Choosing Civility in Howard County? How uncivil.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008 at 4:40PM Run around Howard County, Md and you'll see these little green bumper stickers that say "Choose Civility in Howard County". I started noticing these a few years ago and I pretty much ignored it until recently. It always stuck me as a bit odd since HoCo is pretty civil to begin with. Then all of the publicity surrounding the campaign started coming out. Okay, so I now know where it's coming from and what the library is trying to push. What do I do about it? I read the book.
What first stuck me about the book Choosing Civility was that it started out just fine. It basically said, "Wouldn't it be great to be nice to people for a change?" to quote the late Douglas Adams. However, there was something that didn't sit well with me. Perhaps it was the tagline of the book, "The Twenty-Five Rules for Considerate Behavior". I don't know about you, but for me, whenever some says "rules" I tend to run away. Rules are dictating behavior or ways of thinking. In a sense, it's what the blue collar conservatives complain about when talking about "those liberal elites" or "the PC brigade". It's what people rail against Columbia about when they talk about what they can or cannot do to their house. Nevermind that it's really making people to go through a process and talk about renovations and so forth. But then that's another story.
Getting past my mentality about the title, I got down to really considering what it's saying. As I said, it started off nicely. It was talking about being polite and courteous to those around you. That's all very nice. I like to say "please" and "thank you". I like holding the door for someone. I even make sure that I use the right fork with dinner. (A little sarcasm here, but what the heck.) What really got me as I read further and further into the book was that it was not so much about an etiquette guide a la Miss Manners, but a tirade against what the author sees as improper behavior intruding on his own private space. It's almost as if he's telling people how they should behave to conform with his view of the world. As if he's saying that he's right and the world would be a better place if people just do as he says.
To me this is the paramount of uncivil behavior. It's the arrogance of Forni that turns me off. It's the arrogance of the "Choose Civility in Howard County" campaign that's perpetuating the problem of an ever increasing uncivil world. As a child, I read Aesop's Fables, Mother Goose (even the Richard Scarry
Reader Comments (16)
Indeed, Mr. Bachmann, how civil of you. ;-) Glad to see you keeping it real as you blog about local stuff. ~ J
Ken Ullman represents the worst of the Democrat Party. He is a tax and spend liberal who is trying to vastly increase the scope of government while most indicators of governmental quality like those relating to county schools are going down.
Barley, How does this relate to the civility campaign? As far as I can tell, he doesn't have much to do with those bumper stickers.
I'm a liberal and I'm in favor of taxes to pay for roads and schools. Taxes pay for our excellent police and fire departments. It's a problem of how we spend it. We should all be pushing for smarter government.
We should be pushing for no government.
You anarchist ;P
[...] New on the local blog scene, though long a resident in the area, Chris Bachmann responds to the Choose Civility campaign. [...]
Civility to me is more about the effects you have on other people, how you affect them whether you intend to or not. Understanding this and applying it to your daily life requires more than a simplistic set of rules, for sure. It's also completely alien to those conservatives you mention. (when's the last time you met a hardcore modern GOP conservative who was civil?? haha good one right?)
Unfortunately, most people are way too selfish, self-centered, ignorant, or apathetic (or all of the above) to really be civil in a meaningful way. So we need rules.
Who cares what fork you use? But I do care what you do that affects me, directly or indirectly... Eg, civil people would never smoke in an enclosed space with non-smokers, but people are selfish fools and we need rules to keep them from poisoning everybody else. hooray for civility, eh?
So good to read this post. Very true.
Sometimes using the right fork is a good thing.
someone stole my "choose civility" magnet :(
Ya know, I've been thinking about the Choose Civility campaign a lot (well, not really a lot because I'm a fairly busy person, but you know, when I'm in the car and see one of the magnets) and while I didn't like the book (I had to skim it rather than really read it) I do like the spirit of the campaign. I though Forni's tone was dismissive and condescending and yet I do like the spirit of his message, which is, ya know, world peace and harmony begins at home.
My 2¢
[...] Choosing Civility in Howard County? How uncivil. [...]
Hi Chris--
Jessie Newbern sent me over to your blog, and I am happy to see another independent voice engage with the county's campaign. I agree with you!
Heather
The whole concept is troubling. Besides the fact that the notions of civil vs. uncivil were used to promote a sort of social Darwinist hierarchy long before Darwin was even alive (i.e. the "civil" Europeans vs the rest of the world) - it's clearly being used as a means by which Howard County residents can identify and distinguish themselves relative to "others." What absurdity. Besides being one of the wealthiest counties in the nation, they now want to distinguish themselves through social mannerisms? What does that make all of us? "Uncivil?" Haha. Becareful what concepts you adopt. The irony that this same concept formerly perpetuated racism and slavery and notions of self vs. "other" is only somewhat troubling. :-) Civility or no, I still plan to be a polite and courteous human.
Driving north on 29 tonight (at 70 mph, in the right lane) some asshole was tailgating me, then he peeled off to exit onto 40 E.
You guessed it, he was sporting one of those goddam bumper magnets. That's civility? I guess punching his teeth down his throat would be equally civil.
I kept seeing those bumber stickers on cars as I would drive through the parking garage at work in downtown baltimore. Buzzing by them somewhat quickly and being slightly dyslexic, for the longest time I thought they actually said "Choose Creativity". I guess that just made more sense to me. Go figure.
Also, the Author of the Book Choosing Civilty was on Oprah today. Struck me as someone with a good message and sound social research, but not so much on the "social skills" scale. Think nerdy professor . . .