“I believe it was Voltaire who said ‘Sir, I disagree with everything you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’” — Henry Fonda in Jezebel (1938)
“And anyway darling, we don’t say such things, even when we think them, we don’t say them!” — from “The Italian Lesson,” by Ruth Draper.
Anytime you compare someone to Hitler, things are not going to go well. That’s probably a variation on Godwin’s Law, that the longer a discussion goes on, the more likely a Nazi analogy is to occur. The latest result is a Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling reinforcing Freedom of Speech, including “discourteous, rude, disrespectful, or personal speech about government officials and governmental actions.”* While agreeing with the ruling, Etiquetteer feels chilled about its prospects for Perfect Propriety. Aren’t things precarious enough as they are?
The facts of the case are these. At a public meeting of the Southborough Board of Selectmen back in December, 2018, local resident Louise Barron’s calling attention to violations of an open meeting law led selectman Daniel Kolenda to suggest that she was slandering town officials; he concluded the comment period abruptly. This led Mrs. Barron to compare him to Hitler, to which Mr. Kolenda understandably took offense. The result is this month’s ruling that “Although civility, of course, is to be encouraged, it cannot be required . . . without violating both provisions of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights, which provide for a robust protection of public criticism of governmental action and officials.”
No one comes out of this well, particularly Mr. Kolenda; New England town meetings include a lot of taking local officials to task, and, as Dear Mother used to say, “If you can’t take the heat, stay out of the kitchen.” (It’s worth noting that he’s no longer on the board.) Mrs. Barron, who described herself as “oppositional,” was within her rights, but the Hitler reference was an unfortunate Bridge Too Far.
But just because one has the right to be rude does not mean one should be rude. Etiquetteer shares the concern of Geoff Beckwith of the Massachusetts Municipal Association**: “Will [the ruling] encourage the very few, very vocal individuals whose goal [emphasis Etiquetteer’s] is to be disruptive? The [court] is saying that’s the price of true freedom of speech.” One consequence could be that civic-minded citizens eager to do good in their communities will refrain from public life to avoid abuse — not criticism, but abuse.
Another is that bullies, confident that basic good manners cannot be enforced, take over. That’s why codes of conduct, like the Southborough “civility code” struck down by the court ruling, have an important function to serve: establishing behavioral norms that support the smooth running of a meeting. We will now have to intertwine Courage and Courtesy more strongly.
*Boston Globe coverage of the story may be found here.
**Quoted in The New York Times here.