Civility and other important matters...

Top of the list of things that I believe essential for world peace, personal health, and true happiness, is the notion of civility.

Lisa, Lynne and I were talking about this last night. As with so many things, we were of like mind - we are three INFPs, if that means anything to you, and often agree on approach if not substance.

So we were talking about an online book review Lynne have found, of a book called Choosing Civility by P.M. Forni. Forni himself is a professor at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, and has his own website.

None of us have read the book, and we might have had different reactions to his advice if we had. We liked the Wright's synopsis of it, for all that the writer's presentation is rather extremely American in style. Nothing wrong with that, of course, especially as he is American and comes by it honestly; just that us non-Americans are then likely to relate less. I tend to think of civility as being for the whole planet, and to focus on the ideals of one nation seems like thinking small. I thought at first that Wright must be religious, but no, on browsing his site, I see that he's a Libertarian. I have mixed feelings about that: I had the impression that Libertarianism, at least as practised in the States, is a right-wing, rather elitist philosophy not at all like my own happy sense of socialist anarchism. But what do I know of other people's political spheres?

( Wright calls civility a core value... )