Martin Luther King, Jr.'s success came in part because of the threat of force wielded by both his followers and by other black leaders like Malcolm X

Many arguments for civility and civil discourse are persuasive; if nothing else, lowered decibels, some direct talk, and real listening are desired ends. As we understand it, moral suasion, employed rationally and even passionately, but without demonizing, may succeed in bringing together groups from disparate ideological positions to work toward solving seemingly intractable social problems—if not today, then over the long haul.

To achieve those ends, many advocates of civil discourse include peaceful demonstrations and public speeches as long as they do not trample on important religious or cultural symbols. Perhaps it is even acceptable to demonize the few whose behavior is beyond any known pale. Yet even this potential for good does not persuade us that the civility movement can achieve widespread social change; nor has it yet proven itself to be a potentially transformative force in American society. Instead we fear that it can lead to self-satisfaction, complacency, and the politics of co-optation.

The most immediate problem we have is with the movement's essentially procedural goals. Procedural goals are content-free; they direct participants to construct a conversation about issues large and small in a way intended to develop trust, deepen understanding, and perhaps draw some conclusions. If homophobic members of the religious right would tone down their anti-gay rhetoric by, for example, not comparing homosexuality to bestiality, violence against gay people may diminish. But such an achievement, won by procedural goals, neither addresses the source of deep disagreements, nor solves the urgent problems that devastate America.

Deeper changes, such as guaranteeing greater civil rights for gay men and lesbian women require compromises that few are willing to make. Nor are we sanguine that civil discourse can advance the conversation on deeply divisive social and political issues to the extent its advocates claim. That goal escalates the stakes of civil discourse by holding out the hope that larger scale social change is an achievable end without accounting for the cultural and structural constraints that make change so difficult. It suggests that procedural goals—do not demonize, keep talking, earn trust—can overcome problems created by vast inequalities of wealth, deeply held moral and religious positions, widespread discrimination, or the power of vested interests. This view is troubling on four counts: it offers a particularly optimistic reading of how social change generally occurs; it adopts uncritically a pace for change comfortable to those whose health and well-being do not face immediate threats; it ignores the realities of power and vested interests; and it does not confront the attitudes fostered by inequality and hopelessness.

The process of social change is complex. The civil discourse model seems to be one of talking change into existence, accompanied occasionally by polite acts of civil disobedience. This position ignores many lessons of history. Few, if any movements to transform societies have succeeded due to the tactic of moral suasion alone.

Efforts to end slavery and win civil rights for African-Americans during the past two centuries bear witness to the reality that kind words and mutual understanding did not mobilize support and the force of collective protest against injustice. The abolition and civil rights movements relied on uncivil rhetorical strategies—creating enemies and drawing lines in the sand—and on the violent responses of their opponents to achieve their goals. Because members of these movements believed slavery and racism to be morally repugnant and in violation of their deeply held religious and political convictions, they were willing to label the actions of Bull Conner evil or expose the brutal practices of slave holders.

This willingness to confront power and be uncivil rather than engage it in conversation placed the slavery and race issues onto the national political agenda. This stance forced the country to address these problems, not by temporizing, but by dismantling the legal systems that supported racist practices. Martin Luther King built his non-violent campaign on the violence and rage that preceded and paralleled it; a rage manifest on the streets of Selma and in the actions of men such as Malcolm X. Moral suasion worked in part because the streets erupted and burned. With their eloquence, these men seized the imagination and fueled the dreams for a radically different social order.

The role of power
More practically, civility advocates underestimate power. While everyone may have a seat at the table, some individuals or groups have the power to define what counts as acceptable and unacceptable conduct and speech. Dominant groups rarely recognize the values they uphold are partial rather than universal. As a largely middle class phenomenon, civility or civil discourse incorporates norms that reflect this dominant position. Individuals and groups with different norms, especially about means of communication or social action, are marginalized. Even the injunction "do not demonize" is driven by those in power: inevitably, exceptions to this rule will be made, and someone must decide who is so bad that demonization is acceptable. For one it may be Louis Farrakhan; for another it may be the New York City police who shot Amadou Diallo.

We can say the same for trust. To trust one must have experienced trust. Few have earned the trust of people who are poor, disadvantaged, and members of ethnic and racial minority groups. A commitment to trust is foolhardy if the people one is trusting will turn on you the first chance they get—and that is the historical and contemporary experience of the very people whose problems civility advocates hope to resolve. Similarly, middle-class supporters of civility may encourage moderation for the community's good, but who defines the community or the common good and will this definition, if enacted, safeguard everyone? Problem or need definition, itself an attribute of power, has consequences for the direction of civil discourse and the daily lives of many.

Civility is not the language of urgency. It is not the language of people struggling to put food on the table or to stop the violence in their communities. It is instead the language of relative privilege, available to people who can afford to wait until some common areas emerge from ongoing conversations. Even if by some miracle, people of all different backgrounds—race, ethnicity, class, gender—manage to become participants in civil conversations, what is the likelihood that the non-English speaking mother of six from East Harlem in New York will be an equal participant in a dialogue with a college educated criminal defense attorney? As long as her point of view, expressed in her idiom—which may have to be strident and uncompromising simply to be noticed—is not allowed to be heard because it fails to conform to the rules of civil discourse, then civil discourse will not effect significant change. It will continue to privilege the voices of the well-educated and well-intentioned; people like us who have learned, through decades of training to speak our "native tongue" artfully.

Civil discourse has become the understandable defensive position of those saddened and disillusioned by the vitriol that marks American politics. Somehow if the temperature can be reduced a little, they suggest, perhaps trust can grow and problems can be solved. Our chief complaint is that civility offers a rhetorical solution for problems deeply embedded in American politics and society. As the civility movement gains support, it seems essential to attend to its limits and find new forms to articulate the radical discontent of the disenfranchised; even if it means allowing for uncivil discourse.