into the conciousness both of their followers and of their opposition. Their methods were different, but I often have felt that a mass self-indulgence has permeated the Left that enjoys the self-expression of nastiness without recognizing its political costs. What has been forgotten is the power of militancy married to civility, of tough critique married to a civil approach that invites both allies and opponents to join in the struggle for change.
Incivility wins pyrric victories: an emptying of the public space that leaves the victors ruling a molehill. This is the level of victory that has driven sectarian left strategy for decades and has begat a fragmented Left that few fresh people want to approach for fear of being entangled in its emotional black hole.
And no, Ken, I don't defend the Democrats as a space of civility and I certainly don't defend the acid pens of Hitchens and Cockburn. The problem is not of the Marxist left, but of most of the progressive movement in its many forms, liberal, left, green and so on.
But the reality is that sectarian incivility destroys left movement after left movement. The pattern is rather simple:
A group of people come together to fight together, whether for affirmative action or against welfare cuts or any other battle. Then a small group - yes often a Marxist group that has mastered this strategy - personally attacks a few people at the meeting. Now they can't hope to win the arguement, but they don't have to, yet. Within a few weeks, most people have fled the organization to avoid the nastiness and soon the group with its handful of remaining people can be "taken over" by the sectarians. The sectarians comfort themselves that the "good fight" has been fought, but the victory is hollow for they have emptied a room, not changed hearts or minds or even built up a real base of power. It is all empty posturing.
I don't claim perfection on this point. I have been illmannered any number of times in my life and in email; but I do struggle do give people, whether Malcolm X or Ron Dellums, the benefit of respecting their goals as people even when I critique their actions. I also try to understand and sympathize with alternative approaches to social change.
And despite Ken and Carroll's posturing as more-left-than-thou, I don't buy their spectrum where the nastier you are, the more that proves your left credentials. That is part of the tactics of incivility that have developed on the Left; any attempt to restore civility is denounced as a form of McCarthyite censorship. Yet the reality is that it is sectarians who are generally silencing the vast majority of potential activists who flee the nastiest of public spaces.
We need a large movement for radical social change, a movement that builds by addition rather than subtraction, that is not looking for heretics and apostates under every bed. That does not mean we have to agree and does not mean that we should not vigorously argue, even denounce each others actions, but it should be done in the spirit of personal respect, not abuse and nastiness.
But one thing, Lou and Ken and Carroll have tried to justify personal abuse of Rakesh by saying his criticism of Malcolm was too harsh. Aside from Malcolm being dead and therefore not being overly sensitive therefore, he is also a public figure. While I agree we should extend respect to shared icons, there does have to be a bit more leeway for personal criticism of public figures since such criticism is a metaphor for criticism of political positions (just as support for those figures is a standin for certain political positions). To justify personal abuse based on criticism of a public figure is just one more tactic of incivility.
We can play games that such criticism personally insults those who respect that public figure, but that creates an endless cycle of political gamesmanship. If people attacked Clinton and the Democrats, could I use that as an excuse to personally abuse them, because Clinton polls more strongly with black folks than Malcolm? The endpoint of insults based on assumed outrage on behalf of others' icons is just more incivility. That does not mean that we should not be careful in making such criticisms, and Rakesh could pick softer words for the same point, but that is very different from the personal abuse levelled against people you are in direct conversation with.
Civility is about personal respect. We need to build that respect for one another if we eventually want the broader society to respect us enough to support the struggle we need to wage for revolutionary change. It is a human value but it is also a strategic political value.
In the end, incivility and the political alienation that ensues serves no one but those already in control of the status quo.
--Nathan Newman