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John Rawls provides a vocabulary for talking about these issues. In Rawls view, society consists of "reasonable citizens" who want to live in a society built on

John Rawls provides a vocabulary for talking about these issues. In Rawls view, society consists of "reasonable citizens" who want to live in a society built on cooperation and are willing to abide by rules if necessary to do so. Each reasonable citizen has, as a matter of course, a "comprehensive doctrine" which is the full set of beliefs and opinions they hold on all kinds of things: if aliens exist, which TV shows are good, when it's OK to lie. Reasonable citizens can (and usually do) disagree about many aspects of their respective comprehensive doctrines; however, they can acknowledge an "overlapping consensus" formed from just those ideas that almost everyone in the society agrees upon. For example, Americans generally agree that it should be legal to watch TV. Now, an reasonable citizen can believe something very strongly (such as a specific conception God) while acknowledging that since a large number of of citizens of the same society do not hold the same belief, it is not part of the "overlapping consensus" of their society. This overlap consensus must form the foundation for any agreement. Rawls gives examples of things that should be part of the overlapping consensus for society to function, such as public standards of inquiry and public values. He proposes the following rule: > Citizens engaged in certain political activities have a duty of civility to be able to justify their decisions on fundamental political issues by reference only to public values and public standards. All of that is just background. You can read a summary of Rawls on SEP[1], or his book A Theory of Justice.[2] Given all that, we can see how things might break down. In order: 1. A citizen may not be reasonable. Jeffery Dahmer would qualify. He does not want to live in a society with rules and justice: he wants to rape and eat people. 2. The citizens of a society may differ so much that their overlapping consensus is empty, or too small to serve as a foundation of anything. If all we agree on is that the sky is blue, but disagree on democracy vs. monarchy or which end of the egg to eat, then we will not be able to form a society. 3. We may agree on much, but not on those key topics like public standards of inquiry. If one person believes that matters of fact should be decided by a unanimous decision by a jury of peers, while the other believes that only confession under torture can be trusted, the two will have a difficult time agreeing on a legal system. When things do breakdown for one of the above reasons, "civil discourse" is not really possible. Other kinds of discourse are still possible, but these will be more like hostage negotiations or the arguments that precede a divorce than any kind of idealized notion of civil discourse. Which is to say, the tools required for understanding these conflicts are rhetoric, game theory, and psychology, and not political theory or ethics. [1]: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rawls/#ReaCit https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rawls/#ReaCit [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of_Justice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of_Justice

SolaceQuantum 7y ago
Since you seem highly educated, may I posit a question, and this isn't a challenge but a genuine exploration into your commentary. What happens when we enter with "identity politics"? For example, how does A and B engage in a topic about big vs little government if A is nonbinary and takes 'ze' pronouns, but B continually insists on referring to A as 'he' and believes that A is mistaking mental illness as gender identity? Or, similarly, how do A and B discuss going green vs economic prosperity, when A is wearing a T-shirt espousing that black people were better off as slaves and B is a black person?
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  In both your examples, the offense being given is orthogonal to the discussion at hand. If the offended party can look past the offense, the conversation can continue. Otherwise, it can't. Actually, there's two ways this can go. One is where the offender is being a jerk; the other is where the offended is being a jerk. Civility and good faith go a long way, on both sides. (How, in your first paragraph, would A be the jerk? I have literally never in my life encountered someone who wishes to use the pronoun ze, and when I do, I'm probably going to have a hard time remembering to use it for a while. That doesn't make me a bad person, toxic, or a jerk. It makes me a person with a lifetime of ingrained habits about how pronouns work, and it may not be easy to change that after being told once. If A regards that as hostility and offense - worse, if A is actively looking for offense - then we may have a hard time having a conversation. If A can recognize good faith in failure, and just smile at people who take a while to get it, then we're fine.)
  - SolaceQuantum 7y ago
    (In my example, I specify that B refuses to use A's requested pronoun.) My question then becomes what happens then civility has already broken down? Say, I think "cunt" is a terrible word to call someone, and my cohort in a discussion is from a region where it's a fairly normal word, like "jerk". As we discuss, my cohort uses that word as normal, and I take severe offense, causing the discussion to break down as my cohort also doesn't wish to "cater to" me. Now what, are we just doomed to never be able to discuss even random other stuff like chocolate vs vanilla ice cream?

SolaceQuantum 7y ago

Since you seem highly educated, may I posit a question, and this isn't a challenge but a genuine exploration into your commentary. What happens when we enter with "identity politics"? For example, how does A and B engage in a topic about big vs little government if A is nonbinary and takes 'ze' pronouns, but B continually insists on referring to A as 'he' and believes that A is mistaking mental illness as gender identity? Or, similarly, how do A and B discuss going green vs economic prosperity, when A is wearing a T-shirt espousing that black people were better off as slaves and B is a black person?

AnimalMuppet 7y ago
In both your examples, the offense being given is orthogonal to the discussion at hand. If the offended party can look past the offense, the conversation can continue. Otherwise, it can't. Actually, there's two ways this can go. One is where the offender is being a jerk; the other is where the offended is being a jerk. Civility and good faith go a long way, on both sides. (How, in your first paragraph, would A be the jerk? I have literally never in my life encountered someone who wishes to use the pronoun ze, and when I do, I'm probably going to have a hard time remembering to use it for a while. That doesn't make me a bad person, toxic, or a jerk. It makes me a person with a lifetime of ingrained habits about how pronouns work, and it may not be easy to change that after being told once. If A regards that as hostility and offense - worse, if A is actively looking for offense - then we may have a hard time having a conversation. If A can recognize good faith in failure, and just smile at people who take a while to get it, then we're fine.)
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago
  (In my example, I specify that B refuses to use A's requested pronoun.) My question then becomes what happens then civility has already broken down? Say, I think "cunt" is a terrible word to call someone, and my cohort in a discussion is from a region where it's a fairly normal word, like "jerk". As we discuss, my cohort uses that word as normal, and I take severe offense, causing the discussion to break down as my cohort also doesn't wish to "cater to" me. Now what, are we just doomed to never be able to discuss even random other stuff like chocolate vs vanilla ice cream?