Even so, I was also predisposed to like the book because I am committed to the idea that if there is any idea worth preserving from the nexus of practices and ideological concepts connected to the word 'civilization' that we, qua public facing philosophers, should keep the conversation, including silences and long-stutters, going.įrom the start, Olberding disarms the reader by presenting herself as prone to rudeness, even enjoying it. I was, thus, worried that Olberding's book would celebrate the virtues of decorum and thereby lecture others on how to play nice. I had been convinced by Johnson and Kaziarian (remember NewAPPS?) that civility policing was a means for the powerful to police the vulnerable while they (the powerful) could simultaneously ignoring the real harms emanating from micro-aggressions ( see here Bejan on Hobbes) and other forms of incitement by way of (to quote Mill, recall here and here) vituperative speech. While I very much like Amy Olderding's internet persona, I was a bit apprehensive about reading her book. Amy Olberding (2019) The Wrong of Rudeness: LEarning Modern Civility from Ancient Chinese Philosophy, p. The defiant optimism underwriting this resolve would have me hold out hope that we will all be better for making such efforts, that we can find some fellow feeling, some scrap of shared humanity that will enable better (or at least not worse) forms of shared life.
By trying to be well-disposed toward others, I try to preserve social connection, even when doing so is displeasing, alienating, and terrible. Not letting fly with an uncivil rebuke also means I cannot as readily from such encounters-to stay civil is, more often to stay engaged.