Increasing Civility

                I believe there is great need for civility in our nation and the world.  Civility is the condition of treating other people with courtesy, politeness, consideration, and respect.  We can treat other people civilly even though we disagree with them in some way.  Our society has need to bring more civility back into our everyday relationships, both in our homes and in public.

                Ed Feulner, former president of The Heritage Foundation wrote an article for The Foundry blog entitled “Awaiting a Season for Civility” about how civility is “sorely needed in policy circles and political debates.”   “Alas, what we’re seeing in the marketplace of ideas today is a disturbing growth of incivility.  This breakdown isn’t a failing of either the political left or right exclusively.  It spreads from one end of the spectrum to the other.

                “This schoolyard mentality, and the name-calling that inevitably follows, are not the exclusive domain of those who attach intemperate comments to online articles.  We hear it from highly educated people who write syndicated columns, publish books, and shout on radio and television talk shows.

                “Further down the food chain, lesser lights join in, poisoning the atmosphere still more.  The Internet is a breeding ground for this type of behavior.  Someone will post a civil comment on some political topic.  Almost immediately, someone else swings the verbal hammer of incivility, and from there the conversation degrades into a food fight, with invective and insult as the main course.

                “This breakdown is an echo of the famous `broken windows’ theory of crime, popularized years ago by criminologists James Q. Wilson and George Kelling:  When a broken window in a building is left unrepaired, the rest are soon broken by vandals. 

                “That’s what we see online and on the airwaves.  Once someone lowers the tone, others take it as an invitation to join in.  Debates become shouting matches.  If you watch closely, you’ll see something else happening.  The people who make civil comments basically shut down.  A few join in the food fight, but most just disappear.  They leave because the atmosphere has turned hostile to anything approaching an actual dialogue.

                “This is the real danger of incivility.  Our free, self-governing society requires an open exchange of ideas.  That can’t happen without a certain level of mutual respect for each other’s opinions and viewpoints….

                “There’s a world of difference between attacking a person’s argument and attacking a person’s character.  We need to do more to respect that difference.  We need to engage in rational debate and either hold our own or lose with grace.  We must defend our convictions with all the spirit we can.  We should do it, though, with all the civility we can muster, no matter what our opponents do or say.”

                I found the following information about George Washington very interesting.  Before he reached the age of sixteen years, young George transcribed Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior In Company and Conversation.  Washington’s list contained 110 civilities, some of them were simply good manners for his time but most remain good for our time.  The first item on Washington’s list was “Every Action done in Company, ought to be with Some Sign of Respect, to those that are Present.”  An item further down the list was “Shew not yourself glad at the Misfortune of another though he were your enemy.”  Still further down the list he wrote, “Speak not injurious Words neither in Jest nor Earnest.  Scoff at none although they give Occasion.”  We all could learn much from the list of civilities George Washington penned when he was sixteen.

                Guy Burgess, Ph.D. and Heidi Burgess, Ph.D. at the University of Colorado wrote a paper entitled “The Meaning of Civility.”   They began their paper with this statement:  “The increasingly vocal campaign for civility in public discourse reflects an understandable and widespread frustration with the current tenor of political debate.  There is a growing realization that our inability to deal with a broad range of problems is largely attributable to the destructive ways in which the issues are being addressed.  This raises a crucial and increasingly controversial question – what exactly do we mean by `civility’?

                “Clearly, civility has to mean something more than mere politeness.  The movement will have accomplished little if all it does is get people to say, `excuse me please’, while they (figuratively) stab you in the back.  Civility also cannot mean `roll over and play dead.’  People need to be able to raise tough questions and present their cases when they feel their vital interests are being threatened.  A civil society cannot avoid tough but important issues, simply because they are unpleasant to address.  There must also be more to civility than a scrupulous adherence to the laws governing public-policy decision making.  Clearly, there are numerous instances in which the parties to public-policy conflicts act in ways which are destructive and inappropriate, even though they are (and should continue to be) legal.

                “In short, any reasonable definition of civility must recognize that the many differing interests which divide our increasingly diverse society will produce an endless series of confrontations over difficult moral and distributional issues.  Often these issues will have an irreducible win-lose character and, hence, not be amenable to consensus resolution.  While continuing confrontation is inevitable, the enormous destructiveness which commonly accompanies these confrontations is not.”

                The professors listed and explained the following ten ways to show more civility in our society:  1) Separate people from the problem;

2) Obtain available technical facts; 3) Limit interpersonal misunderstanding; 4) Use fair processes; 5) Limit escalation; 6) Honor legitimate uses of legal, political, and other types of power; 7) Separate win/win from win/lose issues; 8) Limit the backlash effect; 9) Keep trying to persuade and allow yourself to be persuaded, and 10) Use more persuasion, more exchange, and less force.

                Gordon B. Hinckley, the late president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, wrote a book entitled Standing for Something – 10 Neglected Virtues That Will heal Our Hearts and Homes.  One of the “neglected virtues” he discussed was the virtue of civility.  “We have reason to be deeply concerned that around the world, including in America, there still exists much prejudice – a tendency to separate ourselves according to our differences rather than to rejoice in the diversity and richness of texture those differences provide.   We may feel some optimism, however, that interracial dialogue is gradually getting better.  In a greater number of countries, there is more tolerance, more respect, more acknowledgment of the good in each of us.  The fight has been uphill, but it is being won.

                “Differences of race and culture are obvious, as are distinctions among various religious and other persuasions.  I fear, however, that far too often we make too much of our differences.  We therefore obscure and at times completely overlook the significant and enduring ways in which we are alike.  We have cultural and theological differences, but I believe we are of one mind in our awareness of the evils and problems of the world.  I believe we all recognize our great responsibility and opportunity to stand united for those qualities in public and private life that speak of virtue and morality.  I believe we agree on the need for respect for all men and women as children of God, the need for civility and courtesy in our relationships, and the need to preserve the family as the most fundamental land important unit of society.

                “Most of us carry in our hearts a desire to assist the poor, t lift the distressed, to give comfort, hope, and help to all who are in trouble and pain.  We recognize the need to heal the wounds of society and replace with optimism and faith the pessimism of our times.  There is no need for recrimination or criticism against one another….

                “We are sons and daughters of God, each a member of the divine family.  As surely as He is our father, we are all brothers and sisters.  We simply must work unitedly to remove from our hearts and to drive from our society all elements of hated, bigotry, racism, and other divisive actions and words that limit a person’s ability to progress, learn, and e fully accepted.  Snide remarks or racial slurs, hateful epithets, malicious gossip, and mean and vicious rumor mongering have no place among us” (pp. 47-49).

                Presidents, professors, and a prophet have written of their concern for the “fading civility” in our society.  Since “civility is the root of the word civilization” (p. 53), we would do well to hearken to their counsel and bring more civility into our society.