Post by @breton@climatejustice.social

2026-08-23 07:35 UTC

"Insisting that partisans be polite, moderate, reasonable and friendly would actually serve to exclude marginalised political voices. It could do so in two ways: • First, there was the problem of gatekeeping. […] • [Second] problem: voices at the margins of politics had special cause to be righteous and zealous. On important issues – such as the equality of the sexes – it would not do to remain polite or seek a moderate compromise." Geertje Bol: https://aeon.co/essays/polite-debate-has-privilege-the-marginalised-need-zealotry #liberals #civility #respectabilityPolitics #respectability #politeness #partisanship #parties #history #England #feminism #privilege #politicalTheory

Replies (1)

@breton@climatejustice.social 2026-08-23 07:37

The Irish republican "tradition’s hardest won insight is this: the legitimacy of a grievance does not depend on the respectability of its expression. Irish diplomats spent thirty years explaining this to British counterparts who insisted there could be no negotiation while the IRA was bombing, that calm discussion could not happen while the law was being broken, that to engage with the grievance was to legitimise the method. Those diplomats were right and the British were wrong. The Good Friday Agreement happened because enough people on both sides eventually accepted that the legitimacy of a grievance had to be addressed on its own terms, regardless of the respectability of its expression. That insight was built in Belfast and Derry, Dundalk and Crossmaglen and the H-Blocks, by people who counted the dead. It is the most important political idea Ireland has given the world in a century, and it belongs to the tradition I write from." https://forlouth.medium.com/the-money-is-not-there-b6422f996612 #respectability #militants #terrorism #protests #Ireland #Republicans #IRA #Thatcher #UK

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