Conscious Choice: Have We Lost Our Civility?

May 2002

Have We Lost Our Civility?

by Mark Harris

When I was asked if I’d like to write an article on the theme of civility, my first thought was, at last! Finally, I can vent about all the rude, uncouth people out there. The indifferent store clerks. The cell phone-blabbing restaurant-goers. The fuming drivers. The noisy neighbors who play bass-heavy, horn-blaring African pop music on their stereos at 11:00 pm. At last, I can tell the world how it is — and get paid for it. How satisfying to be a writer! My plan was to just dash off some quick thoughts on all the boorish behavior out there, pass a few judgments, remind everyone of the importance of respectful behavior, and that would be that.

Then I thought, who cares about my impatience with rude drivers or noisy neighbors? One of my friends will listen to my rants about noise in the apartment building for up to half an hour, but that’s only because he himself endures all-night partiers and occasional gang disturbances in the hallway of his Rogers Park building. Most people have about a ninety-second time limit for those kinds of complaints. So I had to ask myself, what are we really talking about when we talk about civility?

As I pondered all this, I happened to come upon a recent essay in the Christian Science Monitor on "The Perils of Civility," by the writer Paul Loeb, author of Soul of a Citizen. In the article, Loeb, a long-time political activist, complains that the Democratic Party has come to favor a chronic bipartisan collegiality with the Bush administration, as if any strong dissent or disagreement over such pivotal issues as tax cuts, arctic drilling, or the most massive increase in military spending ever is an inherent affront to some presumed need for national unity. As if the only civil thing to do in these post 9-11 days is to rally dutifully in lock-step behind the executive leader, wherever he may think he is leading us.

Loeb reminds us that as desirable as civility is, it remains among virtues a sure second to justice. Civility remains subordinate to the standards and ethics of a society’s core values. In other words, people may appreciate good manners, but more important they need hope and a fair deal in their lives. And on that score it also seems reasonable to argue that we live now in very uncivil times.

In case you haven’t noticed, killing is in, these days. In the Middle East. In Afghanistan. In New York City. In Western First-World countries where the new threat of stateless terrorism is perhaps now as feared as old-fashioned, state-sponsored terrorism is in Third World countries. Meanwhile, the President of the United States has bombed Afghanistan enough to possibly kill more innocent civilians there than died on September 11. He’s informed us, too, that it’s only the opening salvo of a long global war. We’ve entered a new era, one of blunt survival and rough justice and presumably endless tensions.

You might say the twenty-first century has gotten off to a rather rude start.

"The human species now has so much power that if we don’t become civil with one another, we can destroy our whole life-support system. The danger of incivility has escalated. And the need to survive is driving us toward a global consciousness." — Barbara Marx Hubbard

Differentiating Civility from Barbarism

I mention all this because it would be frivolous to engage in a discussion of civility without putting it into a broader, more critical social context. For example, there’s talk in the air now of a pre-emptive invasion of Iraq. There we have a country ruled by a brutal dictator, a country whose ordinary people have already watched their lives shatter and their children die while American presidents defend the sanctions accelerating their misery. Should a new American invasion occur, the results will include further human catastrophe, all just to install a new authoritarian government only more malleable to U.S. foreign policy. It’s enough to make you wonder where civilization ends and barbarism begins.

So let’s talk about civility. If you look up the word, you’ll see that it comes from the Latin word, civitas, for city. To be civil essentially means to act in ways that encourage positive, functioning relations within a community. The conventions of civility, frayed as they may at times appear, serve as a kind of social lubricant. They are implicit reminders that somehow we’re all in this together. On the most facile level, it means that most of us don’t barrel through stop signs or routinely run over pedestrians. We do try not to kill each other on a daily basis. Incredibly, we don’t even have to think about it! We’ve been civilized.

The customs, habits, and norms of civility are fluid and evolving. As a high school sophomore, for example, I learned from my dad that I should get out of the car and open the door for the young woman who was my Spanish tutor, when we arrived at her house. I should always open the door for a lady, he said. Of course, there was a mixed message in this well-intentioned advice. I was learning to be considerate, which wasn’t bad. But I was also learning to assume that women, as a rule, needed help from men. I’m glad my parents taught me to be a considerate and civil person. These days I open doors for women and men, and many of them do the same for me.

Still, when it comes to society as a whole, there’s plenty of room for improvement. At election times, for example, one could easily get the impression that the only civil people in the United States are those who have no opinions. It’s true that candidates in our state primaries rarely try to blow up each others’ cars. But we do see election campaigns increasingly driven by "negative attack ads" and other indignities. Of course, so many candidates appear barely distinguishable from each other that invoking sleaze actually makes a kind of twisted sense. How else can so many Tweedledees differentiate themselves from Tweedledums? And so, the civilized tradition of free elections is tainted routinely with the rude air of innuendo. Is it any wonder so many people don’t vote?

The Stakes of Incivility

We might also use a dose of evolution in global politics. Here the economics of such things like oil serve not to lubricate but to grind and mangle the gears of social relations. Here the customs, habits, and norms of civility still allow a kind of de facto barbarism to run wild in the world. Here we still do try to kill each other.

The global reality is that torture, starvation, and authoritarian government continue to plague our common humanity. Violence and bombs remain the big fix for resolving disputes. In these first years of the new millennium, justice continues to get a frequent, very uncivil trashing, not only from terrorists who like to kill innocent people, but from the ideologues and profiteers of globalization and "free-market" capitalism.

If the prospects for world prosperity were improving, we could perhaps look at the harsh inequities of the global economy more forgivingly, but they’re not. Some 1.2 billion people in the world live now in extreme poverty. In terms of human needs this translates into 826 million people who every day do not get enough food to eat. It means 11 million children under the age of five who die every year from preventable causes. You can’t really expect people to behave in civil ways when they’re desperate, cut off from hope, or even when they feel exploited.

I believe we’ll survive the challenges of our times. But our unresolved hatreds are growing, and we ignore them to our own peril. "The human species now has so much power that if we don’t become civil with one another, we can destroy our whole life-support system," noted writer and futurist Barbara Marx Hubbard in a recent roundtable on civility. "The danger of incivility has escalated. And the need to survive is driving us toward a global consciousness."

And the drive toward a more global, cooperative consciousness — one that goes beyond war to embrace the collective good — begins today along the path of dissent. There are times when the most civil thing to do is to ask the hard, impertinent questions, questions some people would consider rude. Was it right to kill so many innocent people in Afghanistan in response to 9-11? Are conflated speeches about an "Axis of Evil" and endless funds for American weapons of mass destruction making us safer as a people? Why do so few in the beltways of power care at all about desperate Third World conditions that fuel the fires of deranged terror?

Dissent doesn’t have to mean demonization, as Loeb reminds us in his Monitor essay. We can challenge opponents and still speak to their core humanity. Certainly any one of us can always choose to speak from our own humanity. That doesn’t mean others will always hear us or that they will respond in kind. But we, at least, can always choose to speak from a place of integrity, compassion, and justice.

Historically, those who dare to speak of a world beyond hatred and war are branded troublemakers. In his day, Martin Luther King, Jr., was certainly not the sanitized saint we see in media today. King was rather a highly vocal mutineer on the ship of injustice, a man of strong words and decisive actions and fearless resolve, who refused to temper his message for the benefit of a polite society that had long gotten used to looking the other way at racism. Yet there was always a dignity and civility to his stance. It came not only from the nature of his vision but from somewhere deep within him.

King not only made us aware of specific injustices but taught lasting lessons about how to speak and act as moral, loving human beings in a flawed world. He taught that civility means recognizing that we all are part of a human community, and that those among us who serve all, best serve themselves. Yes, civility means opening doors for people — people throughout the world. Too many today remain shut out, banished endlessly from justice and prosperity and the potential this world has to offer. Let’s be civil, and help.

Rudeness in America

A recent study conducted by The Pew Charitable Trusts addressed the question of what constitutes rudeness in America. The results, published in Aggravating Circumstances, indicate there is a pervasive lack of respect among Americans. From road rage to cell phones to the attitudes of children, few people are expressing appreciation or bothering to provide assistance to others.

The news is not entirely bleak, though. The survey did find that in general, racial tensions have eased, and since September 11 people are joining together more. Despite these developments, few people thought that the improvement in race relations would last more than a few months.

Of the Americans surveyed, many acknowledged that they themselves are also to blame for the lack of respect, courtesy, and consideration. Out of those who responded to how often they experience rudeness, 88 percent said that they often see rude people, 62 percent of those said that rude behavior bothers them, and 41 percent claim to have exhibited similar behaviors.

Those surveyed tended to attribute the increase in rude behavior to the current lifestyle of most Americans. Rudeness, they said, is created through crowding, too much anonymity, a declining sense of community, the media, and a rise in selfishness.

Some Key Survey Findings Among Americans:

79 percent find lack of respect to be a serious problem.

48 percent often encounter someone who is considerate.

49 percent witness drivers who are aggressive.

61 percent would like to create a law banning the use of cell phones in museums, movie theaters, and restaurants.

60 percent believe that the majority of role models for children are negative, which contributes to rudeness.

46 percent have walked out of a store due to poor service.

94 percent become frustrated when dealing with a recorded message.

77 percent find telemarketers too pushy.

Causes for Rude Behavior:

84 percent believed that parents are not teaching kids about respect.

62 percent feel that values and morals are on the decline.

47 percent feel that fast-paced lifestyles cause people to forget to be courteous.

41 percent believe that the prevalence of rude behavior is perpetuating its existence.

Areas Where an Increase in Respect has Occurred:

59 percent have seen African Americans treated with more respect.

41 percent have seen Hispanics treated with more respect.

51 percent have seen an increase in consideration towards those with physical handicaps.

50 percent have seen an increase in the respect given to homosexuals.

27 percent have noticed less littering.

Visit www.publicagenda.org for more information.
— Kirsten Hafkemeyer

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