“A CIVIL TONGUE”

A Sermon by the Rev. Bruce Clear

Sunday, September 27, 2009

All Souls Unitarian Church

Indianapolis, Indiana

I can recall when I first intentionally decided to do something courteously. There were probably occasions before that time when I acted with courtesy, but this was the first time, to my memory, that I actually pondered the matter and made a conscious decision to be polite.

Many people here, I suspect, at one time or another have lived in a large city. This happened to me when I was 22 years old. I had lived all my life, up until then, in a small Indiana town, but learned about city living when I moved to Washington, D.C.

Anyone who has gone from small town to large city is bound to experience some culture shock, and I was no exception. In my case, the most persistent and annoying cultural difference was driving a car. The difference was dramatic.

In Indiana, a yellow light in an intersection means slow down and stop. In the city, a yellow light seemed to mean accelerate fast so you don't get caught at the stoplight. In Indiana, if a car passes you in the left lane, and wants to change over into the right lane again, you slow down, if necessary, to let the car in. In the city, if a car wants to shift over into your lane, the rule seems to be "Speed up so that the car can't change lanes." In fact, the cardinal rule of driving in Washington, D.C., or any other major city I've been in, seems to be: whatever you do, don't let any other car get in front of you.

It didn't take long, living in the big city, for me to be driving like the best (or worst) of them. As I drove through town, I'd be yelling and screaming, like everyone else, at everyone else. I skillfully maneuvered that machine in such a manner that no one, regardless of their station in life, would get the better of me. I swerved and steered that car in and out of lanes with the best of them. I'd swear at them, and they'd swear at me. I'd honk at them, and they'd honk at me. But regardless of how hard they tried, none of them could overpower me. They didn't have a ghost of a chance of cutting in front of me.

I honed my driving skills, and within a very few short months, I knew I belonged there. I became one of them.

The trouble is that, after a while, I began to wonder whether I really wanted to be one of them. When I looked at them from my own car, they appeared to me as raving lunatics. How, I wondered, must I look to them? And furthermore, I came to realize what it did to me. After only of few miles of such competitive driving, I was angry, nasty, full of stress, and generally uncivilized.

I was good at it. Don't get me wrong. I was an ace big-city driver -- and if they gave prizes for it, I'd be a gold medal finalist. But I was also a nervous wreck.

So, somewhere along the line, I began to wonder whether it was worth it. And the answer was "No." I surveyed my options and realized I had only two: either stop driving at all, or begin to drive differently, non-aggressively. I chose the latter.

My whole disposition seemed to change. I became a friendly, happy commuter. If someone wanted to cut in front of me, no problem -- "Here...let me give you some more room." I didn't block intersections, I didn't weave in and out of traffic, I didn't even gesture obscenely to the car in front of me! And what a difference it made. I shocked the powers that be in Washington, D.C. by being one driver that was cautious, reasonable, and even courteous.

I approach this subject of civility this morning because there seems to be a growing concern about level of civil behavior around us. Civility is in the news, as it often should be. There has been a mountain of stories about it because of recent antics at congressional town halls over the summer, and by Serena Williams, Kanye West, and Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina. Uncivil discourse seems to rule in talk radio, where name-calling, sarcasm and ridicule are substituted for rational arguments and respectful disagreement. .

I am not interested in saying anything about these people or circumstances – you can find plenty of that on TV, the newspaper, and the blog-o-sphere. What I do want to consider this morning is the meaning of being civil – what is the line that is crossed, for example, from disagreeing to being disagreeable? Or the line between standing up for your own rights on one hand and being insensitive to the feelings of others.

When it comes to political rudeness, there is enough incivility to go around. It is stunningly crude and disgusting to see a poster portraying President Obama with a Hitler mustache. But it is also true, I think, that his predecessor, George W. Bush, was vilified as much or more by his opponents. When I see that kind of nastiness directed at Barak Obama, it causes me to reflect on the degree to which ridicule and scorn, rather than reasoned argument, was used by those of us who opposed many of Mr. Bush’s policies. It makes me pause to re-consider my own political discourse. Civility should not be measured according to whose ox is being gored.

I'm not sure whether, in general, people today are more rude than ever before. I suspect that's true, but my experience is too limited to be certain of any generalization. It is my understanding that each generation has claimed the world is more uncivilized than it used to be.

There is one observation I feel safe in making about our generation, though. We have been taught to be more honest about what we think and more direct about what we want. By and large, I think this has been healthy.

This movement to nurture self-confidence and self-assertion has been needed. Our culture, as psychologists have shown, is based on repression of feelings. In recent years, what we have been learning is to liberate rather than repress feelings, and this lesson is worth learning. Indeed this is worth learning, and worth affirming. It is not, however, worth elevating to the level of a religious creed.

It is very easy for the message to run amok, to become more than it was meant to be. Too few have appreciated the distinction between asking for what you deserve and demanding what you want. For many, the distinction between being assertive and being aggressive has eluded them.

It is time, I think, to find something to balance this trend of the last couple of decades. It is time to learn the dark side of being honest with others about your feelings and being direct about what you want.

It is balance that I'm looking for, and that balance has something, I think, to do with courtesy and civility. It has something to do with simple politeness and respect, though I think there's more to it than that.

Mark Twain writes with tongue-in-cheek about the "art of lying," and laments that judicious lying is becoming a lost art. As usual, Twain is writing hyperbole, going for shock value. But one wonders what he might think of the modern trend toward complete, open honesty about feelings, even honesty that hurts others. "What I bemoan," wrote Twain, "is the growing prevalence of the brutal truth. Let us do what we can to eradicate it. An injurious truth has no merit over an injurious lie."

I look for the grain of truth in Twain's brash overstatement. Though I doubt he would admit any ethical analysis of his essay, it seems to me one might interpret his ethics in a very simple way, as saying: how you treat other people is at least as important as how you treat yourself. This is not a terribly profound observation, but I think it gets to the heart of what is needed for balance in the current climate, a hundred and fifty years after Twain wrote those words. There is really a cluster of words that identify my meaning. It has to do with how we treat other people, whether friend or stranger, and it has to do with such words as "respect" and "consideration" and “courtesy.” My favorite word, one I’ve respected for a long time, is the word “civility”

I think civility is what seems to be increasingly lost in public and private discourse of late. Civility has to do with treating another person with consideration even if you don't agree with or don't even like the other person. As Mark Twain suggested, it means to avoid saying things which are injurious, whether the injury comes from truth or lies.

There are many different ways of being courteous. They range from table manners to driving habits to political debates. But the kind of courtesy that is missing most today, I think, is the kind which might carry the label "civility," treating all people with the quality of consideration, regardless of how you may feel about that person.

In George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, he has a line about "manners" which I think describe what I'm trying to say about civility. He says, "The great secret is not having bad manners or good manners, or any particular sort of manners, but having the same manners for all human souls."

That, I think touches on the essence of civility, today's most uncommon form of courtesy. I discovered that there exists at Johns Hopkins University a program called the “Civility Project.” The director of that program is, of all things, a professor of Italian literature by the mane of P.M. Forni. He has written several books and leads workshops on the topic of civility. When he was asked why he chose to focus on this topic, he replied,

“I was teaching my Dante's Divine Comedy course to my students one day . . . and I looked at them and a thought occurred to me that had never occurred to me before. The thought was, I want my students to know everything that there is to know about Dante, but even if they did and then they went out to be unkind to a little old lady on a bus, I would think that I had failed as a teacher. It was an odd thought, and it stayed with me. And it made me think, What if kindness is as important as art? What if kindness is more important than art, for that matter? I eventually felt comfortable pursuing work on civility not only as a researcher but as an advocate.”

In his book called “Choosing Civility,” Forni lists these as diverse behaviors that are tied to civil living. In some ways, this is a modern update of the list composed by George Washington 250 years ago:

“Saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’; lowering our voice whenever it may threaten or interfere with others’ tranquility; raising funds for a neighborhood renovation program; acknowledging a newcomer to the conversation; welcoming a new neighbor; listening to understand and help; respecting those different from us; responding with restraint from a challenge; properly disposing of a piece of trash left by someone else; properly disposing of dangerous industrial pollutants; acknowledging our mistakes; refusing to participate in malicious gossip; making a new pot of coffee for the office machine after drinking the last cup; signaling our turns when driving; yielding our seat on a bus whenever it seems appropriate; alerting the person sitting behind us on a plane when we are about to lower the back of our seat; standing close to the right-hand side of the rail on an escalator; stopping to give directions to someone who is lost; stopping at red lights; disagreeing with poise; yielding with grace when losing an argument; these diverse behaviors are imbedded with civility.”

Several years ago, I led a series of meetings for Unitarians who had fundamentalist relatives and friends and who wanted to get along better with them. In the course of the series, we studied the ideas of the fundamentalists, including their political and social agenda. We learned, of course, what they thought of us of the liberal religious tradition. They considered us agents of the devil, that we were working to destroy everything that is good and right about this country. In short, they saw us as the enemy.

By and large, our view of them wasn’t much different. To us, they were Neanderthal, mean-spirited, holier-than-thou bigots who are dangerous to all personal and political freedom.

The class, as I say, was designed for those who wanted to get along better with fundamentalist acquaintances, so the first thing to do was to get beyond the name-calling and stereotyping. Eventually, we came to understand that to relate personally with someone who feels like an “enemy,” we must be interested not so much in what they believe, but rather why they believe it. It is less important to find out their position on abortion or prayer in schools or the rights of gays and lesbians, but more important to see what feelings in them guide them to these positions. In other words, in order to understand someone who is different, it is best to go to psychology -- not what they think, but why and how they come to think that way. It means examining feelings.

Near the end of the meetings, I was able to arrange a visit from a couple of ministers of a prominent fundamentalist church. They were extremely suspicious at first, and I could tell they did not want to step foot within a Unitarian Church. I assured them that we were not challenging them to a debate, and in fact that we would not use the time to argue against their positions and beliefs, but rather we just wanted to find out why they held the views they held. We would ask them questions, but would not contest their answers.

What happened was fascinating and a testament to the value of civility. There was no arguing back and forth, but a genuine clearing the air of feelings. When we asked them about why they believed as they did, a very definite picture took form. It was clear to me that they came to their fundamentalist positions mostly out of genuine fears -- fear of what might happen to their children, fear of what might happen to their marriage, fear of what might happen to the country, and so on. By letting them speak honestly about their feelings, and making no harsh judgments on anything they said, they gradually began feeling respected, and the mood in the room changed from an initial feeling of tenseness to a sense of warmth and safety. I will not say there was any agreement on any important subject, but the fact of being listened to respectfully was enough to lessen the level of fear on both sides -- and fear was the main emotion for all of us when the session began.

In his autobiography, Benjamin Franklin speaks of how practical and successful civility can be in persuasive argument with another person.” He wrote,

“ I denied myself the pleasure of contradicting him abruptly and of showing immediately some absurdity in his proposition; and in answering I began by observing that in certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, but that in the present case there ‘appeared’ or ‘seemed to me’ some difference, etc. The conversation I engaged in went on more pleasantly; the modest way in which I proposed my opinions procured them a readier reception and less contradiction; I had less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I more easily prevailed with others to give up their mistakes and join with me when I happened to be in the right.”

This is the blessing that civility provides. It allows human beings, regardless of how strongly they disagree, to treat each other with respect, and therefore make this world a little more humane. A more humane world is a safer place to live.

Civility is far more than just honesty or courtesy or politeness. Civility means treating the other person with the kind of respectful behavior you yourself would want. I am perturbed whenever other cars blare their horns and cut in front of me, so civility demands that I not do that myself.

Civility demands that disagreements be open, honest, above-board and respectful. Civility demands, as we learned in my class about getting along with fundamentalists, that we listen to others, and especially listen to their feelings, and not just make them listen to us. Civility demands that if you are troubled by what a friend or acquaintance may have done, speak to them directly, not badmouth them to others behind their back. Civility demands keeping a reign on temper and anger, even in traffic. Civility demands much the same behavior for strangers as it does for friends, family, and co-workers. Civility demands respecting rights, respecting privacy, respecting the humanity of others. Civility means minding your own business -- to live and let live.

On the level of society, the same elements apply. As the right-wing and left-wing become increasingly polarized over hot-button issues, it is easy for disagreement to decay into name-calling and vicious characterization. When the social and political atmosphere sours into uncivil behavior, it can filter down into day-to-day living, putting a foul mood on anyone who is the subject of uncivil discourse.

I recall a presidential election many years ago when one candidate accused the other candidate of being a “wimp.” I remember my thoughts at the time, and I remember thinking that I would much rather live in a society run by wimps than in a society in which calling people “wimps” is accepted as a campaign strategy, a clever and insightful form of rational debate.

Emerson once wrote that, "Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy." I suppose I would add that life is never so dangerous but that there is always reason enough for civility.

I do not speak as one who has mastered the art of civility. That person in me who once would not allow any driver to take my place in line -- that person is still in me, and rears its disturbing head from time to time. But when I see it, I'm beginning to understand it for the impudent person it is. It may express my honest feelings, but it does not represent the person I want to be, and want others to be.

READING

"ON THE DECAY OF THE ART OF LYING"

By Mark Twain

[An "essay read at a meeting of the Historical and Antiquarian Club of Hartford, and offered for the Thirty-Dollar Prize, 1882." It did not take the prize.]

I do not mean to suggest that the custom of lying has suffered any decay; my complaint simply concerns the decay of the art of lying.

No fact is more firmly established than that lying is a necessity of our circumstances -- the deduction that it is then a Virtue goes without saying. No virtue can reach its highest usefulness without careful and diligent cultivation -- therefore, it goes without saying that this one ought to be taught in the public schools, at the fireside, and even in the newspapers.

Everybody lies -- every day; every hour; awake; asleep; in joy; in mourning; in dreams.

In a far country where I once lived, all were liars, every one. Their mere "howdy-do" was a lie, because they didn't care how you did, except they were undertakers. To the ordinary inquirer you lied in return; for you made no conscientious diagnosis of your case, but answered at random, and usually missed it considerably.

If a stranger called and interrupted you, you said with your hearty tongue, "I'm glad to see you," and said with your heartier soul, "I wish you were with the cannibals, and it was dinner-time." When he went you said regretfully, "Must you go?"; but you did no harm, for you did not deceive anybody nor inflict any hurt, whereas the truth would have made you both unhappy.

What I bemoan is the growing prevalence of the brutal truth. Let us do what we can to eradicate it. An injurious truth has no merit over an injurious lie. Neither should ever be uttered. The person who speaks an injurious truth, lest his should be not saved for doing otherwise, should reflect that that sort of soul is not strictly worth saving. But the one who tells a lie to help a poor devil out of trouble is one of whom the angels doubtless say, "Lo, here is an heroic soul; let us exalt this magnanimous liar."

Lying is universal -- we all do it; we all must do it. Therefore, the wise thing is for us diligently to train ourselves to lie thoughtfully, judiciously; to lie with a good object, and not an evil one; to lie for other's advantage, and not our own; to lie healingly, charitably, humanely, not cruelly, hurtfully, maliciously.

An injurious lie is an uncommendable thing; and so, also, and in the same degree, is an injurious truth -- a fact which is recognized by the laws of libel.

Judicious lying is what the world needs. I sometimes think that it were even better and safer not to lie at all than to lie injudiciously. An awkward, unscientific lie is often as ineffectual as telling the truth."

READING from

“Rules of Civility & Decent Behaviour In Company and Conversation”

By George Washington (at age c. 16)

[I’ve sometimes wondered why George Washington was so universally admired by his contemporaries. Yes, he was a great General, and obviously an effective leader, but he apparently was not the intellectual equal of such figures as Jefferson or Madison. As far as I know, he had little or no influence on the shaping of our nation by the provisions of the Constitution. When I ran across this list, my question was answered. He was held in such high regard by all because of his basic civility. This list was written when he was about 16, and there are 110 items in all. I’ll include just a sampling to give you the flavor of his thoughts. The original spelling is kept intact. The word “company,” in context, seems to mean, roughly, “in public.”]

1st Every Action done in Company, ought to be with Some Sign of Respect, to those that are Present.

4th In the Presence of Others Sing not to yourself with a humming Noise, nor Drum with your Fingers or Feet.

5th If You Cough, Sneeze, Sigh, or Yawn, do it not Loud but Privately; and Speak not in your Yawning, but put Your handkercheif or Hand before your face and turn aside.

6th Sleep not when others Speak, Sit not when others stand, Speak not when you Should hold your Peace, walk not on when others Stop.

9th Spit not in the Fire, nor Stoop low before it neither Put your Hands into the Flames to warm them, nor Set your Feet upon the Fire especially if there be meat before it.

11th Shift not yourself in the Sight of others nor Gnaw your nails.

17th Be no Flatterer, neither Play with any that delights not to be Play'd Withal.

22d Shew not yourself glad at the Misfortune of another though he were your enemy.

23d When you see a Crime punished, you may be inwardly Pleased; but always shew Pity to the Suffering Offender.

24th Do not laugh too loud or too much at any Publick Spectacle.

32d: To one that is your equal, or not much inferior you are to give the cheif Place in your Lodging and he to who 'tis offered ought at the first to refuse it but at the Second to accept though not without acknowledging his own unworthiness.

37th In Speaking to men of Quality do not lean nor Look them full in the Face, nor approach too near them at lest Keep a full Pace from them.

38th In visiting the Sick, do not Presently play the Physicion if you be not Knowing therein.

40th Strive not with your Superiers in argument, but always Submit your Judgment to others with Modesty.

43d Do not express Joy before one sick or in pain for that contrary Passion will aggravate his Misery. .

48th Wherein wherein you reprove Another be unblameable yourself; for example is more prevalent than Precepts.

49th Use no Reproachfull Language against any one neither Curse nor Revile.

53d Run not in the Streets, neither go too slowly nor with Mouth open go not Shaking yr Arms kick not the earth with yr feet, go not upon the Toes, nor in a Dancing fashion.

54th Play not the Peacock, looking every where about you, to See if you be well Deck't, if your Shoes fit well if your Stokings sit neatly, and Cloths handsomely.

58th Let your Conversation be without Malice or Envy, for 'tis a Sign of a Tractable and Commendable Nature: And in all Causes of Passion admit Reason to Govern.

62d Speak not of doleful Things in a Time of Mirth or at the Table; Speak not of Melancholy Things as Death and Wounds, and if others Mention them Change if you can the Discourse tell not your Dreams, but to your intimate Friend.

70th Reprehend not the imperfections of others for that belongs to Parents Masters and Superiours.

83d when you deliver a matter do it without passion & with discretion, however mean the person be you do it too.

89th Speak not Evil of the absent for it is unjust.

90th Being Set at meat Scratch not neither Spit Cough or blow your Nose except there's a Necessity for it.

91st Make no Shew of taking great Delight in your Victuals, Feed not with Greediness; cut your Bread with a Knife, lean not on the Table neither find fault with what you Eat.

92d Take no Salt or cut Bread with your Knife Greasy.

97th Put not another bit into your Mouth til the former be Swallowed let not your Morsels be too big for the Gowls.

103d In Company of your Betters be not longer in eating than they are lay not your Arm but only your hand upon the table.

107th If others talk at Table be attentive but talk not with Meat in your Mouth.

108th When you Speak of God or his Atributes, let it be Seriously & wt. Reverence. Honour & Obey your Natural Parents altho they be Poor.

[And then, I believe Mr. Washington saved the best for the last:]

110th Labour to keep alive in your Breast that Little Spark of Celestial fire Called Conscience.

Finis