I recently learned this phrase while watching an excellent webinar on Restorative Organizational Practices (check out the webinar from the Zehr Institute HERE) and my whole body lit up. Exactly! The oppressive implicit message within organizations that being nice and polite is valued more than addressing issues and concerns constructively.
With this buzzing energy of recognition around the concept of the tyranny of civility, I dug a little deeper and learned that this concept has been primarily included around conversations about the culture of white supremacy. No big surprise there. It totally makes sense. White supremacy values the appearance of civility over the airing of valid grievances. Too often we tone police or otherwise silence individuals who have experienced harm in order to maintain decorum, or spare the feelings of unwittingly more privileged individuals.
And this implicit value around civility also contributes to toxic and dysfunctional interpersonal dynamics within organizations. Even, and sometimes especially, when the value of niceness is not stated explicitly, groups can fall into a trap of skirting around important issues. Often resulting in seemingly disproportionate explosions of conflict that “come out of nowhere” but were actually brewing beneath the surface for a long time.
At this point in my life I have accumulated a significant amount of experience working within various groups and organizations. From student council meetings, to theater productions, to nonprofit leadership, to social justice activism, each group contains similar essential ingredients - people and a goal. Many factors contribute to the relative success of an organization’s goals, but in general it seems that the more conflict averse the group, the less effective and satisfying the work. Interestingly, mission driven organizations like non-profits and social justice activism groups tend to me the most conflict averse. I believe it may be because these organizations rely heavily on implicit assumptions of shared values and see conflict as a negative sign of deeper problems, instead of an opportunity for deeper connection. (Conflict resolution organizations are sometimes the most conflict averse, in my experience. I’ll save my theories on why that is for another day.)
But when organizations avoid addressing conflict constructively, and encourage politeness over candor, it can lead to a negative peace. Negative peace may look good on the outside - calm and civil. However, actual peace is messier and doesn’t always look and feel calm and civil. It requires candor and kindness, assertiveness and bravery, speaking up for values and needs even when it may go against the grain.
How we work together is just as important as any tasks or responsibilities because it impacts the quality and integrity of the work. Practicing our skills around principled disagreement, assertiveness, and true collaboration is necessary for building resilient organizations. Mission driven organization especially need to be able to attend to conflict constructively, otherwise relatively small problems fester and undermine the group’s ability to function. In the absence of robust conflict resolution skills, groups often dissolve or experience rapid turnover, defeating the purpose of the organization and sidelining the work.
How have you seen the tyranny of civility impacting spaces that you’ve been in? What is one thing that you think organizations could do to build a culture of constructive peace?
