I think the Bill vs. BamBam analogy isn't quite right. It might get closer if textbooks, newscasts, institutional documents, history books, etc. referred to people like Bill as "BamBams" and included or assumed the validity of definite-sounding but poorly-substantiated conclusions about the supposed inability of "BamBams" to function as effectively as, or deserve equal treatment to, non-"BamBams." In that context Bill's demands, and his organized boycott, may be understood more as self-defense than coercion, and the shopkeeper's refusal to call Bill by his rightful name, despite his repeated reasonable requests that he do so, may seem like something quite worse than an absence of courtesy. Of course, the shopkeeper might have success gather sympathy by calling FOX news to report the boycott as "harassment" by "PC Maoists" or some such.
Analogies aside, I think what is being called "courtesy" here is something much more basic, perhaps "decency." Whatever it is, its opposite is a willful, unnecessary refusal to do what is reasonable, with clear knowledge that it will upset or injure others in some way. It is careless disregard at best, intentional harm-doing at worse. But it is more serious, I think, than is suggested by a continuum of "courtesy."
David R.
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