Fair warning: what follows will assume the arguments I’ve already made against the advisability of “civility/collegiality” codes in academia here and here. Read those first. Second fair warning: there’s a lot to read herein before you get to my advocacy of a “hostility code.” Be patient, grasshoppers.
My general blogging habit inclines me toward what counts by most Internet standards as the “long-form” essay, and this post is no exception. So, if you don’t have time to read and think right now, just go ahead and save this page and come back to it later, because what follows is LONG and DETAILED and will REQUIRE SOME PROTRACTED ATTENTION.. What follows is also, in my own view, hardly and not even yet close to long enough, so I intend to parse out in shorter-form many of the elements of this argument in subsequent posts. Stay tuned if you’re interested and, if you’re not interested, stop reading now or find a way to get on the boat of the interested..
Since this post in particular does not exist in a vacuum, some preliminary remarks are, I think, necessary. (These will be especially useful to those who have been following the more general academic debate about civility, my posts in particular on this blog in re Codifying Civility and Collegiality. the @StevenSalaita case, what has come to be known (within professional Philosophy) as #Leitergate and, light-years less significantly, the recent reconstitution of the NewAPPS philosophy blog.) Many months ago, FAR in advance of the current debate over “civility/collegiaty” codes that is now dominating academic journalism and the academic blogosphere, my colleague Dr. Ed Kazarian and I weighed in on the matter and decidedly aagainst codes of civility with an essay posted at NewAPPS blog entitled “Please Do No Revise Your Tone.” For better or worse, that post, in addition to our subsequent more-or-less public (though independent of each other) advocacy of Stephen Salaita, cast Kazarian and I– at least within some marginally-significant segment of the mostly-insignificant “Philosophy” blogosphere– as spokespersons for a kind of left-wing, some might say “reactionary,” camp of PC-policing “identity-politicians.” I would have hoped– and, I see now that I would have been wrong in hoping so– that careful readers of our co-authored (and my subsequent individually-authored) posts on these matters would have made abundantly evident that we were, first and foremost, arguing against “policing” the codified institution of certain norms of “good,” acceptable or allowable behavior/speech-acts in academia.
So, first, let me disabuse readers of some misconceptions (or, more generously formulated, “strategic misreadings“) of my previously stated position, some of which have been unfortunately propagated on other blogs (the worst case of which is evidenced here.) At the risk of quite simply re-stating explicitly what has been already explicitly stated in every previous post of mine on this subject, here is the tl;dr (but still long) version of my official public position on “civility codes” thus far:
- I am (as is everyone, as far as I can tell) an advocate of civility. That is to say, I agree with basically every other non-sadistic human being that the imperative to engage one another civilly in conversation, online or in person, and to not treat others with incivility, is a norm that ought be adopted. It’s a norm that I’ve adopted personally, it’s a norm that I endeavor to cultivate in my students and among my friends/colleagues, and it’s a norm that I think serves us all well as scholars, citizens, philosophers and moral agents Not only have I declared myself explicitly as “pro-civility” but I’ve also (and in spite of considerable evidence to the contrary) already stipulated (in ¶3 here), as a gesture of good faith, that every possible interlocutor of mine is also pro-civility. That said, of course, “civility” is not an uncontested category. And so…
- I do not think that “codifying” rules of civility is the best way to effect the moral/political imperative articulated in (1). As Ed Kazarian and I first argued here (and I elaborated further here), the codification of exactly what counts as “civil” or “uncivil” behaviors/speech-acts will inevitably be defined by those occupying the positions of power that allow them to regulate more or less acceptable behaviors/speech-acts. Consequently, codifications of civility/collegiality norms are most likely to be executed and enforced in ways that reinforce or legitimate the prejudices of those who are (institutionally, politically, materially) already empowered to codify norms. Only one example of the worrisome way in which such codes could be used is by figuring criticisms/objections on the part of or in advocacy of underrepresented, marginalized or systemically disempowered groups as uncivil, uncollegial, hostile, aggressive, unwarrantedly antagonistic or otherwise “legitimately” sanctionable. There are very good reasons, even if one advocates “civility/collegiality” as a norm, to object to the codifying of that norm by those who are most likely to benefit from its codification at the expense of those who are most likely to be harmed by its codification.
- I have no interest in “silencing” any expression of any positions/viewpoint different than mine, however civilly or uncivilly stated. I continue to be genuinely baffled by the accusation that my previous iterations of this argument somehow constitute playing the part of the “PC police.” As I trust is true of every rational, reflective citizen and moral agent, I willingly concede that I have my own (in principle, defeasible) views vis-á-vis what constitutes the “correct/Good/true”– i.e., politically, morally, rationally, historically-informed, contextually-nuanced, effective and efficacious) position. For the record, and I will record this in all caps for those who do not (or choose not to) read closely, QUITE LITERALLY EVERYTHING I HAVE SAID THUS FAR ON THE ISSUE OF “CIVILITY” HAS EXPLICITLY OPPOSED THE SILENCING OR CENSURE OF SO-CALLED “OBJECTIONABLE” SPEECH, AND NEVER THE CONTRARY. I won’t help hoist the flag of the opponents of political correctness, or”identity politics” (whatever that means, since we’re not in the 1980’s anymore) or any other back-door undermining of unheard, unrecorded, unrecognized, underrepresented or insufficiently-acknowledged voices/standpoints in my discipline, but I also will not, on principle, deny anyone the right to make public their (in my view) deeply-problematic, myopic and/or easily-refutable arguments.
- “Political” philosophy IS philosophy. I’m not the sort of philosopher who is primarily interested in declaring anything (or denying anything) as “first” philosophy (whatever that means). I *do* know that political philosophy IS “philosophy”–and I’d even go further than that to say that I don’t think there is *any* philosophical position that one can legitimately, consistently and coherently hold that is NOT also “political” (i.e., that does not have political implications). Also,I’d be really interested to hear the arguments of those who don’t think “political philosophy” is real philosophy against the philosophical merits of thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Rawls, and Nozick EVEN BEFORE we get to the discipline-defining non-white and non-male philosopher like Du Bois, Fanon, de Beauvoir, Senghor, Cesaire, Arendt, Mills, Pateman, Butler, Anzaldua, Lourde, Alcoff and soooo many others. Whatever sorts of questions philosophers’ occupy their days and nights with–whether they be metaphysical, epistemological, aesthetic, linguistic, logical, mereological, ethical, neuropsychological, whatever— NONE of those questions, NONE of the answers to those questions and, what is more, NONE of the frames in which ANY legitimately philosophical question is asked or answered does not already assume, bear upon and/or effect “politics.” I don’t have any interest in a engaging in a territorial battle about what is or isn’t “properly” philosophical, but I’m more than happy to go toe-to-toe with any working philosopher who thinks his or her work is a-political. No kidding, seriously, here’s my email: [email protected].
To wit, in my estimation, recent discussions surrounding how to best determine, not to mention adjudicate, the “fitness,” “collegiality” and, more recently and importantly, “employability” (or, mutatis mutandis, the continuation of employment via tenure/promotion, or the non-termination of employment in non-tenure-track/”probationary” contracts) of academic-workers has wrongly focused on codifying norms of “civility” in the interest of establishing criteria for determining “good” (a criterion distinct, as I will argue below, from the criterion of “right”) behaviors/speech-acts on the part of academic-workers.
[Oh hey… you’re still here? Perf. If you dozed off and/or have been casually skimming through this post so far… WAKE UP!]
Here’s the long and short (tl;dr) of my claim that follows:
MY CONTENTION IS THAT IT WOULD BE MORE USEFUL, PRODUCTIVE, PROGRESSIVE AND RIGHT IN THESE DISCUSSIONS TO ADVOCATE A “CODIFICATION” (IFF codification of academic behaviors and/or speech-acts is necessary, which I remain unconvinced is so) OF THOSE BEHAVIORS AND/OR SPEECH ACTS THAT CAN BE COLLECTIVELY DETERMINED TO EVIDENCE HOSTILITY RATHER THAN THOSE PRE-DETERMINED TO EVIDENCE “CIVILITY.”
I appeal, in support of my claim above, firstly to one of the most fundamental and widely-accepted principles that govern democratic societies– the so-called “maximin” principle — assumed by many if not most of (European, but not exclusively so) contractarian thinkers (Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and Kant) but more recently and explicitly articulated by Harvard University philosopher John Rawls in his (1975) A Theory of Justice. There are many, varied and variously legitimate, criticisms of Rawls in particular– Charles Mills’ recent interview in the NYT (“Lost in Rawlsland”) is an excellent example– and also criticisms of the (more broadly-speaking) classically liberal and/or social contractarian position of which Rawls is an philosophical inheritor and representative. (I’ll take up these criticisms in my subsequent posts more carefully, I promise.) In sum, Rawls’ “maximin principle” posits (borrowing from game theory) that it is not only plausible, but also likely that rational agents, acting rationally, will determine (after deliberating together) that the best”right” principle by which to organize a society is one that would maximally benefit the least (i.e., “minimally”) advantaged, That is to say, in Rawls’ formulation, if one found oneself shrouded by a “veil of ignorance” with regard to one’s (social, economic, political, sexual, religious, gendered, abled or “disabled,” national, colored or otherwise meaningfully differentiated) identity or situation, one would voluntarily and rationally opt to organize a society in which those who might reasonably be imagined to be “the least advantaged” in the society-to-be-determined ought be entitled to the greatest (civic, legal, social and moral) protections.
This is for sure taking the long way around back to defending my original claim, but I think it’s necessary for making explicit one of the chief virtues we might still find in the “classically” liberal approach, of which I remain, for the record, as deeply suspect as I am deeply sympathetic. To its advantage, in my view, the fundamental principle of classical liberal theory has always prioritized the right over the good. That’s not an unconditional virtue ubut, for better or worse, liberal theory maintains that governance not only cannot, but ought not, dictate “the Good.” Classical liberal theory parlays this commitment by doubling-down and also stipulating that citizens’ behaviors, actions, speech or thought manifests or contributes in some way to a particular ideal of the Good Life. If we concede, as we must, that persons are born into a random, incredibly and non-perfectly-quantifiably differentiated set of (social, economic, political and otherwise existentially-significant, socially-constructed and identity-laden) set of circumstances, classical liberal theory demands we ought concede that variant formulations of the “good life” among reasonable persons, differentially situated, may very well be contradictory, if not also in some circumstances incompatible. The best we can do, in such circumstances, is devise the fairest procedures for deliberating about competing claims to the Good.
If academia is determined to get in the business of codifying behaviors/speech-acts–which I just want to go on the record as saying again that IT SHOULD NOT DO– its efforts are more judiciously, morally and in real terms, I think, effectively spent codifying the sorts of behaviors/speech-acts that constitute a hostile working environment rather than attempting to codify what sorts of behaviors/speech-acts constitute an “ideal’ (or whatever the administrative code-speak equivalent of “ideal” is– civil, collegial, collaborative, organic, synergetic, cooperative or whatever other administrative/business-school adjective is used) working environment.
I ought not speak for him, but this is where I think my NewAPPS co-author and friend, Ed Kaarian, and I may part ways: I still believe in the virtues of classical liberalism, not only strategically but also ideologically.. (For what it’s worth, I suspect that I veer off from many of my philosophical friends on this point, even and especially the ones with whom I have the most overt political sympathies, including not only Kazarian, but also Robin James, Eric Schleisser and John Protevi… each of whom I name here, ftr, because I know that we exist in a community that does not disallow, or even discourage, dissent. “Civil” or otherwise.) Governance ought not, and in fact cannot, ever interfere with regard to what people think or believe. Liberal theory, for better or worse, has only ever contended that certain behaviors, including all varieties of speech-acts, cannot and ought not be punished unless they violate the fundamental right that even the least among us enjoys as a Constitutionally-protected right.