It weaponises composure and civility to dominate rather than foster genuine dialogue. The result is a politics of tone and appearance that rewards the calm speaker, regardless of content, and punishes those whose truths cannot be neatly contained.

Using technical jargon and maintaining emotional distance are interpreted as markers of intelligence and credibility, even when the underlying behaviour is dishonest and dehumanising.

This dynamic creates fertile ground for systems of oppression to be smuggled into “rational” discourse. Racism, sexism, ableism, transphobia, and other forms of prejudice are reframed as “intellectual disagreements” or “reasonable concerns”.

Those of us who challenge such ideas are subjected to greater scrutiny than the ideas themselves. The focus shifts from the validity of our concerns to the manner in which those concerns are expressed. Tone, posture, and emotional restraint are policed to preserve an atmosphere that privileges comfort over justice.

We are expected to endure humiliation in silence, to be both dignified and docile while absorbing ongoing harm. But remaining calm in the face of injustice is physiological and emotional labour. It’s insidious and cumulative. It settles in our muscles, and embeds in our nervous system. It asks us to silence our truths and betray our bodies in the process.

But truth doesn’t always arrive quietly. Sometimes it emerges through grief, and outrage, through urgency and disruption. A just society is one that is willing to hear difficult truths regardless of the tone in which they are delivered.