Critical Analysis Essay DM HELPCLICK
What Is Civility?
P. M. FORNI
The first reading comes from a best-selling book, Choosing Civility: The Twenty-five Rules of Considerate Conduct. The author is a professor of Italian literature and civility at Johns Hopkins University, where he directs the Johns Hopkins Civility Initiative. Before giving readers his “rules” for showing consideration towards others, Forni lays the groundwork with his careful deinition of civility.
Maybe I was coming down with change-of-season inluenza. If so, I should really consider buying a little white half mask for my subway ride home.
—Sujata Massey
For many years literature was my life. I spent most of my time reading, teaching, and writing on Italian Fiction and poetry. One day, while lecturing on the Divine Comedy, I looked at my students and realized that I wanted them to be kind human beings more than I wanted them to know about Dante. I told them that if they knew every- thing about Dante and then they went out and treated an elderly lady on the bus unkindly, I’d feel that I had failed as a teacher. I have given dozens of lectures and workshops on civility in the last few years, and I have derived much satisfaction from addressing audiences I could not have reached speaking on literature. I know, how- ever, that reading literature can develop the kind of imagination without which civility is impossible. To be fully human we must be able to imagine others’ hurt and to relate it to the hurt we would experience if we were in their place. Consideration is imagination on a moral track.
Sometimes the participants in my workshops write on a sheet of paper what civility means to them. In no particular order, here are a number of key civility-related notions I have collected over the years from those sheets:
Respect for others, Care, Consideration, Courtesy, Golden rule, Respect of others’ feelings, Niceness, Politeness, Respect of others’ opinions, Decency, Self-control, Concern, Justice, Tolerance, Selflessness, Etiquette, Community service, Tact, Maturity, Kindness, Manners, Being accommodating, Fairness, Trustworthiness, Friendship, Table manners, Moderation, Listening, Compassion, Being agreeable, Equality, Sincerity, Morality, Honesty, Awareness, Going out of one’s way, Friendliness, Lending a hand, Propriety, Abiding by rules, Good citizenship, Peace.
This list tells us that:
· Civility is complex.
· Civility is good.
· Whatever civility might be, it has to do with courtesy, politeness, and good manners.
· Civility belongs in the realm of ethics.
These four points have guided me in writing this book. Like my workshop participants, I am inclusive rather than exclusive in deining civility. Courtesy, politeness, manners, and civility are all, in essence, forms of awareness. Being civil means being constantly aware of others and weaving restraint, respect, and consider- ation into the very fabric of this awareness. Civility is a form of goodness; it is gracious goodness. But it is not just an attitude of benevolent and thoughtful relating to other individuals; it also entails an active interest in the well-being of our communities and even a concern for the health of the planet on which we live.
Saying “please” and “thank you”; lowering our voice whenever it may threaten or interfere with others’ tranquillity; raising funds for a neighborhood renovation program; acknowledging a newcomer to the conversation; welcoming a new neighbor; listening to understand and help; respecting those different from us; responding with restraint to a challenge; properly disposing of a piece of trash left by someone else; properly disposing of dangerous industrial pollutants; acknowl- edging our mistakes; refusing to participate in malicious gossip; making a new pot of coffee for the ofice machine after drinking the last cup; signaling our turns when driving; yielding our seat on a bus whenever it seems appropriate; alerting the per- son sitting behind us on a plane when we are about to lower the back of our seat; standing close to the right-side handrail on an escalator; stopping to give directions to someone who is lost; stopping at red lights; disagreeing with poise; yielding with grace when losing an argument, these diverse behaviors are all imbued with the spirit of civility. Civility, courtesy, politeness, and manners are not perfect synonyms, as etymology clearly shows.
“In life courtesy and self-possession, and in the arts style, are the sensible impressions of the free mind, for both arise out of a deliberate shaping of all things, and from never being swept away, whatever the emotion, into confusion or dullness.”
—William Butler Yeats
Courtesy is connected to court and evoked in the past the superior qualities of charac- ter and bearing expected in those close to royalty. Etymologically, when we are cour- teous we are courtierlike. Although today we seldom make this connection, courtesy still suggests excellence and elegance in bestowing respect and attention. It can also suggest deference and formality.
The very essence of politeness seems to be to take care that by our words and actions we make other people pleased with us as well as with themselves.
—Jean de La Bruyere
To understand politeness, we must think of polish. The polite are those who have polished their behavior. They have put some effort into bettering themselves, but they are sometimes looked upon with suspicion. Expressions such as “polite reply,” “polite lie,” and “polite applause” connect politeness to hypocrisy. It is true that the polite are inclined to veil their own feelings to spare someone else’s. Self-serving lying, however, is always beyond the pale of politeness. If politeness is a quality of character (alongside courtesy, good manners, and civility), it cannot become a law. A suave manipulator may appear to be polite but is not.
There is always a best way of doing everything, if it be to boil an egg. Manners are the happy way of doing things; each once a stroke of genius or of love, now repeated and hardened into usage.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
When we think of good manners we often think of children being taught to say “please” and “thank you” and chew with their mouths closed. This may pre- vent us from looking at manners with the attention they deserve. Manner comes from manus, the Latin word for “hand.” Manner and manners have to do with the use of our hands. A manner is the way something is done, a mode of handling. Thus manners came to refer to behavior in social interaction—the way we handle the encounter between Self and Other. We have good manners when we use our hands well—when we handle others with care. When we rediscover the connection of man- ner with hand, the hand that, depending on our will and sensitivity, can strike or lift, hurt or soothe, destroy or heal, we understand the importance—for children and adults alike—of having good manners.
Being civil to one another is much more active and positive a good than mere politeness or courtesy, but like many other important goods, such as generosity, gratitude, or solidarity, it is not the sort of thing that can be “demanded” as a matter of duty, like a moral entitlement.
—Robert B. Pippin