Doses of Fury
Tuesday evening our Philosophy Discussion Group meets at Beans & Leaves Cafe in Long Grove. Our “launch pad” essay for last night was POLITENESS by Quinn Norton. Quinn Norton is a blogger, journalist, photographer. She comments upon the movements that roil our post-modern, globalized, social world. You may have a look at one of her recent posts HERE
The exercise of decorum, polite language can easily be regarded as icing on the cake, pleasant but unnecessary. Words penned by Norton argue that the practice of politeness is a survival strategy, essential because we need one another to survive as humans. This inter-dependency is problematic because no two of us are alike. Our worlds, the umwelt of our psyche, overlap but are never identical. Take a simple perception, the color red. The red you see is not the red that I see. In addition a cloud of meaning, connotations surrounding the experience of red is quite rich. A few mentioned by Norton: tasty, hot, candy-like, sexy, or dangerous. As we converse if the term red is used between us, how much do you and I imply, leave unsaid? Surely a great deal! The challenge and the opportunity of communication between us is infinite, unending.
I was reminded of this while perusing the front page of the NY Times this morning. An account was given of recent town hall meetings which Republican law makers attempted to hold in their districts. The picture was not a pretty one, with lots of shouting, verbal attacks, expressions of fear of consequences arising from the actions of our elected president. Certainly in any public meeting, when the atmosphere fills with invective, the language of panic–we pass one another as silently as ships on a darkened sea. If you’d like a look at the NY Times article click HERE.
Norton asserts that politeness is a skill that comes with the development of emotional intelligence. She suggests a experimental method which I really like.
Be conservative in what you transmit, liberal in what you accept, and reject malicious patterns. Another way to put that could be: speak gently, keep an open mind to what others say, and don’t be a doormat.
Well said.
2 thoughts on “Doses of Fury”
Dear Sir,
The survival of our species is rooted, to a degree, in civil exchange, but we are also a territorial and dominating animal. For hundreds of thousands of years, within the tribe, the quest for power has been anything but courteous. And in the desire for territory, but to conquer or protect, we have paid little attention to the needs of “enemy” and have sought to obliterate them, sometimes using gruesome methods.
As civilization expanded, the art of dialogue become crucial in trade and diplomacy, yet we have retained that instinct to bludgeon our opponents, hence the popularity of UFC fighting and what we have witnessed in our political process over the past eight years. To have civil discourse become the standard, we will need to alter our inner beings, our psyches, to be constantly vigilant for the emergence of that creature lurking within all of us. This will be extremely difficult, but clearly necessary if we are to take the next step down the evolutionary path and survive ourselves.
Sincerely,
Tobin Fraley
Your comment is on point. We’ve much work to do on ourselves.