First of all, regarding "More heat than light"
You don't fix a broken system by pretending it is not broken. The biggest problem of Wikipedia as an organization is, that it is basically immune to criticism. This is never a good thing, when whoever argues for the change of the man-made system is removed from the system as a Troll.
I am also opposed to attempts to try to enforce civility by means of administrative punishment or policy. Because I consider the strategy to be ultimately counterproductive regarding the hostility of the process.
You know how Ghandi got started? He said "Lets screw the laws of the british and go pick salt at the shore" because he (and many others) thought it was the right thing to do.
Doing that on Wikipedia gets you banned in under 5 seconds.
Now back on topic
What I am trying to say (with "secular western humanist philosophy") is that we have methods, such as deductive reasoning, that allow us to achieve a sort of POV that can be acceptable to all. What I am saying is that there is a logical and time tested method in finding a neutral position on something. It is hard, it takes a lot of work, and may mean also overcoming one's own biases.
Now, in the process of coming to such a "neutral" position, mistakes are made and these should be pointed out and the chain of deductions should be adapted accordingly.
Let me make you an example on something that you said: "Enlightened people dislike violence" I love violence. There should be a lot more of it. But that's just my personal opinion. The objective and neutral thing to see, is that violence per se is a part of life, and cannot be deemed morally wrong any more than gravity or the sunlight.
What can be criticised rightfully however, is actions of people. If I just established that violence per se is nothing bad, I must make clear that actual instances of violence can very well be bad, in such that the reasons for these instances of violence are bad. So our "enlightened" fella might say, "Bad reasons for committing violence are bad".
Certainly you would not categorically forbid the use of violence to the police because you deem violence inherently bad?
But what's at the core of your argument, what you are saying, if I understand you correctly (please correct me if I am wrong) is that there is no such thing as a neutral point of view.
From that I would conclude, logically, that the policy of
WP:NPOV should be abandoned because there is apparently no method to actually achieve this NPOV. (And consensus is strictly not one of them)
There *is* a method to find a neutral position. Philosophy and logic offer the tools to arrive at it, such as the Socratic Method and the rules of argument.
I trust that you will go "Hey, that's right" and change your opinion, because confronted with convincing arguments, I would do just the same - Its one of the rules ;)