Michael, MLK and Gamdhi were widely seen as uncivil in their day, and Kaepernick is so seen now.

Aaron, if by 'uncivil' you mean discomfiting or unsettling, I concede the point.

If by 'uncivil' you mean acting or speaking out of anger, hatred, or violence, I reiterate my point.

My view? I agree with the general point, Mark expressed it in this discussion, that I too resent how every view seemingly has to fall within some polarizing cast of Left vs. Right, their team vs. ours, &c. I did fear that sanctimoniously declaiming would antagonize and offend without being persuasive or productive; public disparagement, however tacit, drives people to defensiveness and digging their heels deeper into their respective camps if I am not mistaken. For my part, I would not draw a hard and fast line in the sand to publicly declaim all on the other side as fascist supporters period, making these persons out like idiots or morally reprehensible. I do agree with the import of Walter’s objection, if not the method of raising these concerns.

For my part, I have not submitted to either of the magazines in question. That said, the right has to have someplace for themselves too I suppose, no? Or should all literary publishers, outside of those politically non-identifiable, in the country be exclusively liberal? Would that be strange if art became the sole province of those identified as liberal and the right only claimed Nascar and shopping or something? I see an analogy in the bipartisan system in the US. I think it necessary for the good health of a dual-party nation that both of the two parties have at least a rational discourse, and it is dangerous should either one of the two lose all touch with sense and go driveling stark mad, altogether unmoored. Gone are the days when the other party had at least an intellectual facet, a semblance of intellectual respectability, when right vs. left was William F. Buckley Jr. debating Gore Vidal. Now they have abandoned even the remotest pretense of intellectual validation and actually hysterically rally against any whiff of brain use. In America, a unique and unnatural anti-intellectualism, ludicrous fear of smartness howsoever manifest has spread a heavy mental fog.
Proud ignorance is hailed that mistrusts culture,
rotting the root of sense and literature.
The other side gets radicalized and inflamed by the party mono-voice of Fox News; meanwhile, the left cannot help but recoil with blameless disgust. Makes discourse hard. But I digress.

Cheers, all!

You mean when Buckley called Vidal a “queer” and threatened to punch him?

https://youtu.be/ZY_nq4tfi24

I mean not that moment particularly, the past state of the discourse has by no means been a golden age of conversation, not at all. I mean, I think as a whole Alex Jones, Fox & friends, proceeding him smack of even worse intellectual decay if you can imagine that. I like none. By the way, Gore Vidal is amazing.

No, Michael, I don’t mean “unsettling”. I mean that the civility police of MLK’s day used his alleged incivility as an pretense to disregard (and worse) him and the movement he led. Just as the civility police of today do to Kaepernick and to Black Lives Matter.

My last word on this thread. With respect to civility, care ought to be taken to avoid the False Dilemma, which may creep in unawares and by degrees with such stormy discussions all too easily. For my part, I think civility is grossly lacking in this country in general and that this is no help in bridging the gulf of polarization. By no means do I confuse civility with some magic solution, however; nor do I think it even called-for necessarily in all contexts. Such would be patently silly. There is a time for civility and a time for civil disobedience. What is rude may be right in some contexts, but that does not make all rudeness right, nor all civility useless. The solitary man in Tiananmen Square was rude indeed when he refused to allow the tank bearing down on him to pass left or right; but in the context, this was heroically rude. War is sometimes called for yet killing is rude. Context, context, context.

A semantic observation: I venture it may be impropriety or indecorum being conveniently urged to silence the Kneeler more like it, related but not exactly the same thing. I understand civility to include, more than the mere adherence to decorum, decent respect and consideration.

Last thought: Supposing it futile to respond to Trumpers civilly, what to do then? That is the question that interests me most. But nay, that is too broad. Surely we must allow for different types within that sample; surely at least two or three individuals possible to be reached.

If to be civil with ’em is in vain,
the hope of rescue has gone down the drain.

At the same time, the best response to the unreachable segment, if we accept that, may have naught indeed to do with civility. It is not madness to think, far from. Am I frustrated? Like hell I am!
That is all.

P.S. The Rothman poem fallaciously makes out like all our woes could be solved by civility, yet that is absurd and reduces all complexity to a pat syllogism. It is ludicrous. Does civility have a role in some contexts and some usefulness, of course, but it is not The magic solution, as I said above.

Aaron, I understand your point.

Enough out of me. I, too, bow out.

I thought I'd had enough of this but I haven't, because I feel like I'm having words put into my mouth and I won't leave it with the suggestion that I am somehow enabling fascism. Andrew, you said of my comments about Quincy's link

Again, I didn't critique or attempt to discredit the Jacobin. Stop pretending I did. I pointed out that Quincy's link about Bolsanaro was from a left wing journal, as part of the ongoing conversation about preaching to the converted. My point wasn't to criticise the source, in fact I praised it (I called the article 'enlightening and terrifying') and simply suggested that articles like this would have more reach if they also appeared in more mainstream publications. Check what I actually said please. I'm very pleased, of course, that the article also appeared in the NYT.

You then accuse me of 'both-siderism' which I assume is a reference to Trump's disgraceful comments about Charlottesville and there being 'good people on both sides' You say 'that's what fascists want' and offer the suggestion that I am 'legitimising extremist views'. I really fucking resent the suggestion that anything I've said could lead you to this conclusion and still don't know how you get there.

Anyway, I still believe there are millions of Trump voters who could change their minds in the next election, many of whom must have previously voted for Obama. I simply don't believe that all these people are monsters. They are not all aligned with the noisy far-right of Trumpists, Proud Boys, white supremacists, fascists and smirking alt-right psychos. These are ordinary flawed human beings whose hearts and minds can change. My believing this doesn't in any way negate my understanding of the seriousness of the issues that Aaron vehemently pointed out to me in post #55. In fact reaching these people, and the non-voters, communicating with them, is surely the only way to stop these things from happening more.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/04/u...ng-voters.html

Okay. That's me done. Peace to all.

I don't think I fully disagree with anyone on the thread (admittedly, I might have missed a post or two). I'm not being nice, typically I'm not nice about politics, or poetry when it comes down to it (though I tend not to mix the two). I'm not fond of the poem that started all this, but probably more for reasons beyond politics. Like it was poorly written. I think, for example, Julie makes excellent points, though I'm hardly an idealist at this point. And I believe, Mark, you don't appreciate the urgency of the situation. Though at another time I'd fully adhere to what you've said. I'm more in line with Quincy and Walter here. It is that bad. I would, however, like to see more patience between liberals who have different ideas on how to deal with this. I think we're all on the same side (barring the posts I missed- maybe Charlie came back from the dead, for all I know). Conservatives very generally speaking seem more eager for war. Liberals, generally more reluctant- which is healthy. Until you're at war.