Today's Newspaper Column - Democrat & Chronicle

I made it! and not in the arrest column!

Civility is Essential
to Building
Community
Mark Hare • November 4, 2010

The other day, city crews filled the Broad Street
planters with mums — deep purple, orange and
yellow. I am sure there are critics of such "frivolous
spending," especially so close to the onset of cold
weather. But I welcome the color and the civilizing
effects of flowers on our streets.

I welcome any activity that makes our community a
little more human — including kindness to animals.

Janine Wagner of Irondequoit spends $100 a week
on cat food — food she leaves for stray and feral
cats at several locations in northeast Rochester. She
knows that a lot of people think she's crazy. She
sometimes uses have-a-heart traps to capture the
cats. She tells me she has found homes for 15 or 20
strays (domesticated but abandoned) and she has
turned over feral cats to animal control. "I've come
to realize that euthanasia may be better than the
suffering they endure," she says.

Civility starts with simple acts of respect. People
scoff today at folks who worry about stray animals
when so many people are hurting.

But kindness is kindness. In my experience, people
who care for animals care for people, too.

Speaking and acting in ways — even small ways —
that improve the quality of our collective experience
has a civilizing impact on each of us. I don't know
that egotism and selfishness have reached all-time
highs, but I do know that too many people live
completely unfiltered lives — saying and doing
anything that comes to mind, no matter how hurtful.

Civility requires a concern for how our words and
actions affect others. I asked P.M. Forni, who co-
founded the Johns Hopkins University Civility
Project in 1997, why civility has declined and what
we can do about it.

Forni, a professor of romance languages and
literature, recently did presentations at both Monroe
Community College and Rochester Institute of
Technology. He has written widely on civility and
has authored two books on the subject, most
recently The Civility Solution: What to do when
people are rude.

The decline in civility, he told me, does not owe to
any single cause, but the informality of the Internet
has exacerbated the problem. "Sometimes
informality is the Trojan horse that smuggles
incivility within the walls of society," he says. Giving
people online anonymity shields them from all
repercussions from vile, uninformed and hurtful
comments and "does not exactly call out our better
angels," Forni says.

As a society, Forni says, we've instilled self-esteem
in young people, but not a sense of self-restraint.
And civility is not just a matter of saying the right
thing. "What we have to reform is how we interact,
how compassionate we are, how willing we are to
meet the needs and desires of others."

Most people are never called on to jump in a river to
rescue someone, but civility, manners and
politeness are not trivial "because they are the
everyday acts of goodness," Forni says. The kind
word, the pat on the back, the choice to let a driver
change lanes ahead of us — these are the acts that
help us be more aware of our humanity. So, too, the
planting of flowers and the feeding of animals.

These are not the best of times, but I hope we never reach a point where we cannot afford to do even simple things that "call out our better angels."