Civility Archives - Center for Individualism

Americans have given up commemorating George Washington’s February 22 birthday in exchange for a 3-day weekend. One of the downsides is that we are now more likely to overlook the wisdom he has to offer us. That is particularly unfortunate following an intensely uncivil and partisan election, whose subsequent “unity” has continued to be uncivil and partisan.

America’s “indispensable man,” as historian Forrest MacDonald termed him, offered us insights into civility and what we should abandon partisanship to unite around.

As to civility, our beltway elbow-throwers could benefit from reading Washington’s “Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation.” Written before Washington was 16, it summarized important facets necessary for him to behave “according to the custom of the better bred.”

Consider some of the advice George Washington gave himself:

Every action…ought to be with some sign of respect to those that are present.

Speak not when you should hold your peace.

Show not yourself glad at the misfortune of another.

Always submit your judgment to others with modesty.

In reproving, show no sign of choler but do it with all sweetness and mildness.

Take all admonitions thankfully.

Mock not nor jest at anything of importance.

Wherein you reprove another be unblameable yourself.

Neither curse nor revile.

Let your conversation be without malice or envy.

In all causes of passion admit reason to govern.

Speak not injurious words, neither in jest nor earnest.

Detract not from others.

Be not obstinate in your own opinion.

Reprehend not the imperfections of others.

Think before you speak.

Undertake not what you cannot perform.

In disputes, be not so desirous to overcome as not to give liberty to each one to deliver his opinion and submit to the judgment of the major part.

Contradict not at every turn what others say.

Speak not evil of the absent, for it is unjust.

George Washington’s commitment to decorum has been thoroughly trampled in America’s ongoing political uncivil war. We could benefit greatly from deflating the incivility that besets us, in his honor.

However, even more important would be once again looking to the principles Washington articulated for governing:

The cause of America [is] liberty.

Express your utmost horror and detestation of the Man who wishes, under any specious pretenses, to overturn the liberties of our Country.

Liberty will find itself…where the Government…[will] maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property.

Under [government’s] protection; everyone will reap the fruit of his labors; everyone will enjoy his own acquisitions without molestation and without danger.

[Government] has no more right to put their hands into my pockets, without my consent, than I have to put my hands into yours.

Government is not reason. It is…a dangerous servant and a terrible master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.

George Washington’s character was important to our founding, but even more so, his actions were essential to our revolution’s success and the creation of America as “this land of equal liberty.” He recognized that “preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American People,” and provided core principles that provide a useful model in that direction.

But we have turned to honoring those principles more in the breach than the observance. We could greatly benefit from reviving those principles, which made him “First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”

Gary M. Galles is a professor of economics at Pepperdine University.

What can we all rally around? Politicians make fake calls for unity, but they’re disingenuous. We propose morality, and we’ll be introducing some aspects of morality for your consideration, starting with the morality of the American Revolution. In the meantime, consider the politicians’ mendacious calls for civility. Such behavior calls for a moral belief underpinning it, but they have none.

Joe Biden’s campaigns have rested on the most rancid racial politics. In 2020, he routinely accused his opponent of racism and support for white supremacism, drawing on nothing but his own libelous twisting of Trump’s words after the rioting in Charlottesville. In 2012, Biden had accused Republicans of planning to put blacks “back in chains.” His venom came out also on non-racial matters. He once called opponents of gay marriage the “dregs of society.” In the Senate, he habitually hurled dirty charges, becoming the father of Borking.

But now Biden’s thoughts turn to civility. He promises to lead us out of a “grim era of demonization.” Biden is not the first Democrat to peddle this claptrap. Indeed, it is a standard hypocrisy of Democrats: out of power, they extol incivility; once they regain power, they denounce it. Recall the Clinton era’s ludicrous “civility” commission, which the Democrats set up after Rush Limbaugh and company foiled their agenda.

In times of political exile, Democrats countenance all manner of incivility. They cheered as John Lewis and company boycotted Trump’s inauguration. They defended a play in Central Park that depicted a Trumpian figure stabbed to death. They laughed as comedienne Kathy Griffin held up a mock-severed head of Trump. More recently, they found nothing to condemn in the monstrously uncivil rhetoric of Black Lives Matter.

They only turn pacific after they feel safely ensconced in positions of power, and then “civility” becomes a means to defang opponents. Michelle Obama, whose instincts are those of a low Chicago ward boss, didn’t turn her thoughts to going “high” until reaching the White House. But after leaving it, she quickly returned to gutter politics, egging John Lewis and company on in their uncivil behavior.

In power, Barack was also liable to muse on the importance of civility. On his rise to power, however, he kept company with the shaggiest and most uncivil Alinskyites. He launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist, Bill Ayers. He attended the services of Jeremiah Wright, whose most famous pronouncement was “God damn America.” He promoted the work of Saul Alinsky, who placed ends-justifies-the-means incivility at the center of his program of agitation.

In the pantheon of liberal heroes, figures of incivility and violence — from Fidel Castro to Che Guevera to the Black Panthers to the leaders of Black Lives Matter — hold high rank. This reflects the morally relativistic core of liberalism, its willingness to ignore objective standards of right and wrong in the pursuit of power. All of the ideologies that inform modern liberalism scoff at a natural moral law, which in the end is the only real guarantor and measure of civility.

Far from ending the “grim era of demonization,” Biden intends to give its left-wing proponents new perches of power from which to push it. Look at all the talk emanating from Democratic circles about the need to draw up enemies lists and the like. These are the thugs who will run his administration.

During the campaign, he told the ruthless acolytes of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that they would all find jobs in his White House. His campaign was run by Anita Dunn, who is on the record saying that her favorite political philosopher was the mass murderer Chairman Mao.

“Civility” to the Left is simply a tool of propaganda with which to secure docility from the people. But liberals have never felt the slightest need to practice it themselves, much less adhere to any moral system that would require it. Biden used to mock proponents of the natural moral law, casting that thinking as hopelessly passé. Recall his browbeating of Clarence Thomas on the subject. So it is a little late for Biden to adopt the posture of the high-minded philosopher.

Under the moral relativism Biden has long espoused, politics is not about goodness but power. All of the Left’s babbling about “norms” ill-befits a movement that obliterated them in the name of subjectivism. The violent infantilism of the Left — on display across the country in Democrat-run cities — flows from that contempt for any principles grounded in reality.

The de-Christianization of the country, which Biden has championed, also makes any new era of civility impossible. Biden has no kinder, gentler view of America; his vision is rooted in the nihilism of Planned Parenthood and Black Lives Matter. He ran with a San Francisco radical whose idea of charity is to spring rioters chanting for the death of cops from jail.

Biden seeks not unity but submission, not civility but unchallenged power. The “grim era of demonization” will not close but enter a new and even uglier chapter.

Posts

George Washington Knew Something About Civility, And Decency.

The Left Will Not Practice Civility, Much Less Adhere To Any Moral System That Would Require It.

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