The Civility Trap: Why Being Nice Makes Things Worse

[summer_in_TX]

Chris Armitage was out with a thought-provoking – and well-documented – article on Substack yesterday: “The Civility Trap: Why Being Nice Makes Things Worse” https://open.substack.com/pub/cmarmitage/p/the-civility-trap-why-being-nice

Here's what makes this trap so effective: your neurology is working against you. When you violate social norms, even in response to someone destroying those norms, your anterior cingulate cortex fires the same signals as physical pain. Being rude to someone advocating genocide literally hurts the brain of people who have functioning empathy capabilities.
This isn't a bug; it's an evolutionary feature. For 200,000 years, humans lived in small bands where reputation determined survival. Social violations meant exile, which meant death. We're wired to feel intense discomfort when breaking taboos, even when those taboos no longer serve their purpose.
Modern authoritarians exploit this systematically. They understand that most people would rather lose rights than lose propriety. So they frame every escalation as a test of your civility. Will you be "divisive"? Will you "sink to their level"? Will you be the one who "destroys discourse"?
Notice how the burden always falls on those responding to violations, never on those committing them. Kilmeade suggests murdering the homeless, and the question becomes whether critics are being too harsh. The framework itself is the trap.”

Lots of great examples plus documentation. Evolutionary biology and human psychology make responding to a pattern of incivility with civility helps them win.

Made me wonder why I haven’t seen viral info on how to contact sponsors of the Brian Kilmeade show and pressure them to drop him.

Maybe it’s out there and I just haven’t seen it.

[leftstreet]

1. Speaking of Kilmeade...

Three days after he made his comments about killing the unhoused - 2 separate encampments got shot up. Yet all over the media it's CRICKETS

There's a thread in DU Latest Breaking News

Eight people shot in Minneapolis at landlord's homeless encampment hours after another mass shooting

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143531053

And if you Google Kilmeade he's been apologizing PROFUSELY for the statements

If ever there was a time to use a tragedy strategically (as the right does with precision)...

[summer_in_TX]

2. His sponsors should see the connection.

Up to us to make it happen.

Greg Gutfeld too. Beyond the pale.

[leftstreet]

3. I'm sure FOX is laughing there was no outcry

[I_UndergroundPanther]

4. When he said

Involuntary injections to kill homeless and I got pissed .

In the mental hospitals I spent time in from 15 to 30 or so I have had plenty of involuntary injections. Once for crying quietly in my room. I have been tied down put in ice cold sheets it goes on. I have been temporarily homeless and lived in a motel 6.

So this fight is fucking personal. How dare that fucking vile degenerate nazi piece of shit say that on tv!! I would have screamed in his face called a nazi a nazi and not backed down. I would have shredded his ego and verbally tore him apart.

Fuck civility and fuck him. I would love to tie him up and give him a dose of anectine like was done to me in the name of behavior modification.


Anectine was terrifying.I thought my doctor was murdering me and after the effects were gone I was not civil to that bastard. I didn’t yell ( that could give staff an excuse to send the goons in to throw you in solitary) but I called him out and verbally showed no mercy in front of the entire unit during a medication”class”.

He was gone after a week.

If you are curious this is what anectine is and how it affects you.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suxamethonium_chloride

Aversion therapy
https://archive.scienceforthepeople.org/vol-6/v6n3/genocide-of-the-mind/