Debates over civility often become poisonous and uncivil themselves. The parties in a conflict don’t get to decide which of them is more civil, what level of civility is okay, etc. It’s more transactional than that. Outsiders looking in should be scrutinized heavily for partisanship.

I’ve become gradually more civil over the years for two reasons: I ignore provocative trolls, and I don’t want to give too much ground for making the messenger or medium trump the facts and the message.

I would also say predictability is a much greater virtue than civility per se: some people who do nothing with the online part of their daily activities but spam and paste things that are provocative trolling or just insulting will say it’s uncivil to point that out: if you consistently do just that and move on, they won’t succeed in demonizing you with anyone but the faithful.

The last time I was called uncivil on the internets was when I pointed out the complete intellectual bankruptcy, incompetence, and dishonesty of Keith Kloor of Audubon magazine. Sometimes the emperor has no clothes, but out of context, I didn’t look good. However, subsequently, I’ve sort of been vindicated, because the things I pointed out have stayed near the forefront when people dealt with Kloor. He’s clearly being lumped in with Fred Hiatt and George Will these days.

So another point is that going beyond what someone’s labeled civility can be a choice, as well, and sometimes the right choice.

I would say don’t let yourself do things too emotionally, don’t commit logical or argumentative fallacies, and don’t waste time with invective.

That people are being uncivil is of course assumed, and that it is a problem in discussions is of course assumed. Whether civility outweighs accuracy, honesty and truthfulness in a discussion is of course not mentioned.

Civility is a distraction.

Because that misadventure was a textbook example of the rampant Highlander Disease on the internet: All Disagreement is an Attack, There can Be Only One, Two People Enter, One Person Leaves. Even worse, some of the people who panned your book did so in a blunt fashion, using direct language.

Finally, that devil of devils, PZ Myer dared to point out how a rather significant chunk of that book was naught more than a personal attack on him and others who don’t play the way you and Chris think they should.

Yet since all of these people were, de facto, personally attacking you because they thought less than kindly about your book and the points it made, you and Chris had an instant method to dismiss every and any point they made, legitimate or not. Over and over you and Chris did this here, and in every media outlet that would give you time. You dismissed anyone you decided you didn’t like.

So maybe, just maybe, you could talk about how disagreement, simple, basic, disagreement, is now uncivil and how you and Chris participated in that.

And mostly I find the civil characteristics of a blog’s comments largely reflect the civil characteristics of the blogger.

As examples, since you folks explicitly equate dissent regarding climate change theory to Holocaust Denial, and Creationism, and then call people deniers and dehumanize dissenters freely, what you get in return is a relatively uncivil conversation from people who arguably probably agree with 98% of your other points of view.

Since you don’t understand all the venom, and can’t look in the mirror, what happens is you need a panel to understand it for you, decry it, and then blame it on misogyny.

HTH

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/dannywestneat/2010627913_danny30.html

One of his secondary observations is that there has been a shift in the average civility of letter-writers now versus pre-Internets. The crazies have always been there, but previously had a more limited number of outlets and with a general lack of a feedback mechanism. I’m curious whether their ranks have actually grown, or whether they’re simply more prolific now. Likely a little of both, but I’ve yet to see anyone drill down on that distinction.

This is not about the OPINION or STANCE of the actors.

1. you can write dense&long or dense&short positions on a topic (or multiple topics) before the other person responds. Unless you regularly participate in formal debate, this is a strange way to communicate.

2. neither side gets any non-verbal feedback. It’s easy to misunderstand even clear, precise text.