CDZ The Abandonment of Civility

[320 Years of History]

We are born charming, fresh and spontaneous and must be civilized before we are fit to participate in society.
― Judith Martin​

I think too few folks these days appreciate the importance of civility. Moreover, too few appreciate the privileges that accompany it, but then they wouldn't if they've never learned what it means to lose them.

To this day I recall Daddy's instructions the evening after I'd made an unruly outburst at school. I was a sixth grader.

I was in my room doing homework when Daddy knocked gently on my door, opened it, greeted me, came in, sat down, and began speaking in the softest tone and most tersely measured drawl I've heard from him before or since.

"You will leave this room only to go to school during the next month. Louise will deliver your meals and return thirty minutes later to collect the dishes which you will have set outside your door for her to collect. Do not leave food on your plate, and do not make her knock."

He then presented an alarm clock he'd brought with him and showed me how to set it.

"Helen will be up directly to show you how to make your bed and to leave fresh linens. You will wake on time to go to school in time to bathe, eat and make your bed everyday. You will change the linens every third morning and place the used ones outside your door. Do you have enough toilet paper to last the month?"

"Yes, sir," I replied after going to the restroom to check.

"A driver will take you to and from school. Upon your return to school Monday, you will apologize contritely to your teacher and classmates for your surly misbehavior. Do not allow me to discover you failed to do so."

"During the next month you will study your classwork, and you will read this book, after which you will religiously comport yourself accordingly."

With that he tossed a wrapped book, Emily Post's Etiquette, onto my desk, and then continued.

"You will henceforth nevah publicly embarrass your mother or me. Have you anything you care to ask or say to your mother or me before your sequester commences?"

I apologized to him asked him if I might do so with Mother. He told me she'd be up shortly to receive my apology. With that he gently closed the door and left.

The gardner showed up next and removed my stereo and television. Then the housekeeper appeared with linens and showed me how to make my bed and deposited two other sets on the and took the dogs' beds from my room. She told me she'd leave a week's fresh linens on my desk as needed.

Mother appeared not long after and I apologized to her. That was the last I saw or spoke with either of my parents, the housekeeper, the cat, the dogs, the gardener and cook for a month.

Each school day I'd go downstairs to get in the cab knowing there had to be at least three people, two dogs, and a cat somewhere, yet there was not a soul to be seen or heard in the house. The driver wouldn't even talk to me other than to, on the my first attempt to engage him, tell me he'd been told I was to be silent and so was he.

On the Monday when I first returned to school, I was grateful to be there for at least I got to see other people whom I knew. Much to my dismay, Daddy's anger with and authority over me reached even there. He'd somehow managed to have my seat moved to the back of every class and set in a row unto itself. Also,I was forbad going to recess.

That was the most miserable month of my life. I neverafter lost control of myself until I was well into adulthood.
​

I think there remain a few communities in which shunning is still practiced. IMO, there need to be more. I think it'd do folks good to learn firsthand how Hester Prynne felt. Maybe then they'd appreciate the benefits of cordiality and the privilege of being permitted to interact with others. Too many folks take for granted and assume that the rest of us have to deal with them. In nearly all cases, we do not. It's pitiful that so many in our nation, most ironically the "social media" crowd who often behave in among the most antisocial ways conceivable, have forgotten that nothing forces our cultural approbation of boors, curs, cads and cretins.

I love luxury. Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. Luxury lies not in richness and ornateness, but in the absence of vulgarity.
― Coco Chanel​

Gee it must have been nice growing up with servants and drivers and all manner of people to tend to your needs

It has its pros and cons much like growing up any other way does.

The people who worked in our home were my parents' staff not mine. My sequestration month was the only time I had a driver take me anywhere. His presence, like everything else in that month, was part of the orchestrated isolation. You have no idea what that's like, I think.

• Thursday:
  • You are a social being who has friends. They talk to you; they play games with you, etc.
  • You have parents who interact with you, who ask about your day at school, who help you with your homework, etc.
  • You have pets that entertain you.
  • You have music, radio, and television.
  • You have books that you are reading for pleasure.
  • There are charismatic people around the house who teach you things and involve you in their lives.
  • You have pictures and posters on your bedroom wall.
  • You have Hot Wheels and comic books and other toys and sources of amusement.
• Friday evening:
  • You see nobody from three o'clock until your father enters your room.
  • He rebukes you for misbehaving and sentences you to what amounts to solitary confinement.
  • You apologize and begin penance.
• Saturday and everyday non-school day thereafter for a month:
  • Nobody talks to you.
  • Nobody sees you.
  • There is no radio, TV or music.
  • The only books in your room are your texts, your notebooks, and Etiquette, and they are your sole distractions from your solitude. Occasionally you'd see a bird or a squirrel in the tree outside your window.
  • There are no pictures, no Hot Wheels, no comic books or toys or games.
  • There are no pets. You don't so much as hear the dog bark or howl.
  • There's a knock on your door, you count to 30, open the door and pick up the tray. You eat, put the dishes outside your door in the hope of glimpsing someone or your dogs, or anything other than an empty hallway, but there is nothing.
  • You don't so much as have shoe laces to tie together and play Jacob's Ladder. I tried twisting toilet paper and making a lariat of sorts so I could play that game. It didn't work. I resorted to throwing balled up paper at imagined targets in my room and bathroom.
• Monday:
  • The only person who will actually talk to you is your teacher, and then only when you have a question.
  • At school, you are ushered in silence to your classroom. You go to the restroom alone. You eat lunch alone. You do not get to play with the other kids. The only contact you have with the other kids is a nod from your best friend as he enters the class in the morning.
  • You ride in complete silence to and from school.

By Wednesday, the gravity of what I'd done and what I was in for had sunk in. The closet thing I can liken it to that might "compute" for most folks is being locked in an isolated and empty cabin with no power for a month. If that's your idea of "having your every need met," you can have it.

 

[there4eyeM]

"I care about civil rights and I care about kids not being discriminated against or having swastikas painted on their doors or nooses hung — thinking it's a joke. I think it's entirely appropriate for — any institution, including universities, to say, "Don't walk around in blackface. It offends people. Don't wear a headdress and beat your chest if Native American students have said, you know, 'This hurts us. This bothers us." There's nothing wrong with that."
This comes from a person who did not vote for him, O.K.? Look at the words and forget what you may desire they mean. "I think it's entirely appropriate for — any institution, including universities, to say,..." his words are very mild. He encourages no rules or punishments, merely states that the institutions have the right to comment.
My personal contempt for what is considered 'political correctness' does not prevent my seeing that definitions of words can need clarification and we can raise our consciousness about the effects of certain speech.

 

[Anathema]

The concept of Civility is the descendant of Chivalry and Courtly Love.... two of the most misunderstood concepts in Western history. We're now seeing the consequences of that misunderstanding.

 

[Mac1958]

Another factor is the goal of the individual.

Those who want to be civil, who try to be civil, are more interested in honest, stimulating conversation. Perhaps a little cooperative progress.

Those who have no interest in being civil, and those who will pick and choose to whom they will be civil, are interested in something a little less, uh, civilized.

Those people are generally best left to those who share their behavior.
.

 

[The Great Goose]

Political correctness has replaced politenes..

politeness relyied on an innate consderation.

political correctness, is rule based and judaic. You can be litigious and be a c*nt.

Manners rock, kids.

Disagree.

There is no such thing as ‘political correctness’; in fact, hate speech and speech advocating for bigotry and racism are entitled to Constitutional protections.

There exists nowhere in the United States a regulatory measure ‘controlling’ the ‘appropriateness’ of speech, and there are no ‘punitive measures’ authorized by any jurisdiction for speech considered to be ‘politically incorrect.’

It's a private institution.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

"Political correctness" is a myth because it fails to "silence" anyone.

 

[SassyIrishLass]

"Political correctness" is a myth because it fails to "silence" anyone.

But never mind people have lost careers over it. Sweet jebus you're stupid

 

[Two Thumbs]

C Clayton Jones has never been anything but civil towards Mac.

I wonder if Mac would agree with that statement?

lying constantly, denying reality, isn't being civil.

not even close.

 

[Two Thumbs]

"Political correctness" is a myth because it fails to "silence" anyone.

knows you're a liar.

 

[Mac1958]

"Political correctness" is a myth because it fails to "silence" anyone.

knows you're a liar.

Among many, many other honest liberals....
.

 

[Mac1958]

"Political correctness" is a myth because it fails to "silence" anyone.

I'll ask again.

Is Obama a liar about PC, or is he not?
.

 

[Fishlore]

The American people appear to have decided that civility is irrelevant.

Why Paul Ryan's Ode To Civility Is A Giant Fail

Are we abandoning diplomacy, both nationally and globally? Is the kind of ad hominem attacks which constitute 99% of the so-called discussion on this board becoming the norm of human communication?

Civility means behavior which reflects the values of civilization. How can we abandon these values so casually? These norms have evolved over thousands of years of human experiments in building and living in cities. Isn't their value obvious? Is the abandonment of civility likely to make the world a more violent or less violent place?

You only need look at a forum like this to see how much civility doesn't matter to people any more. Every 3rd post or less contains personal attacks and insult.

The incivility on this and similar forums isn't universal. Even the most insulting posters, I suspect, are courteous to their family and friends. The parameter is the relationship between the speaker and the addressed.

There are lots of threads dedicated to non-political topics where posters are usually polite and frequently supportive. On political boards the shared bond is citizenship, that same urban civis that is in civility. Citizenship is no longer a bond that inspires politeness, much less affection, as it has done in the past.

Another factor is that our country is only a heterogeneous conglomerate in which national identity has been a positive factor sporadically, usually in times of war, We Americans don't really have a history of liking each other very much. Politics, economics and race are sore points and, on the national scale, pretty much always have been,

 

[Elvis Obama]

civility?

you're concerned about civility in a society that claims killing the unborn is just and moral?



really bro, look around, the left decent into madness was called years ago.

Yes. The notion that the abandonment of civility in all dealings is justified by abortion is absurd. Justifying poor impulse control and emotional immaturity because certain issues make you mad is completely circular reasoning. People do not serve the causes they espouse when they act like angry children. Civility is only casually dismissed by the uncivilized. Civility is a part of a system of conflict resolution which has evolved over thousands of years. You see no value in it whatsoever? You really live your life that way? Don't you get into constant fights?

 

[Elvis Obama]

The American people appear to have decided that civility is irrelevant.

Why Paul Ryan's Ode To Civility Is A Giant Fail

Are we abandoning diplomacy, both nationally and globally? Is the kind of ad hominem attacks which constitute 99% of the so-called discussion on this board becoming the norm of human communication?

Civility means behavior which reflects the values of civilization. How can we abandon these values so casually? These norms have evolved over thousands of years of human experiments in building and living in cities. Isn't their value obvious? Is the abandonment of civility likely to make the world a more violent or less violent place?

The argument can be made that in order for civility to be warranted, those seeking civility should merit it – where bigots, racists, and other purveyors of hate have indeed failed to do so.

No, I can't see the validity of such an argument. When you allow yourself to be dragged down to the level of the vulgar, they've won. I have failed in this regard many times in my life, and I have always felt ashamed when I have done so.

 

[Divine Wind]

"Political correctness" is a myth because it fails to "silence" anyone.

True, hence the futility of PC, but that doesn't stop certain groups from promoting it.

Melissa Click didn't just spontaneously combust. She was part of an academic group-think which fostered the idea that she, being part of the recognized elite, could dictate to others what they could do, what they could think and what they should believe.

 

[Divine Wind]

Among many, many other honest liberals....
.

There are honest liberals?

 

[Mac1958]

Among many, many other honest liberals....
.

There are honest liberals?

Sure. They've just been drowned out by the Regressive Left.
.

 

[BlackSand]

We are born charming, fresh and spontaneous and must be civilized before we are fit to participate in society.
― Judith Martin​

I think too few folks these days appreciate the importance of civility. Moreover, too few appreciate the privileges that accompany it, but then they wouldn't if they've never learned what it means to lose them.

To this day I recall Daddy's instructions the evening after I'd made an unruly outburst at school. I was a sixth grader.

I was in my room doing homework when Daddy knocked gently on my door, opened it, greeted me, came in, sat down, and began speaking in the softest tone and most tersely measured drawl I've heard from him before or since.

"You will leave this room only to go to school during the next month. Louise will deliver your meals and return thirty minutes later to collect the dishes which you will have set outside your door for her to collect. Do not leave food on your plate, and do not make her knock."

He then presented an alarm clock he'd brought with him and showed me how to set it.

"Helen will be up directly to show you how to make your bed and to leave fresh linens. You will wake on time to go to school in time to bathe, eat and make your bed everyday. You will change the linens every third morning and place the used ones outside your door. Do you have enough toilet paper to last the month?"

"Yes, sir," I replied after going to the restroom to check.

"A driver will take you to and from school. Upon your return to school Monday, you will apologize contritely to your teacher and classmates for your surly misbehavior. Do not allow me to discover you failed to do so."

"During the next month you will study your classwork, and you will read this book, after which you will religiously comport yourself accordingly."

With that he tossed a wrapped book, Emily Post's Etiquette, onto my desk, and then continued.

"You will henceforth nevah publicly embarrass your mother or me. Have you anything you care to ask or say to your mother or me before your sequester commences?"

I apologized to him asked him if I might do so with Mother. He told me she'd be up shortly to receive my apology. With that he gently closed the door and left.

The gardner showed up next and removed my stereo and television. Then the housekeeper appeared with linens and showed me how to make my bed and deposited two other sets on the and took the dogs' beds from my room. She told me she'd leave a week's fresh linens on my desk as needed.

Mother appeared not long after and I apologized to her. That was the last I saw or spoke with either of my parents, the housekeeper, the cat, the dogs, the gardener and cook for a month.

Each school day I'd go downstairs to get in the cab knowing there had to be at least three people, two dogs, and a cat somewhere, yet there was not a soul to be seen or heard in the house. The driver wouldn't even talk to me other than to, on the my first attempt to engage him, tell me he'd been told I was to be silent and so was he.

On the Monday when I first returned to school, I was grateful to be there for at least I got to see other people whom I knew. Much to my dismay, Daddy's anger with and authority over me reached even there. He'd somehow managed to have my seat moved to the back of every class and set in a row unto itself. Also,I was forbad going to recess.

That was the most miserable month of my life. I neverafter lost control of myself until I was well into adulthood.
​

I think there remain a few communities in which shunning is still practiced. IMO, there need to be more. I think it'd do folks good to learn firsthand how Hester Prynne felt. Maybe then they'd appreciate the benefits of cordiality and the privilege of being permitted to interact with others. Too many folks take for granted and assume that the rest of us have to deal with them. In nearly all cases, we do not. It's pitiful that so many in our nation, most ironically the "social media" crowd who often behave in among the most antisocial ways conceivable, have forgotten that nothing forces our cultural approbation of boors, curs, cads and cretins.

I love luxury. Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. Luxury lies not in richness and ornateness, but in the absence of vulgarity.
― Coco Chanel​

Civility hasn't gone anywhere ... Exposure has increased.

The difference is that people used to live in a world among themselves ... In their community.
The community's expectations were fostered, nurtured and supported by the members of that community.

When exposure increased ... And the rapid ability to introduce radical variables at the click of a mouse ... A lot of those communities were shattered.
In attempts to protect their identity and standards ... They began to use civility as a weapon instead of a desired guideline.

When you can no longer define what is acceptable ... Or you have to be uncivil to accomplish civility ... You destroy the intent and will encounter people who are in every bit correct to tell you to stuff it.

.

 

[The Great Goose]

"Political correctness" is a myth because it fails to "silence" anyone.

It silences me.

 

[Elvis Obama]

The American people appear to have decided that civility is irrelevant.

Why Paul Ryan's Ode To Civility Is A Giant Fail

Are we abandoning diplomacy, both nationally and globally? Is the kind of ad hominem attacks which constitute 99% of the so-called discussion on this board becoming the norm of human communication?

Civility means behavior which reflects the values of civilization. How can we abandon these values so casually? These norms have evolved over thousands of years of human experiments in building and living in cities. Isn't their value obvious? Is the abandonment of civility likely to make the world a more violent or less violent place?

I would only disagree with the notion that we've abandoned the values casually. This seems like it has been a process.

It appears that fundamental civility has dropped in priority beneath "winning" and finger-pointing. Post 15 on this thread illustrates this, essentially saying "I will be the judge of those who deserve my civility". Once that division is made, civility breaks down because we are lowering our standards.

We can't fix any problems when we can't rise above petty differences and communicate. We can't communicate if we're only civil to those with whom we agree. Those who play this game are a big part of the problem.
.

I would only disagree with the notion that we've abandoned the values casually. This seems like it has been a process.

It's been a process alright. People have, of course, decried the rise in vulgarity and crassness for many decades. Social critics who blame Rosie the Riveter and Rock and Roll for making women uppity and teenagers crazy with lust. People who claim that vulgarity is the result of Last Exit to Brooklyn and Eddie Murphy. Maybe so. Jerry Springer and reality TV and Rush and Alex Jones.

It seems to me that it is a matter of choice and upbringing more than the general culture. Either you were raised to be respectful to others or you were not. At some point you become an adult and have to decide whether to continue with such deference or not. If you were raised to appreciate the importance of treating people decently, and later came to realize the wisdom of such an upbringing, the vulgarity of the general culture can't touch you.