US Elections

The problem with politeness

By Jonathan Bradley in Sydney, Australia

11 July 2012

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Conor Friedersdorf praises a plea by Robert P. George and Shaykh Hamza Yusuf for hotel rooms to stop offering pornographic movies to customers:

While I disagree with some of the assertions the authors make, plead agnostic on others, and suspect that Steven E. Landsburg may be right that access to pornography reduces rape, I must compliment George and Yusuf for conducting themselves in the best possible manner while trying to effect social change. "We make no proposal here to limit your legal freedom, nor do we threaten protests, boycotts, or anything of the sort. We simply ask you to do what is right as a matter of conscience," they write.

It's true that the letter from Professors George and Yusuf is polite in the sense that it is refined and amicable. But it's also grossly impolite in its blithe comparison of their opposition to porn to the civil rights struggle:

Furthermore, we trust that you need no reminding of the fact that something’s being legal does not make it right. For example, denying black men and women and their families access to hotel rooms—and tables in restaurants, as well as other amenities and opportunities—was, for countless shameful years, perfectly legal. In some circumstances, it even made financial sense for hotel owners and operators in racist cultures to engage in segregationist practices even when not compelled by law to do so. However, this was deeply morally wrong. Shame on those who denied their brothers and sisters of color the equal treatment to which they were morally entitled. Shame on you if you hide behind legality to peddle immorality in the pursuit of money.

There's nothing respectable about such sentiments, no matter how demurely they're expressed. This is the trouble with the mindless pursuit of politeness in public discourse: good manners are often used to dress up contemptible ideas. (Since George and Yusuf brought up civil rights: think of every genteel Southerner who defended Jim Crow on the basis of public order.) 

That's not to argue that political discussion wouldn't sometimes benefit from its participants simmering down. But some causes are worth protests and boycotts — order too often only benefits the status quo. And some arguments are gross enough that they deserve to be derided, no matter how nice is the language used to express them.

Tags: Civil Rights, Discourse, Rhetoric

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