Civility transcripts

It’s being reported that:

(E)ight selective colleges, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins University, and Vanderbilt University announced they will accept these “civility transcripts” among the factors they weigh in college-admissions decisions.

Sigh.

On the one hand, I appreciate this sentiment:

Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untraveled, the naive, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as “empty,” “meaningless,” or “dishonest,” and scorn to use them. No matter how “pure” their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best. (Heinlein 1978)

My problem with words like “civility,” “politeness,” and “professionalism” is that they are coded. If it’s hard to counter someone who accuses you of “incivility” because it can mean many different things. Some can use it just as a way of saying, “You shouldn’t make that point at all.”

So in addition to being vague, civility and its relatives can easily be used just to enforce the status quo.

“Do it in the right way.” Yeah. This is the same language used to try to neutralize protests. The “right way” gets so prescribed that it effectively prevents expression.

On the other hand, there are some things one should not be civil about.

MR. NANCY: Shit, you all don’t know you black yet. You think you just people. Let me be the first to tell you that you are all black. The moment these Dutch motherfuckers set foot here and decided they white, and you get to be black, and that’s the nice name they call you. Let me paint a picture of what’s waiting for you on the shore. You arrive in America, land of opportunity, milk and honey, and guess what? You all get to be slaves! Split up, sold off and worked to death! The lucky ones get Sunday off to sleep and fuck and make more slaves, and all for what? For cotton? Indigo? For a fucking purple shirt? The only good news is the tobacco your grandkids are gonna farm for free is gonna give a shitload of these white motherfuckers cancer. And I ain’t even started yet. A hundred years later, you’re fucked! A hundred years after that, fucked! A hundred years after you get free, you still getting fucked outta jobs and shot at by police! You see what I’m saying?

[sees the rage on a slave’s face]

MR. NANCY: This guy gets it. I like him. He’s gettin’ angry. Angry is good. Angry gets shit done. (Green & Fuller 2017)

Anger is a legitimate form of human expression.

I do not like the idea of “civility transcripts.” At all. I am disappointed in the universities are going to consider them.

References

Heinlein RA, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long (1978). G.P. Putnam’s Sons: New York.

Green M, Fuller B, 2017, “The Secret of Spoons,” American Gods.

External links

Colleges will give a leg up to students who demonstrate civility