Rules of Civility: Some Advice From the Past and the Present

Paying attention to others in all sorts of ways—talking with them, laughing together, really listening—is surely the foundation of civility. Alistair Berg/Getty Images

Civility.

We don’t hear that word much these days. My online dictionary defines it as “formal politeness and courtesy in behavior or speech.” Come to think of it, we not only don’t hear much about civility, but we also don’t see much formal courtesy exhibited by most of our public figures or even by some of the people we encounter in everyday life.