Reviewed by Wendy Lipke
Amy Remeikis is the Chief Political Analysist at The Australian Institute and contributing editor for the New Daily. She was a former political reporter for The Guardian Australia and has been celebrated for her powerful writing on gender, politics and social justice. However, her work has also generated reactions from those who oppose her ideas. In her Acknowledgement she thanked her haters as, she says, they give her the strength to drive herself to do better.
Although the title of this book may be a bit off-putting to some, what is presented is a thoroughly researched opinion of how we have been brought up to behave, but also how this has, no doubt, contributed to some of the problems we face in society today. Evidence of thorough research can be found in the nine pages of endnotes.
The book contains twenty-five pages of introduction in which the author spells out her understanding of the concepts nice and civility and shows how these ideals, which have been the cornerstone of our upbringing for centuries, may indeed be the cause of perceived negatives in society today.
Remeikis suggests that individuals always have behavioural constraints placed on them – probably more so today than ever before. And not just within the family. ‘Big Brother is watching you’ and so are our peers and others. If we do not play by the rules, and if we forget our place, we will be fully made aware of it, sometimes very brutally, often publicly.
We all wish to fit in and be accepted, so this requires that we be “nice”, and in our society that means “not rocking the boat” and not criticising other’s bad behaviour. In some cases, accepting this can mean survival. “Stay small, stay quiet. Stay nice. Stay safe” (7).
The author’s definition of nice can mean a warning and a threat, a wish and a goal. It is also a silencer and a belittler, but most of all, “nice” is whatever nice society says it is (7). She provides a full explanation of her beliefs, challenging the traditional assumption of the word ‘nice’, as she says niceness isn’t safety, its oppression, however it has been normalised.
She also asks the question, what makes a society ‘civil’? She suggests that this too is what those who hold power say it is and reminds the reader that civility without accountability isn’t virtue, it’s just permission (309).
Her belief? Well screw that! And screw nice – hence the title of the book.
She makes the statement that we’re supposed to somehow “nice” our way out of the climate crisis, sexual assault threats, genocide and bad governments.
Her book examines how niceness, as we experience it today, is viewed, especially by those in charge and she wants to explore how that ‘niceness’ impacts individuals. She says that this book is mainly for those who have agency to do something to change the status quo.
It is about changing the modern politics of civility which relies on us all feeling as if we only have room to care for ourselves. We have become ‘self-centred’ and complacent, she suggests, and that as a society, being ‘nice’ has become more important than being seen as fair (21).
There are nine chapters where she spells out her beliefs, providing examples from mainly Australia and the United States. These include titles such as Defending the System, Tolerating the Intolerable, the Hypocrisy of Double Standards and Boys Will be Boys. She examines the actions taken by various groups in positions of power, those taken by government and the pulling away from important issues because of offending other powerful groups. Through this attitude, many are reduced to poverty while a select few race to become trillionaires.
She concludes her discussion with the words ‘Not being nice may be the only way we can create safe spaces for everyone, where equality and tolerance of differences is the standard not the fight’.
The last page of this work draws attention to the crisis in children’s reading.
Screw Nice
(2026)
by Amy Remeikis
Hachette Australia
ISBN:978-0-7336-5049-9
$34.99; 352pp