Five Practices for Living the Civil Life
The practices summarized below are the main focus of Creating A New Civility. I summarize them here and encourage you to turn to CNC for a fuller understanding of each of them. I situate each of the practices within a scholarly, social framework, showing how they build on one another and interrelate.
1. Live in mindful awareness.
First we examine the being that we are. We develop a state of mind, what we might call a point of view, from which to proceed. Here we rely not on a framework or doctrine but on ourselves, our experiences, and our ability to find a way of being that embodies civility. Mindfulness offers a way to arrive at a state of presence, a state of full humanity, through which impulses to civility arise. Awareness allows us to achieve presence in the moment-by-moment experiences of each day.
Mindfulness helps you to become aware of who and what you are in this moment — now. Mindful awareness is a state of being as well as a process through which you can achieve your best sense of self, in order to reach out your helping hand in various acts of civility.
Central concepts, which benefit from a good deal of practice, are treasuring quiet; getting comfortable with deep, measured breathing so that you can return to your breath again and again to center yourself; noticing; getting comfortable with various meditative practices, including the body scan; gathering body, heart, mind, and soul together — bodyheartmindsoul — and embodying presence, signifying a civil self, striving to achieve your full humanity.
2. Listen Anew, Using the Space around You.
When we listen well, we bring what we might call our “storied” self to the act. That is, we listen, bringing our own life experiences to the act, and recognizing that we are listening to another “storied” self, who has a lifetime of experiences different from us. Said another way, we listen, acknowledging our own humanity, as well as that to whom we speak, whose different sex, race, ethnicity, class, religious and political beliefs make him or her unique, different from us, and worthy of the respect of civility.
To help ourselves accomplish this “full-body” listening, we review the tried-and-true methods of active and say-back listening. Who has not asked their children to say back to them an important instruction, such as when and where to meet? Then we discuss three crucial and complex methods — accountability, standing-under, and compassionate — listening. The definitions of these words reveal something of the processes involved. Our goal is to hear what we cannot see, or, alternatively, to make new and better uses of the space around us through the experience of listening in new ways.
3. Search identity markers for triggers to incivilities.
All of us know the tense feelings in our body that come along with words of hate, scorn, or animosity, whether delivered or received. Since these triggers usually go to our identity, I list ten qualities that “mark” our identity, including sex/gender, race, age, and so forth. Then I suggest ways to interrogate our markers, to see where our prejudices toward the other person lie. Knowing what our triggers are, we can scan our markers for incivilities just as we scan our body in mindful awareness.
4. Understand the (civil) communication situation.
In this section we study the relationships between speaker and listener when a topic or issue over which there is some difference or dissension is discussed. I go here to classical and contemporary rhetorical scholars’ insights on what is called the rhetorical situation: speaker talks to listener about a topic, around which are contexts and constraints. I find contemporary scholar James Moffett’s I-You-It concept useful: I/Speaker talk to You/Listener-Audience about It/topic. IYouIt. I build civility consciousness-raising activities around these concepts, emphasizing particularly ethos, logos, and pathos, as they capture so well the full humanity of a civil exchange. Communication takes on a renewed significance when the full humanity of both the speaker and listener are respected.
5.Realize rich relationships.
This final section builds on the understandings of the previous four, and looks at relationships from the points of view of the person caring and the person cared for (see Noddings, bibliography). Engrossment develops as relationships between them blossom, moving from detached to empathic to compassionate. We see how a person’s behavior must be completed in an “Other” in order for the full humanity of civility to be achieved.
In full civility lies the path to peace.
1. Live in mindful awareness.
First we examine the being that we are. We develop a state of mind, what we might call a point of view, from which to proceed. Here we rely not on a framework or doctrine but on ourselves, our experiences, and our ability to find a way of being that embodies civility. Mindfulness offers a way to arrive at a state of presence, a state of full humanity, through which impulses to civility arise. Awareness allows us to achieve presence in the moment-by-moment experiences of each day.
Mindfulness helps you to become aware of who and what you are in this moment — now. Mindful awareness is a state of being as well as a process through which you can achieve your best sense of self, in order to reach out your helping hand in various acts of civility.
Central concepts, which benefit from a good deal of practice, are treasuring quiet; getting comfortable with deep, measured breathing so that you can return to your breath again and again to center yourself; noticing; getting comfortable with various meditative practices, including the body scan; gathering body, heart, mind, and soul together — bodyheartmindsoul — and embodying presence, signifying a civil self, striving to achieve your full humanity.
2. Listen Anew, Using the Space around You.
When we listen well, we bring what we might call our “storied” self to the act. That is, we listen, bringing our own life experiences to the act, and recognizing that we are listening to another “storied” self, who has a lifetime of experiences different from us. Said another way, we listen, acknowledging our own humanity, as well as that to whom we speak, whose different sex, race, ethnicity, class, religious and political beliefs make him or her unique, different from us, and worthy of the respect of civility.
To help ourselves accomplish this “full-body” listening, we review the tried-and-true methods of active and say-back listening. Who has not asked their children to say back to them an important instruction, such as when and where to meet? Then we discuss three crucial and complex methods — accountability, standing-under, and compassionate — listening. The definitions of these words reveal something of the processes involved. Our goal is to hear what we cannot see, or, alternatively, to make new and better uses of the space around us through the experience of listening in new ways.
3. Search identity markers for triggers to incivilities.
All of us know the tense feelings in our body that come along with words of hate, scorn, or animosity, whether delivered or received. Since these triggers usually go to our identity, I list ten qualities that “mark” our identity, including sex/gender, race, age, and so forth. Then I suggest ways to interrogate our markers, to see where our prejudices toward the other person lie. Knowing what our triggers are, we can scan our markers for incivilities just as we scan our body in mindful awareness.
4. Understand the (civil) communication situation.
In this section we study the relationships between speaker and listener when a topic or issue over which there is some difference or dissension is discussed. I go here to classical and contemporary rhetorical scholars’ insights on what is called the rhetorical situation: speaker talks to listener about a topic, around which are contexts and constraints. I find contemporary scholar James Moffett’s I-You-It concept useful: I/Speaker talk to You/Listener-Audience about It/topic. IYouIt. I build civility consciousness-raising activities around these concepts, emphasizing particularly ethos, logos, and pathos, as they capture so well the full humanity of a civil exchange. Communication takes on a renewed significance when the full humanity of both the speaker and listener are respected.
5.Realize rich relationships.
This final section builds on the understandings of the previous four, and looks at relationships from the points of view of the person caring and the person cared for (see Noddings, bibliography). Engrossment develops as relationships between them blossom, moving from detached to empathic to compassionate. We see how a person’s behavior must be completed in an “Other” in order for the full humanity of civility to be achieved.
In full civility lies the path to peace.