Thread by @JuliusGoat

It's worth pondering why every call for civility is issued for the benefit of those who have dedicated their lives to incivility.

It's worth pondering why every call for healing centers on those who have done the harming.

https://twitter.com/justinbaragona/status/1419425864891183104

It's worth pondering why every call for respect is issued for the benefit of those who have proven they don't value or understand respect.

https://twitter.com/NRO/status/1416100329649807367?s=20

It's worth pondering why every call for forgiveness is issued for the benefit of those who never admitted their wrong, who themselves would never forgive, who are even now actively working to continue and increase the damage they've already caused.

https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1336529979199328258?s=20

It's worth pondering why every call to listen is issued for the benefit of those who have no interest in listening.

But even more than FOR whom these calls are issued, it's worth pondering TO whom.
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…

What those issuing these calls are interested isn't discourse, or forgiveness, or respect, or healing, or civility. They don't care about any of those things, or they wouldn't defend those corroding them.

What they're asking for—demanding—is permission.

So: WHO are they asking?

Are they asking LGBTQ people? No. They're hounding these people out of public spaces.
Black and brown people? No. These people they're disenfranchising and legislatively robbing.
Women? Not if you think about it.
Disabled people? Come on.

I'll tell you who they're asking.

What every one of these pieces is doing is talking directly to the people who they believe are actual people, whose authority to grant permission they recognize.

Those who *aren't* being targeted for harm, exclusion, and destruction, who will be fine if they succeed.

This is why they talk about "both sides." It's designed to ignore their intent and their goals, and reduce harm and exclusion to a no-stakes philosophical disagreement.

Everyone they'd harm and exclude disappears.

Now there's just two sides, disagreeing calmly and reasonably.

Remember, they don't want civility. They want permission. They need it from you. Me. The unthreatened.

They don't get permission by beating you in that civil conversation.

They get permission simply by getting you to agree to have the civil conversation.

So, don't.

When you agree to have the civil conversation, you quietly accept their premise, that you are an arbiter who can grant permission, simply because you are not targeted by them.

Which gives them permission to target everyone they want to target for harm and loss.

When you agree to have the civil conversation, you quietly signal that their intentions and their actions, their words and goals, merit civility.

You signal that there is nothing they can do to all these other people that will cause them to lose your good will.

It's permission.

When you agree to have the civil conversation, you quietly signal your acceptance to their frame, that the conversation over harm, exclusion, and destruction, actually is just a philosophical disagreement between two unthreatened sides.

You disappear the victims.

Permission.

For those of us who are being asked to give permission, there exists a very clear and unmistakable moral imperative to refuse it.

Refuse. Refuse divisively and uncivilly. Make it clear to those who hope to make their harm and destruction of others comfortable that it won't be.

Civility is good. Unity is good. Healing is good. Listening is good. Save these things for those who are threatened with harm and destruction.

No healing for those who harm.
No conversations about the unthinkable.
No unity with abusers.

No permission for atrocity.

And by the way...we know the request for permission is actually a demand.

The comfort of permission they're asking for is also an offer of comfort they're extending.

"If you agree to have this civil conversation with me, I'll also keep it comfortable for you."

If not ...

Refusing permission is going to cost us something. Maybe a lot.

Complications to once uncomplicated relationships.
The end of other possibly valuable relationships.
Being thought universally reasonable.

There's a price to refusing to give permission. That's why so many give it.

We all know the "Permission MAGA" think-pieces have a flip side: the ones that says "They're Only Acting This Way Because of YOU."

When you don't give permission, they threaten to do even worse, then blame you when they do what they always intended to do anyway.

And of course they will seek permission to blame you, from the people willing to have those civil conversations with them.

And those civil people will civilly give them that permission. That's what those think-pieces ARE.

And that's the cost of not giving permission.

But that cost is nothing compared to the cost that so many others will pay if we agree to give permission to atrocity.

So our moral imperative stands.

No civility. No unity.
No permission.

This fascist twerp built his career on polarization. He doesn’t want depolarization. He wants permission.

To be clear he stops promoting incivility and starts demanding permission the moment a white dude—whose permission he relies upon—refuses to give permission to one of his fellow fascists.

It’s like clockwork.

It’s how you can tell uncivil opposition works against fascism.