Why have we moved so far apart and become so antagonistic? These cultural phenomena are massively complex. No single explanation can do justice to all of the many influences that push opponents apart. Still, we can learn a lot by focusing on one factor which is often overlooked. Here it is: instead of listening to and trying to understand our opponents, we interrupt, caricature, abuse and joke about them and their views. This toxic way of talking exemplifies the aspect of polarization that I labelled ‘incivility’.

Can we be civil, please?

Like ‘polarization’, the term ‘civility’ is used in several different ways. Moreover, civility and incivility are in the eye (or the ear) of the beholder. One person’s spirited criticism is another person’s incivility. Civility also comes in degrees. Some words and actions are more or less polite than others. Despite these complications, civility can be understood as a vague ideal that we can approach more or less closely. Incivility is a significant deviation from this ideal.

Speech is civil when people talk in ways that are tailored to bring about a constructive mutual exchange of ideas. An extreme model of civility is suggested by Anatol Rapoport, a mathematical psychologist who was famous for his insights into social interactions:

1. You should attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, ‘Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.’
2. You should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of widespread agreement).
3. You should mention anything that you have learned from your target.
4. Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.1

How many times have you heard or participated in a conversation that obeys these rules? Such guidelines have gone out of fashion recently, if they were ever followed. Luckily, we do not need to go so far in order to maintain minimal politeness. We can be civil to the degree that we approach this ideal.

That’s not all there is to civility, of course. Timing is also important. While you are explaining your view to me, if I interrupt and prevent you from finishing what you were saying, then it won’t help much if I express your position clearly, vividly and fairly. You wanted to express it yourself. Interruption is a paradigm of incivility because it sends the signal that I do not want to listen to you, or at least that what you say is less valuable than what I say. Civility, therefore, requires the virtue of patience: we should wait for our audience as they take time to speak their minds. It also requires forgiveness when others refuse to concede our best points.

None of this is easy, but we do have a choice. We can express civility by following or at least approaching the Rapoport Rules: speaking and listening at the right times without interrupting, and cultivating patience and forgiveness. Or we can practise incivility by interrupting, insulting and abusing our opponents. Your style is up to you.

Who doesn’t like a good caricature?

Instead of civilly asking why people adopt their positions, today we tend to assume that we already know their reasons. Of course, the reasons that we ascribe to them are rarely their real reasons, and they are rarely the best reasons for their views. Instead, we too often try to beat opponents by putting them in a bad light.

Consider financial inequality: Poor people accuse the wealthy of greed and demand higher taxes. Rich people accuse poor people of laziness and see taxes as theft by government or, worse, communism. Each side claims to understand the other, but only because they both think that their opponents are out for short-sighted, selfish gain. Poor people ask: What can a super-wealthy person do with an extra billion dollars? Don’t they see that the whole country needs extra tax revenue? But then the wealthy respond: Don’t they see that I worked hard for my money? Don’t they realize that higher taxes will hurt the entire economy, especially the poor? As long as neither side understands the other, they will continue to see their opponents as stupid, misinformed, short-sighted and selfish. That will make cooperation difficult or impossible. Such caricatures are harmful.

They are also inaccurate. Some wealthy people are greedy and selfish. Others are generous, hard-working and fair to their employees and customers. Similarly, poor people are not generally lazy. Some are. Some unemployed people who live on welfare would not accept a job if you offered them one. However, they are exceptions to the rule that most poverty results from bad circumstances with no options. There is truth on both sides. We need to recognize that complexity and determine which poor people fall into which group – the lazy and the disadvantaged – if we are ever to devise a programme that helps those in real need without rewarding and encouraging those who misuse the system.

The same pattern recurs with the refugee crisis. While visiting Oxford, I heard those who supported the policy of allowing more refugees into the UK asking how their opponents could be so cruel. Didn’t they realize how desperate the refugees were? Didn’t they know how dangerous their home countries were? In such ways, they suggested that their opponents were ignorant and heartless. In return, the opponents of allowing more refugees into the UK asked how others could be so naive. Didn’t they realize how many refugees there were? Didn’t they care about British citizens who could lose jobs if more refugees arrived? Didn’t they care about security? Did they want to bring more terror attacks to British soil? Thus they also suggested that their opponents were ignorant and heartless. Instead of trying to understand each other, both sides spread inaccurate caricatures of their opponents. Making such assumptions and tossing around such misleading stereotypes make it much harder for them to understand each other properly.

Are we all crazy clowns?

Such (intentional?) misunderstanding fuels exaggeration and verbal abuse. One particularly pernicious form of verbal abuse is fake psychiatric diagnosis. Of course, psychiatric diagnoses can be fine when done properly on the basis of evidence by trained psychiatrists in order to help patients with real mental illnesses. The problem is that political and cultural commentators today diagnose their opponents with no evidence or training, and their goal is not to help them but only to abuse them. Books by conservative commentators have titles like Liberalism is a Mental Disorder (Michael Savage), The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness (Lyle Rossiter) and Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America’s Youth (Ben Shapiro). Liberals return the favour with titles like How the Right Lost its Mind (Charles J. Sykes). Mika Brzezinski, a liberal news commentator on MSNBC, openly expressed grave concern that President Donald Trump was mentally ill.

To see the purpose and effect of such exaggeration, let’s consider some simple examples from the popular conservative commentator Ben Shapiro:

The democrats are fully extreme. They are fully insane. They are nutcases, they are nuts.

The democrats are out of their damn minds. They are out of their damn minds.2

Why does he call his opponents crazy? It is obvious that not all Democrats are crazy, insane, nutcases or out of their damn minds. So what is the objective of such extreme language? One goal is to get laughs from his audience. It also signals his solidarity with Republicans and hatred for Democrats. What matters here is that it cuts off conversation. When people really are ‘fully insane’ or ‘out of their damn minds’, then there is no reason to listen to them. It might be useful for therapists to listen to them in order to find out which mental illness they have, and it might be calming to them for friends and relatives to listen to or talk with them. But that is not really having a conversation in the sense of an intentional exchange of information and reasons. When people are ‘fully insane’, we do not bother to tell them what is wrong with their views or give them reasons to change. We try to cure them instead of reasoning with or learning from them.

Other forms of verbal abuse impose similar costs. If I tell my friend that her position is wrong, she can ask me why it is wrong, and then we can still have a fruitful discussion in many cases. However, if I tell her that her position is ridiculous, that means that it deserves ridicule instead of reason. If she does not want to be ridiculed, why should she ask me why I think her position is ridiculous? And if I call her a clown, it suggests that her view deserves laughter instead of serious consideration. It ruins a clown’s jokes to take them seriously and ask what they really mean. Similarly, if I call my interlocutor an idiot, it means that she is too stupid to deserve any reason. But then, why should she keep talking with me? I just told her that I am not going to listen to her.

Some views really are ridiculous, and some people really are idiots or crazy – though very rarely. Also, sometimes people ask for reasons and try to understand before they resort to verbal abuse out of frustration if their initial attempts have failed. Nonetheless, fake psychiatry of this abusive kind is a reliable indicator that the speaker has nothing better – and hence nothing very insightful – to say in favour of his position. Such verbal abuse also signals the end of fruitful discussion. When polar opposites resort to it, they cease to be able to learn from each other. Nobody gains.

Are insults funny?

Sometimes abuse can be fun and funny. Don Rickles, the famous comedian, developed insult humour into a popular art. Many people today imitate his comedy routines in real life and on the internet. The recent presidential primaries in the US were filled with demeaning jokes by Donald Trump and his followers about ‘Little Marco’ (Rubio, who was one of Trump’s competitors in Republican primaries). After Trump was elected, liberals (and some of Trump’s conservative opponents) engaged in silly jests about the size of Trump’s hands. Such humour is so juvenile that it is hard to believe that anyone takes it seriously.

What exactly do we gain from a joke at our opponent’s expense? Of course, we get pleasure. It feels good to laugh. But that is only the start of an explanation, because we could also get such pleasant feelings from jokes about our own limitations. So why make fun of opponents instead of ourselves?

Maybe such jokes affect voting. Who wants to support a candidate who will be a laughing stock? Still, it is hard to believe that anyone who supports Trump would turn to the other side because of the size of his hands.

The real goal of such jokes, I suspect, is to build group solidarity. Making fun of opponents is rewarded by laughter and praise from like-minded audiences who agree with us. This reaction signals to us all that we share certain values, which motivates us to hang together as a group or as a movement. Joking about a view or opinion also shows that we do not take it seriously, so we are unlikely to be swayed onto that opposing side. That signals our stability, which gives people confidence in cooperating with us. Finally, the ability to make the best joke at an opponent’s expense also gains us status as a leader in the group. That is why some members of the group compete to tell the funniest or most vicious jokes at the expense of outsiders.

Jokes about opponents are also particularly effective because they leave those opponents with no good response. If they do not laugh at the jokes about themselves, then they come off as stiffs who lack a sense of humour, arrogantly denying their own flaws, or as too dumb to get the joke. There is no way for them to win.

In these ways, jokes about opponents work as rhetorical tricks. They can build groups, gain status for the joker and rob the target of any way to recover. That explains why humour has become such a common weapon. However, such humour also has a dark side. Joking about someone’s position will impede understanding of that position. You cannot appreciate opponents or their reasoning by making them look silly. They are almost never as silly as the jokes make them look. Moreover, if you joke about them, then they will joke about you. Each side replies in kind, so the level of discourse spirals down.

I am not denying that humour has a place. It can lighten the atmosphere and enable good feelings for each other. Intelligent political satire can be insightful political critique when it draws attention to bad arguments and falsehoods. However, simplistic and vicious humour that abuses outsiders rarely accomplishes constructive goals in the long run. Instead, it prevents us from understanding and empathizing with each other.

How low can we go?

Abuse gets more vicious on the internet, perhaps because abusers are anonymous and do not have to face their victims. Sometimes internet trolls go so far as to threaten their targets. There are plenty of examples, but I will focus on one, because I happen to know the victim.

A philosophy professor at Emory College in Atlanta, George Yancy, wrote a controversial piece, ‘Dear White America’, in The Stone (part of The New York Times) on 24 December 2015. Yancy’s letter starts,

I have a weighty request. As you read this letter, I want you to listen with love, a sort of love that demands that you look at parts of yourself that might cause pain and terror, as James Baldwin would say. Did you hear that? You may have missed it. I repeat: I want you to listen with love. Well, at least try.

Next, he admits to being sexist himself, and he explains what that means. Then he says,

Just as my comfort in being male is linked to the suffering of women, which makes me sexist, so, too, you are racist.

Yancy knew, of course, that calling his readers racist would produce negative reactions. However, the onslaught that he received was surprisingly vicious.

Immediately after the publication of ‘Dear White America’, I began to receive vile and vitriolic white racist comments sent to my university email address, and verbal messages sent to my answering machine. I even received snail mail that was filled with hatred. Imagine the time put into actually sitting down and writing a letter filled with so much hate and then sending it snail mail, especially in our world of the internet. The comments were not about pointing out fallacies in my position, but were designed to violate, to leave me psychologically broken and physically distraught. Words do things, especially words like ‘nigger’, or being called an animal that should go back to Africa or being told that I should be ‘beheaded ISIS style’. (The Stone, 18 April 2016)

The crucial point made by Yancy here – in the context of our discussion on reasoning and argument – is: ‘The comments were not about pointing out fallacies in my position.’ As a philosopher, he would be used to accusations of fallacies. He did not object to criticisms backed by arguments, and we can certainly envisage countless objections to calling so many people (all of ‘White America’!) racist. But what he received were not only objections but very personal attacks. Such vicious replies to a gentle man who asks you to listen with love are bound to lead to polarization.

Yancy’s story is not typical, fortunately. Many people today still communicate in courteous ways. They often talk with opponents, seek opposing points of view, ask questions and learn from the answers, and do not simply caricature, diagnose, abuse, joke and threaten their opponents. We are able to talk honestly and openly, but too often we do not exercise that ability. Instead, we talk in a toxic way – especially on the internet. This toxic talk signals disrespect and contempt, which fuel antagonism and polarization. It also scares away moderate contributors. Some kinds of incivility to others can be amusing and can create bonds among abusers who share a common target. Nonetheless, these short-term benefits bring long-term costs that are tearing our societies apart and preventing us from solving our serious problems.

Is Europe civilized?

Maybe the situation is not so bad in Europe? This hope has been refuted by the recent Brexit vote in the United Kingdom (perhaps soon not to be so united). One of the champions of the movement to leave the European Union was Boris Johnson, the former Mayor of London who went on to become Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. Johnson said,

I believe we would be mad not to take this once in a lifetime chance to walk through that door because the truth is it is not we who have changed. It is the EU that has changed out of all recognition; and to keep insisting that the EU is about economics is like saying the Italian Mafia is interested in olive oil and real estate.3

By calling his opponents ‘mad’, he removes any incentive to listen to their reasons. Madness precludes listening in order to learn. His reference to a ‘once in a lifetime chance’ then issues a demand: now or never. It also suggests that there cannot be any compromise, since accepting a compromise would miss the only chance and make it impossible ever to leave the European Union again. And, of course, comparing the European Union with the Mafia implies that they are criminals that need to be stopped before they kill or rob the UK. The only way to stop the Mafia is with weapons, not reasoning. In all of these ways, then, Johnson’s description the problem is fashioned to stimulate hatred and silence any balanced discussion of the arguments on both sides.

Those who opposed Brexit were no better. They often said or implied that support for Brexit was based only on fear, anger, Islamophobia, xenophobia and/or racism. Fear and anger often block careful reasoning, so the claim that your opponents are driven by such emotions suggests that there is no point in giving them reasons, much less listening to their reasons. The terms ‘Islamophobia’ and ‘xenophobia’ suggest mental illness – phobias – so there is no more point in trying to reason with an Islamophobe or a xenophobe than there is in telling an arachnophobe that many spiders are not really dangerous. And racism is defined by regarding or treating races differently when there is no reason to do so. It is not racist to treat people from other racial backgrounds differently when there is good reason for such treatment, for example in testing for sickle-cell anaemia, which is almost exclusively confined to people of African heritage. Thus epithets like ‘racist’ lead people not to expect any reasonable arguments or any rational responses to reasoned arguments. Such words suggest that we need to fight these opponents instead of listening to them.

Indeed, those who want to allow immigrants into society sometimes seem to suggest that we should kick out their opponents. Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, former co-Chair of the UK Conservative Party, opposed Brexit because ‘Toxic, divisive and xenophobic political campaigning should have no place in a liberal democracy.’4 No place at all? I would have thought that liberal democracies were liberal because they allowed freedom of speech, including xenophobic political campaigning. Warsi might not have meant to say that such campaigning should be illegal or that xenophobes should be banished – but instead that liberal democracies would be better without them. Still, her vague and incendiary language suggests that we have nothing to learn from these opponents. In that way, it seems to contribute to antagonism and prevent constructive exchanges of reasons.

Of course, not everyone resorts to such rhetorical tricks. J. K. Rowling, author of the acclaimed Harry Potter series, tried to carve out a moderate position between the poles:

It is dishonourable to suggest, as many have, that Leavers [supporters of Brexit] are all racists and bigots: they aren’t and it is shameful to suggest that they are. Nevertheless, it is equally nonsensical to pretend that racists and bigots aren’t flocking to the ‘Leave’ cause, or that they aren’t, in some instances, directing it.⁵

A nice distinction! Even if most Leavers are not racist, it still might be true that most racists are Leavers and even that ‘some’ (maybe many, but not all or even most) of the directors of the Brexit movement are racist. However, when reasonable people tried to calm down the rhetoric, they were often dismissed, as in this case:

[British liberal elites] tried to make a distinction between a rational anti-immigrant sentiment and an irrational racism, the former to be absorbed into the mainstream, the latter to be marginalized. In fact, no such distinction existed and acting as if it did had the effect of further legitimizing racism in the political mainstream.6

Replies like this accuse all moderates of ‘legitimizing racism’. It is no wonder that many people did not have the courage to express moderate views, for they would be labelled ‘racist’ by one side and ‘mad’ by the other.

The recent migrant crisis has also produced extreme reactions on the European continent. Although German Chancellor Angela Merkel is usually firmly centrist, she supported immigration by saying, ‘When it comes to human dignity, we cannot make compromises.’⁷ This statement implies that she will not talk or listen to anyone who suggests a compromise, even, for example, minimal limits on the number of immigrants. If preventing migration violates human dignity, then limiting migration would be comparable to allowing a little slavery.

On the other side, Marine Le Pen, President of the National Front in France, said, ‘They don’t tell you this, but the immigration crisis in France is totally out of control. My aim is clear: to stop immigration both legal and illegal.’ Thus, like Merkel, Le Pen also demonstrates an unwillingness to compromise. She refuses to accept even limited immigration, because then those immigrants would enter legally, contrary to her aim. Le Pen concludes, ‘What is at stake in this election is whether France can still be a free nation. The divide is no longer between the left and right, but between patriots and globalists!’8 Here she labels her opponents as unpatriotic and enemies of a free France, and her extreme positions were endorsed by over one third of French voters in the 2017 election. Of course, there are also supporters of immigration in France and opponents of immigration in Germany. Nonetheless, political leaders in both countries talk about immigration in divisive ways that suggest a lack of willingness to compromise or even listen to any arguments on the other side. It is no surprise that these opponents move further and further apart, and that their mutual antagonism and disrespect grow.

How much incivility is too much?

Why has incivility spread around the world? Why do so many people talk this way even when what they say is literally false? Part of the answer is that incivility is a useful tool for some purposes.

Incivility attracts attention. People see polite messages as bland and boring, so they read and recommend – as well as tweet and retweet – them less than rude exaggerations.⁹ Opponents retweet uncivil outbursts in order to show how silly they are and how important it is to oppose such extremists. Nonetheless, they still pay more attention than if these outbursts had been balanced and reasonable.

Incivility also energizes. Supporters retweet their own side’s incivility in order to stir up the troops and build passion and energy on their side. A movement can gather more protesters by calling their opponents ‘crazy’ than by saying that they have missed a few important points.

Incivility also stimulates memory. It is easier to recall an extreme exaggeration that angers you than a balanced and nuanced description of the facts. To prove this, just try to remember what a politician said in a speech. Most people can probably restate the uncivil portions but not the more courteous and balanced parts of the speech.

In these ways, incivility, exaggeration and extremism increase audiences. If what you want is a big audience, this simple strategy is tempting. As marketing it works – and marketing has its place. Powerless groups in society might have no other way to gain attention. Calls for them to remain civil in effect demand them to defer to authority. Movements on their behalf sometimes – especially at the start – need to use incivility. Abolitionists, suffragettes and civil rights leaders were not always courteous (or even peaceful), and their incivility sometimes served their purposes of building their movements.10 Many of us have benefited from some incivility in this way.

This strategy has costs, however. The relevant cost here is polarization. When opponents are rude to you, it makes you angry and motivates you to retaliate. When you are uncivil to your opponents, this rarely convinces them and often makes them less willing to listen and less able to understand your position. When both sides engage in incivility, they think less of each other and of each other’s ideas.¹¹

This polarization harms both sides. More important, it undermines our shared society. The many moderates who really want to understand the issues and the reasons on both sides of an argument are deprived of any rational way to decide what to do, because they cannot learn from uncivil tirades. They lose faith in both sides and in news sources that align with either side. Moreover, our government becomes less able to function. Why should I work with someone who calls me stupid and crazy? How could I compromise with such disrespectful opponents?

Because incivility has both costs and benefits, it is often hard to tell when it is justified overall. Insults and sarcasm are bound to remain popular for those who see their benefits as greater than their costs. Meanwhile, the rest of us will suffer.