{"id":917,"date":"2011-08-16T21:56:05","date_gmt":"2011-08-17T01:56:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/?p=917"},"modified":"2011-08-16T21:56:05","modified_gmt":"2011-08-17T01:56:05","slug":"civility-redux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/civility-redux\/","title":{"rendered":"Civility Redux"},"content":{"rendered":"

At its recent meeting in Toronto, the ABA House of Delegates approved the Resolution on Public Civility<\/a>, first proposed by the Section on Dispute Resolution, calling for civility in public discourse and urging state bar groups to take the lead in advocating respectful and attentive civil dialogue.\u00a0 Comes now Sara Hacala, a “certified etiquette and protocol consultant,” who has kindly offered the galleys of her forthcoming book, “Saving Civility: 52 Ways to Tame Rude, Crude & Attitude for a Healthy Planet.”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Saving<\/a><\/p>\n

Ms. Hacala’s perspective is neither legal nor legislative, but rather civil in all senses of the term.\u00a0 She writes as a member of society who is simply appalled at the carelessness, nastiness and apparent tolerance of meanness that she sees around her.\u00a0 Public displays of vulgarity and loud confrontations are things that, in very recent times, were broadly frowned upon and parentally punished.\u00a0 Yet as we know famous tennis players curse at umpires; members of Congress call the President a liar; rap stars interrupt awards shows to curse.\u00a0 Expressions of individual emotion are unfiltered by the sense of social obligation – the recognition that there are those more important than ourselves – that, to Ms. Hacala, characterize all societies, including ours until very recently.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Among many factors contributing to the loss of civility, one of the most telling is a “disconnect,” a state of existence in which one is in, but not among, one’s neighbors – that the society we live in is someone else’s, which we are somehow visiting but not a part of, and not responsible to advance.\u00a0 Through email we “contact” but don’t “connect.”\u00a0 The concept of “exchange” gives way to mere self-expression, and group discourse devolves to a\u00a0sequence of statements of personal interest.<\/p>\n

One might observe that, if people like Ms. Hacala need to “teach” civility, then we don’t have it any more.\u00a0 But it’s always useful to listen to people who have thought a long time about important topics, and it is not only instructive, but civil, to give Ms. Hacala heed.\u00a0 She encourages us to be intentional as members of our neighborhoods – to live in such a way as to engage in civil behavior.\u00a0 She asks us to greet others with a smile; to be sensitive to the way others perceive us; and to respond when others speak in a way that they know they have been heard.\u00a0 She urges us to interpret others’ cares sympathetically; to use discernment rather than mere receptivity in our dealings with each other; to speak perceptively; and to know when to be silent.\u00a0 She reminds us of the social utility of trust.\u00a0 She urges us to remain placid and avoid both belligerent tones of voice and rhetorical turns of phrase.\u00a0 She sincerely reminds us that shared laughter, shared kindness and shared enjoyment is the very mortar of societies that work well.\u00a0 Generosity is important; so are gestures of gratitude.<\/p>\n

This all may sound schoolmarm-ish.\u00a0 Yet who can contest any of it?\u00a0 And isn’t it good to be reminded?\u00a0 After all, is it President Obama’s job to legislate civility?\u00a0 Is it the Republican Party’s job to enforce it?\u00a0 Or is it our job to live it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A timely and pertinent new book on civility in every aspect of our lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[12],"class_list":["post-917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-united-states","tag-culture"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}