10
" When people say things that we find offensive, civic charity asks that we resist the urge to attribute to immorality or prejudice views that can be equally well explained by other motives. It asks us to give the benefit of doubts, the assumption of goodwill, and the gift of attention. When people say things that agree with or respond thoughtfully to our arguments, we acknowledge that they have done so. We compliment where we can do so honestly, and we praise whatever we can legitimately find praiseworthy in their beliefs and their actions.
When we argue with a forgiving affection, we recognize that people are often carried away by passions when discussing things of great importance to them. We overlook slights and insults and decline to respond in kind. We apologize when we get something wrong or when we hurt someone's feelings, and we allow others to apologize to us when they do the same.
When people don't apologize, we still don't hold grudges or hurt them intentionally, even if we feel that they have intentionally hurt us. If somebody is abusive or obnoxious, we may decline to participate in further conversation, but we don't retaliate or attempt to make them suffer. And we try really hard not to give in to the overwhelming feeling that arguments must be won - and opponents destroyed - if we want to protect our own status or sense of worth. We never forget that our opponents are human beings who possess innate dignity and fellow citizens who deserve respect. "
― Michael Austin , We Must Not Be Enemies: Restoring America's Civic Tradition
11
" Civic charity is easy to talk about but tremendously difficult to practice - mainly because a lot of people don't reciprocate. Some people will be rude and obnoxious and will laugh at us when we try to engage with them charitably. They will see our generosity as a sign of weakness and take advantage of our good nature to abuse us further. We will forgive them the requisite seventy times seven times, and they will keep on offending us. Charity always works this way, both the civic kind and the 'love-other-people-like-God-loves-you' kind.
We need not think, however, that we are shirking our duties or abandoning our causes when we decline to angrily denounce those on the other side or to treat them like subhuman imbeciles. Charitable engagement does not always change people's hearts and minds, but the number of times it has done so is not zero - which gives charity a better track record than anger, contempt, and derision. Ultimately, though, mature and thoughtful people do not allow the way other people treat them to determine how they treat other people; when we do this, we surrender an enormous amount of power to people who do not wish us well. "
― Michael Austin , We Must Not Be Enemies: Restoring America's Civic Tradition
14
" In fact, Aristotle didn't have a high opinion of Athenian democracy, which had very few safeguards against demagoguery or majoritarianism. A much better form of government, he thought, was what he called a 'politeia,' or a 'constitutional government.' (Roman writers translated 'politeia' as 'affairs of the state,' or 'res publica,' which gave us our word 'republic.') In this kind of society, people govern themselves through deliberations and elections, but they do so in a framework constrained by written constitutions and protections of individual rights.
The constitutional government was one of three natural forms of government, along with aristocracy (rule by the 'aristoi' or 'best people' in a society) and monarchy (rule by a single kind). Aristotle believed that each of these types of state can produce good government and human flourishing as long as they meet one important criteria: the sovereign power must display natural affection for everybody in the society. There is no structural way to guarantee that any form of government will remain conducive to human flourishing. Only 'philia politike' [civic friendship] can do that.
The absence of civic friendship turns each of the natural forms of government into a corresponding perversion. A tyranny is a monarchy in which the king feels no concern for the people. An oligarchy is an aristocracy in which the ruling class oppresses the people to serve its own interests. And a democracy is a 'politeia' in which people come together to form majorities that impose their will on minorities for selfish ends. The presence of civic friendship is more important to the creation of a just society than the form of government. Any state in which the leaders and the people take civic friendship seriously can produce justice. Any state in which people treat each other as enemies will ultimately become unjust.
In other words, good government requires justice, and justice ultimately requires that people be governed by their friends. In a democracy, where we govern each other, we must all be friends, or the system will become oppressive. "
― Michael Austin , We Must Not Be Enemies: Restoring America's Civic Tradition
16
" For all they may talk about the people as a coherent group, demagogues are actually devoted to pitting the people against each other. Demagogues rarely create new prejudices; they amplify those that already exist, giving people permission to say things that had previously been unpopular or taboo. Much as demagogues work to weaken the rule of law, they try to weaken the social norms that enforce civic friendship, opening old wounds and encouraging the eruption of anger and hatred that have been kept below the surface by a thin but crucially important layer of civility and civic decency.
The final point is especially important. Demagogues don't simply flatter the populace. They flatter a portion of the people by attacking and demonizing everyone else. Those who stand with the demagogue become 'the people.' Everybody else becomes effectively subhuman: 'animals,' 'vermin,' 'criminals,' 'enemies of the state,' In this way, demagogues ensure that a portion of the people will always side with them against their common enemy. At the same time, they create the perception of emergency to justify their destruction of the constitutional safeguards that would otherwise check their power. A demagogue needs division the way that a fire needs oxygen. They succeed only because they are able to fan the flames. "
― Michael Austin , We Must Not Be Enemies: Restoring America's Civic Tradition
18
" Small acts of persuasion matter, because there is much less distance between people's beliefs than we often suppose. We easily confuse the distance between people's political positions with the intensity of their convictions about them. It is entirely possible for people to become sharply divided, even hostile, , over relatively minor disagreements. Americans have fought epic political battles over things like baking wedding cakes and kneeling during the national anthem. And we once fought a shooting war over a whiskey tax of ten cents per gallon. The ferocity of these battles has nothing to do with the actual distance between different positions, which, when compared to the entire range of opinions possible in the world, is almost negligible.
None of this means that we can persuade our opponents easily. Persuading people to change their minds is excruciatingly difficult. It doesn't always work, and it rarely works the way we think it will. But it does work, and the fact that it works makes it possible for us to have a democracy. "
― Michael Austin , We Must Not Be Enemies: Restoring America's Civic Tradition