The recent tragedy in Arizona has resulted in fans of both major political parties blaming the other party. It has also prompted a call for civility and respect. While I am all for civility and respect, my suspicion is that wihtout a clear picture of what civility looks like, we commoners will have no idea - that is, outside of saying please and thank you.
Our word civility hails from the Latin civilitas, civilitatis, f., which is related to civilis. We get our words "civil", "civilized", and "civic" from these terms, which connect the public life and our role as citizens to the concepts of being affable, courteous, and polite. Not that this gets us very far in understanding what it means to be civil. Perhaps the other terms offer some insight. Then again, perhaps they don't.
"Affable" means, among other things, that one is easy to talk to, friendly, polite; courteous suggests that one shows good manners and is polite. "Polite" merely points us back to courteous and civil, so perhaps this civility is a "you'll know it when you see it" type of thing.
Keep in mind that the same culture that produced this words was also notorious for being less than civil when it came to political disagreements and daily life. Consider the first two centuries before Christ and the fate of Tiberius Gracchus and his brother Gaius Gracchus, two elite Romans who died while advocating for the plight of the poor. Tiberius was clubbed to death by a political opponent, while Gaius had his slave kill him when it became clear that his political opponent would slaughter him and his followers - with the consent of the Senate. Things do not improve much. Next you have two Roman generals, Marius and Sulla, and their rival supporters. The solution to their political impass? Massacres and proscription to silence opponents. Things more or less follow this course for decades to follow. Very little reasoning with opponents; might (or majority) makes right; uneasy alliances to secure majority (or might).
So how does this help our country, our citizens, our people? More importantly, how should it guide our leaders? Well to start, there will be either feigned civility or no civility if people focus on differences and not on commonalities. I'm sure you've been in the setting (casual get together, office party, etc.) where there is "the contrarian" who wants nothing more than to argue with people about anything and to tell them why they are wrong. The contrarian makes everything a debate; usually the goal is not consensus, but to win a few points. Meanwhile, the contrarian ends up alienating others and setting himself or herself up as the benchmark of orthodoxy. For instance, talk radio contrarians (whether on the left or the right) have the solution to everything, but do nothing to resolve disputes and seem only to prolong disputes. Notably absent is any concept that could unite opponents and get them to respect others - at least end the ad hominem attacks and self-righteous proclamations.
Not that this requires us to ignore differences or to minimize serious issues. But it requires us not to villify unnecessarily and to find consensus where it is to be found. Then again, this is just my opinion, and you're stupid (or a democrat or a republican or a [fill in the blank]) if you disagree.
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