Help me find a good working definition of civility.

April 29, 2008 2:17 PM

Can you help me find a good working definition of civility?

Previously, although I'm not looking for book/article recommendations so much as specific definitions -- with sources, of course.

I sort of like this one, which says "[valuing] the inherent worth and dignity of every person, thereby fostering a community of mutual respect." I.e., general human-scale civility, nothing explicitly political or professional.

posted by mirepoix to society & culture (7 comments total)

Try Emily Post?
posted by Max Power at 2:28 PM on April 29, 2008

Dr. Forni over at Johns Hopkins has a website devoted to his study of civility. Don't know if it has any definitions there, but he is an authority, if such can be the case, on civility in the present day.

By the way, if you ever get to see this guy talk, he is fascinating.
posted by gyusan at 2:31 PM on April 29, 2008

Richard Sennett's Respect in a World of Inequality covers the concepts of mutual respect and civility across social and economic worlds.
posted by rabbitsnake at 4:10 PM on April 29, 2008

Being nice? Giving people respect whether they deserve it or not?
posted by gjc at 7:51 PM on April 29, 2008

A civil person always attempts to help the other person feel comfortable.
posted by SPrintF at 8:55 PM on April 29, 2008

Erring on the side of niceness.
posted by lpsguy at 6:12 AM on April 30, 2008

The philosopher Michael Oakeshott defines civility as an intelligent relationship between equals engaged in a common practice governed by an agreed system of rules. He illustrates this with reference to the idea of conversation:

It is with conversation as with gambling, its significance lies neither in winning nor in losing, but in wagering. Properly speaking, it is impossible in the absence of a diversity of voices: in it different universes of discourse meet, acknowledge each other and enjoy an oblique relationship which neither requires nor forecasts their being assimilated to one another.

And 'it is the ability to participate in this conversation, and not the ability to reason cogently, to make discoveries about the world, or to contrive a better world, which distinguishes the human being from the animal and the civilized man from the barbarian.' 'The ability to participate in this conversation' = civility.

I'm not totally convinced by this argument, but the one thing I think Oakeshott gets absolutely right is that civility is a public activity. Defining it in terms of personal behaviour ('being nice') is not enough, because civility implies civil society, it implies (to quote Oakeshott again) a 'common recognition of the rules which constitute a practice of civility'. And the question is whether we possess the sort of 'common recognition of the rules' which makes civility possible.
posted by verstegan at 3:13 PM on April 30, 2008