Publications and Research
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
10-12-2017
Abstract
According to The Institute for Civility in Government, civility is “about more than just polite- ness, although politeness is a necessary first step. It is about disagreeing without disrespect, seeking com- mon ground as a starting point for dialogue about differences, listening past one’s preconceptions, and teaching others to do the same.”
If we go by current events in academia it seems that civility has all but been lost. We see students actively impeding or shouting out at outside speakers just because those guests do not adhere to a particular “party line,” a pure version of a particular ideology, or are not always considered “politically correct” enough. We also see some speakers coming to cam- puses whose main motivation seems to be to provoke in order to generate headlines or sell their latest books. Physical confrontations are not uncommon in these circumstances. Other times we hear students saluting each other in public by using lewd language or using hate or vulgar language as it they were part of the normal vocabulary.
Comments
This work was originally published in The Edwardsville Intelligencer.