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Civility Has Become Complicity
I have a friend who is advocate for victims of rape and incest. And when I say advocate I mean this is in the strongest way possible. She screams about the horrors of rape and incest. She writes in ALL CAPS. She doesn’t politely request that people stop destroying lives — she DEMANDS it. She doesn’t calmly explain why sexual violence is bad — she RAGES against it. She doesn’t quietly advocate — she ATTACKS those who minimize these horrors, who treat them as topics for measured debate, who respond to accounts of brutal violation with “let’s be reasonable about this.”
And people, especially other advocates, overwhelmingly seek to tell her she’s doing it wrong. That she needs to be more “professional.” More “measured.” More “civilized.”
Let’s talk about civilization, shall we?
What kind of civilization tells survivors and advocates to lower their voices while they fight against rape and incest? What kind of civilization demands politeness from those confronting some of the most profound violations humans can perpetrate against each other? What kind of civilization prioritizes calm discourse over the screaming need to protect vulnerable people from sexual violence?
A civilization in deep moral crisis, that’s what kind.
