Political civility depends on being named while mutilation reduces persons to unnamed numbers

Evidence

Civility, in this context, is precisely about “polite” speech (both the appeal of the civil and its cover). It is about decent speech or exchange, a speech not (too) impolitic but never political, the speech of decency between those with identity, those respectfully identified and addressed. Mutilating violation, counter-civility in the extreme, is exactly about the erasure of address, in both senses of the latter term. Or addressed violently, the mutilated cease to be and have address at all (“no longer to be found anywhere,” as Keane says presciently in a different context). They are a “statistic,” one anonymously among a number, numbered but unnamed (perhaps living in caves or holes in the ground, in some self-assumed acting out). — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 240

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines civility as naming/identification and mutilation as its stripping, part of the framing vocabulary.
• XREF: connects to: Bodily mutilation operates as state-endorsed silencing that strips civic identity — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 239; Civility means being named, mutilation strips identity — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 240; Mutilation forces silence and strips the victim of identity — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 239

Broader Connections

• Civility means being named, mutilation strips identity #exemplifies (0.98) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 240
• Mutilation forces silence and strips the victim of identity #expands (0.90) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 239