The Case for Telling Total Strangers to Shut Up

I call these people human spam. They’re everywhere, and they exist in every profession. They don’t want to pay their dues, they want their piece right here, right now. They don’t want to listen to your ideas; they want to tell you theirs. They don’t want to go to shows, but they thrust flyers at you on the sidewalk and scream at you to come to thei

You will quickly determine whether this person is worth having a rational discussion with (e.g., if they say, “We should privatize roads” or “All taxation is theft,” just stand up and silently walk away).

“behavior is how we speak the unspeakable. John couldn’t speak something unspeakable, so he did it by being rude to others and by having this sense of himself as better than everybody else.”

is bad manners. Silence disrespects the value of your views and our ability to have a civil disagreement.

At work, an unwavering concern for politeness, empathy, and gentleness may end up providing the perfect preconditions for being walked all over.

We need to relearn the neglected art of politely, on necessary occasions, being a pain. The danger of those who have never shouted is that they might, in compensation, end up screaming. That isn’t the point