Some Thoughts About Civility
When I was quite small, my mother didn’t tell me about the importance of civility —she taught me. And the Church backed her up.
I can remember sitting on her lap and being subjected to example after example of what it meant to be a good person and treat people right.
And as I grew up—acutely aware of my shortcomings—I was still pleased when I heard a neighbor say, “He sure is a polite young boy.”
But I think I knew even then that there is much more to civility than politeness. And that seemed important to me.
But could I be making too much of this? Is it really all that important, or is it just the last vestige of a prudish, old-fashioned idea?
Here are some of my thoughts on the subject.
Just What is “Civility” Anyway?
How about, “Civility is treating all others with respect, as you would want to be treated.” *
Or maybe, “Incivility is intentionally using rude and thoughtless words and actions.” *
Or possibly, “Civility is claiming and caring for one’s own identity, needs and beliefs without degrading someone else’s in the process.”**
Or even if it we use the Merriam Webster dictionary definition of civility as “polite, reasonable, and respectful behavior,” I think we all get the picture.
It seems that civility has to do with the way people present themselves and the way they treat others.
In a sense, civility is a chosen way of operating that seems to feature our better selves– a deliberate interaction with life that choses to enrich rather than to degrade.
Some of My Experiences With Civility
In thinking about all of this, I searched for examples of civility that I had noticed as I was growing up.
For example, I grew up in a farming community near Weldon, Illinois. There was a lot of “listening in” on the local party telephone line, so everyone knew everyone else pretty well.
But when serious, personal things came up, the involved party just asked everyone to hang up and give them some privacy, and they did!
I thought this “unwritten telephone law of Weldon“ was an example of civility- polite, reasonable, and respectful behavior as it relates to the needs of others.
Another example was when I was around 7 years old. A neighbor girl about my same age, who didn’t always tell the truth, really got on my nerves. One day I called her a couple of bad names, and ended up with “Liar, liar, pants on fire.”
When she began to cry, I think my mother’s lessons on civility instantly took on a practical reality.
Even though “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me,” they had. I realized at that instant that it really was cruel, hurtful, and uncivil to harass people and call them bad names.
Another situation in Weldon when I was around 9 years old dramatically illustrated the force of civility in our community.
I was puzzled by the sudden fury of activity in and around Weldon.
Many men of the community, including the minister and other prominent citizens began having “secret” meetings.
And I couldn’t understand why they started wearing robes made out of white sheets at the meetings.
It seems that some African Americans (The Weldonians used the N word then) had come to our community, and the reaction had been to start a Klu Klux Klan group, with the intention of getting them to leave.
I overheard my mother and father in a heated discussion. My mother knew this was no way to treat human beings, and was not right.
The issue very quickly came to a head, and it was my 9 year old perception that it was my mother, together with some other women in the community who were instrumental in putting a stop to it.
After my parent’s argument, I didn’t see another white-sheet robe. They just seemed to have miraculously disappeared.
People in an otherwise civil community had gotten carried away, and it took the women to forcibly remind everyone that civility- treating others with respect, as you would want to be treated- was so much better than the alternative.
This next example still puzzles me today. Every Sunday afternoon in the town of Weldon, the kids got together for either a flag football game or a basketball game. Nothing unusual about that.
But what was unusual was that all kids who came (Age 8 or so on up), who might have been shooed away so the high school boys could get into a competitive game, were all welcomed and got to play!
To me, this was civility in action.
As an adult, I am blown away—when I think about it—with my parents, children, grandchildren, and relatives, and with the great number of my neighbors, church friends, golf buddies, and many other community friends and acquaintances who were or are, to the core, civil people.
But my experience is only part of the story.
Do We Have A Civility Problem?
A recent research study, Civility in America, 2013 (KRC Research, by Weber/Shandwick), stated, “Without a doubt, America has civility problems.” Here is some data. Of those surveyed:
- 70% believe a major civility problem in America has risen to crisis levels.
- 71% believe uncivil behavior is worse compared to a few years ago.
- 81% or those over 50 consider cursing uncivil. 68% of those younger than 50 feel the same.
- 83% believe that politics is becoming increasingly uncivil and that incivility in government is harming our country’s future.
- The average American encounters incivility around 17 times a week (via everyday situations like traffic, on social media, cellphones, online, in the classroom, in the workplace, on TV, etc.).
Why is Civility Important?
Back to my question in the first section, I think most would affirm that civility is not an old-fashioned, prudish, idea whose time has come and gone.
Quite to the contrary, it has a moral and lasting quality about it.
Civility, I believe, is the necessary glue that holds a home, a community, or a country together. It is a way of being that creates a climate of respect and concern for others.
Just imagine if we threw civility to the wind in our country. No army in the world can keep order in a country of people who aren’t orientated toward acting civility. We couldn’t enforce all the laws that would be broken. It would be chaos.
Even though it seems impossible to be 100% civil, I hope my examples from Weldon illustrate that when we are civil, the result is simply a much more satisfying life, resulting in an uplifted community.
What Can We Do About The Problem?
As they say about a lot of things that need to be done, “civility starts with me.”
So I guess we can start by being civil as much as we can, reaffirming civility whenever we see it, and finding our own way to stand against and discourage incivility whenever It rears it’s ugly head.
And so I’m off to Weldon, Illinois—back to my roots—to remind myself of what civility can do to make a welcoming, well functioning, and caring community- local, national, and world.
*Adapted from comments given in “Civility in America 2013”, a KRC research study by Weber Shandwick.
** Taken from the Institute for Civility in Government website
Rob Carr
Hey Phares! I like your blog on civility. One of the big issues of the day is perception vs reality. To take another example, there is a perception that crime is out of control–we all hear news 24 hours on murder after murder, even on local news. What we do not hear is that violent crime is at a 30 year LOW. Crime has gone down but reporting, and graphic reporting has went up. My sense is civility is weaved up in a similar conondrum. We see Donald Trump talking about women’s periods and his penis publicly–in fact this garnered him the majority of votes of people who are probably quite civil day in and day out. That is blown all over every news outlet. That is very uncivil behavior, but it is not who we are–yet people vote for him in droves. I think there is something wrong with out tolerace of what is uncivil behavior and fascination with putting it on mass media all the time in more and more crude light. ANother example, there is a fake email right now saying Obama cancelled national prayer day on 5 May. Well he did NOT, but the rumour spread like fire and people I know who are quite civil launched into him callling him the most uncivil things one could ever think of based on a LIE. I have never seen so much disrespect (lack of civility) towards any President. Or such an abuse of presidential debates by moderators. Would Walter Cronkite of Bill Moyers have entertained a debate on their wife’s menstrual cycle? I think the lack of civility in the media permeates public perception. People are still decent, even young people. But media and perception is very distorted making up appear as a less than civil society.
Rob Carr
A question, some Carr cousins were talking about our Dad’s walking far to school..the CARR LORE. But we could not exactly triangulate how far it was from the Carr place to the old Prairie View School site. I looked on line and found, what my be the old school site but then could not find the old Carr place. Not sure if it was torn down recently or not. But i reckon as well as you guys know the various sections between Deland and Weldon it would be pretty easy to recall the distance to Prairie View School from the Carr’s place (Sherm, Bob, Don, jack…..)
Rob Carr
Here is a link to a map of the supposed school location. http://illinois.hometownlocator.com/maps/feature-map,ftc,2,fid,1720020,n,prairie%20view%20school%20(historical).cfm