The Civility Trap: Why Being Nice Makes Things Worse
By: Christopher Armitage
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Christopher ArmitageSep 16, 202544778167Share
On September 10, 2025, Fox News host Brian Kilmeade suggested we should give homeless people "involuntary lethal injection" or, as he clarified, "just kill 'em." This happened on national television. During breakfast hours. While families got ready for work and school.
The response? Media outlets described it as "controversial remarks." Journalists asked whether he'd "gone too far." Four days later, Kilmeade offered what CNN called an "apology," and everyone moved on. He kept his job, his show continued, and the network issued no statement.
Now imagine if a homeless person had suggested on television that we should kill Fox News hosts. How long would that clip play on repeat? How many segments about "violent extremism" would follow? How quickly would law enforcement respond?
This asymmetry reveals something about how civility actually functions in a degraded information ecosystem: it flows in only one direction, protecting those who violate it while constraining those who might resist.
Every stable society depends on reciprocal agreements. You don't steal from me; I don't steal from you. You treat me with basic dignity; I return the courtesy. These agreements work because they're conditional. Cooperation continues only while both parties cooperate. Game theorists have studied this exhaustively through the prisoner's dilemma, and the conclusion is unambiguous: when facing a bad-faith actor, continuing to cooperate isn't virtuous. It's self-destructive. The optimal strategy, proven across thousands of iterations, is tit-for-tat. You begin cooperatively, but when someone defects, you must defect in response. Not from spite, but from necessity.
Consider what happens when one party abandons these norms while demanding others maintain them. A politician lies about election results, but journalists must remain "objective." A Supreme Court justice accepts luxury vacations from billionaires, but protesters must respect the "dignity of the court." A television host calls for mass murder, but critics must respond "constructively."
The civility party doesn't just lose proportionally. They lose catastrophically. Every act of restraint becomes permission for escalation.
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.
A 2021 study by researchers at NYU and the Universite Grenoble Alpes found that posts containing "out-group animosity," content attacking perceived enemies received twice the engagement on Facebook and Twitter. The more extreme the rhetoric, the greater the amplification. Yet platforms and networks rarely enforce consequences. Kilmeade's comment fits this pattern perfectly: extreme statement, viral spread, zero professional penalties. The incentive structure is clear: extremism pays, civility doesn't.
Consider the neurological evidence. Molly Crockett's 2017 research at Yale identified what she calls outrage fatigue in the digital age. She argues that repeated exposure to moral violations online leads to habituation. What happens is our brains literally stop responding with the same intensity when norm violations become routine. But here's the critical insight: this desensitization is amplified when violations go unpunished. Social feedback shapes whether we maintain moral sensitivity or become numb to transgressions.
The implications are particularly meaningful for the U.S. right now. Every time someone calls for mass murder on television and faces only civil disagreement, we're training millions of brains to accept it.
History provides a natural experiment in the effectiveness of matching rhetorical force. When Senator Joseph McCarthy destroyed lives with baseless communist accusations, most senators maintained decorum, expressing "concerns" about his methods. McCarthy's power grew for four years. Then Edward R. Murrow abandoned journalistic neutrality and called McCarthy exactly what he was: a demagogue exploiting fear. Within months, McCarthy was censured and powerless. The key wasn't violence or law-breaking. It was the willingness to match aggressive lies with aggressive truth.
The psychological mechanism behind this is well-documented. Solomon Asch's conformity experiments showed that people will deny obvious reality when surrounded by others doing the same. But introducing just one dissenter who forcefully breaks consensus reduces conformity by 80%. The dissenter doesn't need to be polite; they need to be loud.
When Republicans In Tennessee expelled two Democratic lawmakers for protesting gun violence, the expelled representatives didn't issue statements about "disappointment." They called the expulsion "fascist," organized massive rallies, and turned their Republican colleagues into national pariahs. They were immediately re-elected with increased majorities. No violence. No property damage. Just the refusal to treat authoritarianism as legitimate, valid, or tolerable.
Robert Sapolsky's primate research offers an evolutionary perspective. In baboon troops, when subordinate males consistently defer to aggressive males, the aggressive behavior intensifies. But when subordinates match aggressive displays with equally aggressive counter-displays, dominant males moderate their behavior within days. The key variable isn't violence; it's the social cost of aggression.
Apply this framework to contemporary discourse. When Tucker Carlson promotes the "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory to millions of viewers, media critics wrote thoughtful rebuttals. When the same theory motivated the Buffalo shooter who killed ten Black shoppers, those same critics wrote more thoughtful pieces about the dangers of extremist rhetoric. Carlson faced no consequences. The thoughtful rebuttals changed nothing.
Contrast this with the response to Rush Limbaugh calling Sandra Fluke a "slut" for advocating birth control coverage. Women's groups didn't write concerned letters. They organized an advertiser boycott and made executives' lives miserable with coordinated calling campaigns. They made supporting Limbaugh socially and financially toxic. He lost 140 advertisers and never recovered his influence.
The philosopher Karl Popper identified this dynamic in 1945, arguing that unlimited tolerance leads to the disappearance of tolerance itself. But Popper's formulation was incomplete. He focused on tolerating intolerance rather than the mechanism by which intolerance spreads: the exploitation of asymmetric civility norms.
Christina Bicchieri's research on social norms at the University of Pennsylvania explains why this asymmetry persists. She distinguishes between "descriptive norms" (what people actually do) and "injunctive norms" (what people think they should do). When these diverge, people follow descriptive norms while professing injunctive ones. Everyone says we should be civil, but those who abandon civility gain power, creating a system where civility becomes a performance by the powerless for an audience of the powerful.
The historical record is unambiguous. The labor movement won the eight-hour workday through strikes and refusing to treat robber barons as respectable businessmen. They called them parasites and thieves, full stop. ACT UP saved lives during the AIDS crisis by refusing to let politicians who enabled mass death maintain their comfortable respectability. They threw ashes on the White House lawn and blood on the FDA steps. These movements didn't succeed by being civil. They succeeded by making the status quo socially untenable for those in power.
In 2021, when someone at Charlie Kirk's Turning Point USA event asked 'when do we get to use the guns' to kill political opponents, Kirk responded by discussing 'exhausting peaceful options first' rather than 'we don't murder people.' His civil response normalized political violence as a debatable timeline question.
The audience of thousands heard political assassination discussed as a matter of 'when,' not 'if.' The psychological principle of the 'mere exposure effect,' first documented by Robert Zajonc, shows that repeated exposure to an idea, even without endorsement, gradually increases acceptance and reduces aversion. By discussing political murder civilly, they're manufacturing consent for it.
The alternative isn't random violence or purposeless rage. Strategic incivility follows clear principles: impose social costs on norm violation, demonstrate that resistance is possible, and make the continuation of oppression more embarrassing than reform. When Kilmeade suggests killing the homeless, you don't debate. You make his position professionally untenable through coordinated campaigns of economic pressure and public accountability.
This conclusion is uncomfortable for many because because we've been neurologically and culturally programmed to value civility above justice. Moreso, they're terrified of the reality we live in right now; they hope that if they keep acting "normal" then things will just go back to how they were. That time has passed.
The evidence is clear: in asymmetric conflicts where one side exploits civility while violating it, maintaining civility ensures defeat. This isn't a metaphorical defeat. It's real defeat, measured in rights lost, lives destroyed, and democracies collapsed.
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References
Asch, S. E. (1956). Studies of independence and conformity: I. A minority of one against a unanimous majority. *Psychological Monographs: General and Applied*, 70(9), 1-70.
Axelrod, R. (1984). *The evolution of cooperation*. Basic Books.
Bicchieri, C. (2006). *The grammar of society: The nature and dynamics of social norms*. Cambridge University Press.
CNN. (2025, September 14). Fox News' Brian Kilmeade says comment about killing mentally ill homeless people an 'extremely callous remark.' *CNN Business*. https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/14/business/brian-kilmeade-fox-news-apology-homeless
Crockett, M. J. (2017). Moral outrage in the digital age. *Nature Human Behaviour*, 1, 769-771. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0213-3
Kirk, C. (2021, October 25). *Exposing critical racism tour* [Public event]. Turning Point USA, Nampa Civic Center, Idaho.
Murrow, E. R. (1954, March 9). A report on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy [Television broadcast]. *See It Now*. CBS.
Popper, K. R. (1945). *The open society and its enemies* (Vols. 1-2). Routledge.
Rathje, S., Van Bavel, J. J., & van der Linden, S. (2021). Out-group animosity drives engagement on social media. *Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences*, 118(26), e2024292118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2024292118
Sapolsky, R. M. (2017). *Behave: The biology of humans at our best and worst*. Penguin Press.
Zajonc, R. B. (1968). Attitudinal effects of mere exposure. *Journal of Personality and Social Psychology*, 9(2), 1-27.
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He was never held accountable for his rhetoric
This also caught my attention:
The real problem is the significance of the widespread delusion that the left has been civil... Talk about a disconnect from reality.
The Mitt Romney is going to enslave black party wants to lecture everyone on civility now....
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Please tell us who told you this. I have not heard it in my 'travels' with liberals. If I did I would dispute it. I have not heard it. It may be, probably is a myth! You know, one of those 'crazy narratives' that travels half-way around the world before truth gets its shoes on—the saying goes!
Lena Dunham.
I believe you missed his sarcastic point, but, i never can tell with Jack
Okay. That tells me nothing as I do not know her or her views. . .please continue. . . .
I have had my fill of conservative projections onto liberals, and yes, I have had my fill of liberals projecting back onto conservatives. We are just going around and around like in a trapped maze! And if I must write it out. . . some liberals on this site are playing right into the republican narrative with reckless and 'devil may care' statements!
Don't know of her either, so Jack will have to let you know if me, or you, don't know Jack....
I'll go with both of US.
Been guilty on occasion of getting a bit too snarky. I agree that the level of discourse is steadily declining…here, there and everywhere. We should all strive to be better, hard as it has become.
There is a deeper problem/issue in our country: The youth are suffering from PTSD (gun-version). Who would have thought it. . . that the adults would leave their children's minds exposed to such confusion, chaos in government, and open hostility that the children themselves would pick up guns to fight back? That is what I discern is occurring.
Adults! The children, the youth, the young adults are 'acting out' because they see EXAMPLES of adults that can-and WON'T get our collective s-h-i-t together. It is a most sad state of affairs!
I will no longer plead that we do better for such pleading falls on deaf ears, but we have damn near lost a generation. Now we must stand by (and eventually pass on) and will not know how the children will fare trying to dig themselves out of our SHAMEFUL conduct before them!
"We" are the problem. Nobody else. We, the adults, are what is literally broken in our country! And we have doomed the children to suffer for it. The children are being affected by 'all' that they see, hear, are told, and feel.
She is an actress and screenwriter.
She posted a video on her social media platforms calling for the extinction of white men
Have you seen the link and will you link it for us to get a glimpse of her "calling for the extinction of white men" in context?
I will caution you ahead of time that generally speaking one woman's viewpoint has never represented a class, in any case..
one person and a left wing bonehead at that
got anymore?
We need a link to the 'disputed' statements he has made about this woman first! Jack needs to back that up before moving on to alleging somebody else similarly.
I'm not sure how to link social media posts, so you'll just have to Google it.
So you agree it did happen. Thanks.
you have access to google why don't you find a legitimate source and post it
Okay, you can FACILITATE the process and I will do the work. Look up what provided you this information again, copy its title, and its web address (would be gravy), paste it in a comment. I will take it from there.
Incidentally, if you are going to keep quoting sources it is ESSENTIAL that you know how to link them. I suggest you try, try, try again until the skill is accomplished. You will certainly be asked more and more as time goes on for sourcing.
Google is fine resource tool, as it provides numerous sources of data. Even so. . .I, we, may miss the one that properly informed you!
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Just for your information. I did look it up with Perplexity AI and discovered one of two stances: 1. She was subjected to misinformation, or 2. She was misunderstood -according to her 'testimony' about this statement.
I did not wish to confront or 'disturb' you with that until getting your PERSPECTIVE from your sourcing! Nevermind, now. I will discount the entire mention of her and her alleged (but not validated) 'extinction' remark.
You could have Googled it and seen the video for yourself.
Why would I waste my time?
That's the problem with social media; hundreds of millions of morons given technical access to hundreds of millions of the gullible.
Sure success for disaster.
Since you went there. . . With all this back and forth on the topic, I ASKED you KINDLY to provide a link to a video YOU HAVE SEEN for yourself! That way, I can compare the so-far absent from this discussion video to the one's I located. And still—you balk.
We are getting 'nowhere.'
Nevermind. I will discount the entire mention of her and her alleged (but not validated) 'extinction' remark. Oh and Perplexity AI has links to articles and videos (sources) attached to its data-sharing/source materials.
Very good article.
thank-you
Civility is nice when dealing with family friends and associates, and service industries.
Its not going to get you anywhere with Trumpsters.
This has nothing to do with trump. Twenty years ago, your own Senator was comparing American troops to Nazis and the Khmer Rouge to pander to his base. Of course, now that he's retiring and doesn't have to pander to the crazies) admits Democrats have gone way to far with their rhetoric and should calm the temperature down.
You can pretend this is about Trump. But Democratic "othering" of Republicans by their party leaders, not pundits goes back decades. Remember when Giffords got shot and Dmeocrats and their media went wild falsely blaming the Tea Party and Palin? Obama then came out and made a big speech about "calming the rhetoric" (though rhetoric had nothing to do with the shooting) and then his own Vice President goes out a few days later and calls Republicans terrorists. All pre Trump.
Link?
You need a link to Loughner's motives? Believing the government controls people through grammar is pretty distinctive, but google exists if you need it.
In case you forgot, the rules for debate is if you make a claim you provide a source. You don't tell someone else to go find a source for your claim.
Source your claim?
But sure, here you go.
you need to give that to Krishna. I'm not the one that asked for it
Is Trump now the left?
This has EVERYTHING to do with Trump.
Bullshit exaggerated propaganda spread via 'right' echo chambers and "news" channels have everything to do with where we are at, as in a very divided society, as of late.
Scaring people is what the 'right' does. They are coming to eat your cats and dogs, emptying there prisons and mental hospitals, sending their worst criminals, it's not safe to open your doors, etc. etc. etc. !
Yes, obviously some immigrants are criminals, but by far, the vast majority are just looking to work hard and pursue the former American Dream.
Insecure white folks, mainly in the fly over states have been taught wrong by the 'right' about the reality of this nations plight. And now they believe they have to Fight. Fight the 100 or so transgender men competing in womens sports, and that's like 100 out of millions. The immigrants are not stealing jobs, they are doing the work that entitled Americans think they are above.
Trump played upon these fears relentlessly and why he was forgiven and allowed to violate so much and so many. He has become a cult leader, bottom feeder, election non conceder, and is the main reason so much bullshit is now happening, become acceptable, and scum bagz echoing him have become electable.
As i watch the madness spread, I can see why people wind up dead. When misiformation is spread into malleable minds, it is almost by some Patriotic, to raid our peoples House to stop what they thought was a stolen election. And this was all fueled by Trumps' LIES about a stolen election. Ask Fox 'news' / entertainment about it.
It is truly fckd up that we have allowed this imposter to again become potUS!
As long as the pedophile wing man in chief is allowed to violate our Constitution and accepted norms, the further we evolve away from our forefathers forms, and until enough people wake the fck up, this fck up, is going to continue to normalize the hate and LIES, as we sink into the depths of the swamp he promised to drain, cause the only thing being drained, are the dreams of our forefathers envision of a perfect union, cause Trump has started a national strike, and we are all getting hit with the bat, shit crazies enabled by the traitor in chief, the Prez for the working man, good fckn grief Charlie Brown, how many times is Lucy Trump gonna pull out that football before you all wake the FCK UP...?
... somethin' luck look lick like that
easy for you to saaaaaaayyy
I am done wasting precious and quality time on some conservatives, now I choose just to get to the point! Mainly because I see the 'script' they follow and I read their books. Here's two titles (and they read just as they say):
Take No Prisoners; The Battle Plan for Defeating The Left - David Horowitz.
How To Beat A Liberal In Every Debate Every Time - Ben Shapiro (Youtube video.)
Not a fan of this book, either. I haven't read it but I've read about it; got the high points. Basically, he advocates for operating the way the left does, only for conservative concerns. For instance, one of his strategies entails trying to motivate the conservative base emotionally rather than intellectually, which is what the left does. In my opinion, that just creates unthinking sheep that simply react emotionally without considering the morality or practicality of the issue.
We can see the results of simply acting emotionally in how many on the left are reacting to the murder of Charlie Kirk, for instance. We're going to create the same sort of reaction on the right if they primarily respond to such things emotionally. Why would we want to replicate that?
On top of that, conservatives should want more than just motivating the base into hardcore scorched-earth fanatics. We want to reach moderates, centrists and even moderate Democrats. We're not going to do that if we act as fanatical as many on the left do.
Totally a fan of Shapiro. While he sees the same problems as Horowitz, and even has some overlap with some of his solutions, he appears to be against Horowitz's scorched-earth policies or thinking of the left as literal enemies in a literal war. Rather, he believes that persuasion and rational discourse are the preferable methods to achieve goals. While, like Horowitz, he has no problem calling out people on the left and identifying what it is they are doing, he does so less to shame them but, rather, to identify the issue and explain why it is a bad thing.
Horowitz would not be concerned with that, preferring simply cast them as enemies on an emotional level. As such, there's no need to explain anything except in basic, emotional terms to get people to do what you want them to do.
In the end, Horowitz wants to roll over the left with a steam roller because he has determined the left cannot be reasoned with. While I think that is true of some portion of the left, it's hardly true of all of it. Shapiro probably sees the same problems on the left but thinks rational discussion based on objective facts are the way to go, not simply to treat the left as an impersonal obstacle to be eliminated by any means necessary. He understands that in order to govern as the founders intended, there must be a coalition from both sides to succeed.
I find your perspective. . . interesting and 'telling' about this book. I want you to know that despite 'appearances' in my writings that I really do not see the world as Left and Right. Indeed, I sparingly use that wording for that very reason of not seeing it so. Yes, I can be 'dragged' into it when discussion goes 'hardcore' - it's because of a 'shove' that I'll relent and write "Right-wing" or some such similar words.
The story goes Horowitz was on the. . . "Left" and something murderous occurred to one of his female favorites working for the Black Panthers. . . and her death (believed by Horowitz to have been caused by "Panther" leadership. . . turned Horowitz off to liberal and their worldview.
Now then, as a moderate and pragmatist who chooses to vote with democrats over and definitely aligned against republican-conservative actions and activities largely, I found Horowitz's attitude disgusting and astounding. That is, I despised him simply because of what he wrote in his book/s. I do not understand that kind of vitriolic betrayal. . . except.
I do find that Trinity Broadcasting Network putting Kirk and Shakelbeck on a religious network to speak to God's people about politics to be obscene. What does God have to do with humanity's politics? Also, on that network you can now find pastors doing political shows and holding to questionable views for the sake of. . . receiving ad money.
But, I digress. Too many thoughts are rushing in and I am getting ahead of myself.
Ben Shapiro fancies himself as a intellect. My understanding is Kirk did too. But putting snuck premises into sentences and then using those simplistic statements to fool people into thinking something profound has been sounded on. . . is weak.
Anyway, I find both people similar to the liberals in one big annoying regard. . . both sides write too many books where they seek too much personal self-aggrandizement—and sponsors. At the end of the day, they all seem to wish to RICH and have a large encompassing following. To make that happen they are abusing themselves with the hearts and minds of their readers.
I wonder if either Stakelbeck and Shapiro understand what the 'Word' says about (ab)using people to get wealth, influence, and power. I wonder.
I'm very skeptical of the article. It seems like something that is based on Rules for Radicals, by Alinsky and is just a continuance of His ideas wrapped in different wording. Major portions of the left have already threw out "being nice" a long time ago. For instance, the inevitable disruptions when conservatives spoke at colleges and universities.
But there are what should be glaringly obvious problems with the overall premise of the article.
First, if one side can stop being civil, so can the other. Where do you think that would lead?
Second, the article argues that not being civil is a valid option and explains why, but it is based on the assumption that the cause being defended is an obvious good and moral cause. That doesn't necessarily follow. You can very well stop being civil in pursuit of your group's goals, which may not be good at all.
Third, if the second point is true, then this method simply devolve into a means of getting what one wants, regardless of its moral value, societal benefits or even whether or not it is even just.
It seems to me, civil discourse involving argument/counterargument in order to convince people at large should be exhausted before we get anywhere being uncivil.
That ship has gone out to sea. . . . See #6 above. I read David Horowitz's (deceased.) book. Ben Shapiro's videos too. Both men explain a lot of what is going on with some conservatives. And of course, we can watch how this administration is working to the extremes to dominate liberals collectively and to 'revoke' their progress in society, government, and culture.