Do One Good Thing

Do you share my frustration at the disintegration of civility in today’s world? Is there anything we can do to reverse the trend towards insolence and contempt? A start – do one good thing.

What is civility?

To paraphrase a recently-read quotation that lamented “there lacks an adequate definition of civility ,but I can recognize it when I see it and when it is missing”. Well, sometimes words are best defined by what they are not. So, if you click on this link you will find many of the antonyms that may help define what civility isn’t. Still, and despite the exhaustive list of opposites, this doesn’t cover it for me. I think that civility:

• Starts with curiosity – fed by open ended questions. Why, how, what specifically?
• Means hearing what is being said, not just listening
• Doesn’t talk over divergent points of view and accepts that there will always be different perspectives and opinions.
• Avoids insult – it may play well with a base group or be self-satisfying. However, isn’t calling someone “wacko” just self-debasing? When I was a teenager – oh so many years ago – my mother embarrassed me by asking two simple questions in the middle of a discussion. “Is that the limit of your vocabulary?” and “Could you not make your point in a manner that demonstrates more self-respect?”
• Needs a sense of humour
• Doesn’t “hate” / or “detest” everything – words that seem to have crept their way into every second sentence, mostly to describe feelings towards people that are in the public eye. This diminishes the value of those words where the use is justified by the answers to the why questions. A bit like the use of the famous Anglo-Saxon word “f**k”. Occasionally, a great punctuation mark! When used in every sentence – back to my mother’s first question.

I could keep going but the subject matter is …..

Do one good thing!

Can I make a difference. Well, maybe if we do one good thing:

• Separate fact from fiction from opinion. Really, is there such a thing as alternate facts?
• Expand consumption of media – don’t limit it to an echo chamber – read to understand. Support the fossil fuel industry? Get The Alternative Weekly delivered to your inbox.
• Take on anti-semitism. Go beyond hand-wringing! Jailing mobs chanting hate slogans might appeal, but easier said than done. Help educate today’s generation about the persecution of Jewry throughout the ages, the terror of pogroms, and the horror of the Holocaust. This year marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Donate time or money to a Holocaust museum or a Jewish charity!
• Or take on the cause of another religiously or racially oppressed group but not at the cost of hating or disparaging another.

It isn’t necessary to agree to respect. Maybe that is the one best thing to remember.

“A man who lives, not by what he loves, but by what he hates is a sick man.”

Archibald MacLeish, American poet