Be civil, please

"Judaism stresses the power of our words as tools to express respect for God's creations. And as always in Jewish theology, the smallest things count."
Dr. Wendy Mogul

I've been thinking a lot about civility lately, mostly because of incivility. Temperatures rise, as do tempers. Little acts of rudeness like stealing a parking space or jumping a line seem more frequent somehow when the sun is shining at its brightest. There's an expression in the ER: "If it's hot enough to barbeque, it's hot enough to kill someone." Lovely expression, really.

Journalist David Zax in a Smithsonian article called "Choosing Civility in a Rude Culture" has this to say:

...incivility costs the nation more than $100 billion a year in accidents on the road, billions more are lost to diminished productivity at work, and that many acts of violence have their origins in acts of rudeness. And beyond the physical damage, they say, there is reason to believe that rampant incivility is damaging to the soul.

The cost of incivility is immense and hardly one we can afford, as individuals or as a nation. But with a problem this unwieldy, it's hard to know where to start.

Dr. Wendy Mogul is a clinical psychologist, author of The Blessing of a Skinned Knee (where our quote is from) and an observant Jew who found Judaism as an adult after feeling that her training in psychology just wasn't enough. Intensifying her commitment to Judaism, she writes: "I never returned to practicing psychology the way I had before my crisis of faith;" she now helps parents work through rough spots through a spiritually based parenting philosophy. When it comes to incivility, she has a lot to say to parents (and everyone) about curing "sitcom mouth," adjusting tone of voice and respecting privacy.

While she offers plenty of practical advice, it was her analysis of why this is happening now that most engaged my curiosity. She says that many intelligent, goodhearted and sensitive parents struggle with the incivility of their children because they don't demand respect from them: "Why? Deep down, the parents don't believe they deserve it or that they can master the struggle." In society at large, have we come to the point where we believe we have lost the struggle, we can't master it?

We are such a child-centered culture that we often forget that we are the parents, not the friends. We set the boundaries. We call the shots. We give permission by not correcting our children to use language about us and each other that is rude, demanding and entitled.

But this isn't about parenting. It's predominantly about the kind of society we want to live in, one that we are responsible for creating. From a Jewish perspective, we are told in Deuteronomy: "Do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord that it may go well with you..." (6:18). Do what is right - not what is right for you but because what you do contributes to the overall quality of life for those all around you - and gets God's stamp of approval in the process.

The ancient sage Hillel was approached by a convert and asked to learn about Judaism in the express lane. Quickly. Without Years of study. Hillel told him not to do unto others as you would not want to be done to yourself. This advice doesn't seem like a stretch until you think about it within the framework of civility. As Mogul says, it's the little things in Judaism that count. And when it comes to creating a culture of incivility, it's all the little things we don't do that hurt.

To create a civil society, we all need to engage in the little, life-affirming gestures that make people turn around and say, "Gee, people really are nice. This is a great place to live, to work, to send my kids to school." You fill in the blank and make the blank worth filling.

Shabbat Shalom

By Erica Brown  |  July 22, 2010; 4:48 PM ET Save & Share:                 
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