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Title: Civility by Stephen L. Carter ISBN: 0-06-097759-0 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 April, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.17 (12 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: We Need this Book
Comment: Stephen Carter brings a moral dimension to the concerns of civility. For himself he bases this on the Christian duty to love our neighbors, but his moral concerns transcend religious and secular boundaries and easily translates into many different world views. This love of neighbors includes all neighbors, not just ones we happen to like or agree with. The metaphor of fellow passengers on the train of life recurs throughout his work with great effectiveness. He describes civility as welcoming the stranger without trying to make an enemy or a brother out of everyone. He brings many poignant examples from the early civil rights movement as well as providing many useful everyday examples.
Professor Carter casts issues of civility both in the religious and political arenas. This doesn't come off as set of rules for etiquette, but rather as a revealing of the deeper reasoning upon which we build such rules. We emerge with a view of civility which neither reflects the unreasonable value abandoning fears of offending others manifest in political correctness, nor the insensitive idealism which the later civil rights movement unfortunately collapsed into. This view allows us to live in a creative harmony in which we can both stick to our ideals and deal civilly with those who do not share them.
As a person who has in the past self-identified as an "atheist," I found that Mr. Carter seems to have some blind spots in understanding that point of view. He clearly directs his message toward an interfaith audience, not strictly Christians though he uses his particular religious understandings to make his points. Regardless, I think even more secular thinkers can profit from his message, and I think they would do themselves a disservice if they skipped his book merely on these grounds. Where he doesn't seem to understand more secular thinking, he certainly acknowledges it and deals with it very . . . well . . . civilly.
I even found his general idea of the properly subversive role of religion in a secular democracy well in tune with the American spirit of the first Amendment free-exercise and non-establishment tradition. I think if more religious people followed this model, they would find themselves more effectively participating in our society and expressing their values rather than reaping the self-constructed backlash alienation which the religious right has sown through their deeply uncivil behavior in the last few decades. He soberly reminds us all that the root of government authority lies in legitimized violence. He does not pull out the hoary libertarian line that, "we should not legislate morality," but rather simply reminds us that the morality which we legislate better prove worth killing for, even going to war over. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. Forgetting that leads to the deepest incivilities of democracy. The most crucial civility for a democracy remains civility toward your opponent. This means generally preferring dialogue over and prior to legislation.
Professor Carter's writing quality reflects his scholarly background but does not come off as overly academic. Definitely not light reading, but not a burden to read either. He doesn't talk down to the reader, and provides thorough notes and references at the end of the book. I think you will find that Stephen Carter's message comes none too early. Beyond just the rhetorical calls for civility which we find so common these days, Professor Carter provides that rare fresh breath of air that we need -- someone who has actually, seriously, intelligently, and compassionately struggled and *thought* through the issues of civility.
Rating: 2
Summary: Carter's Civility comes at the cost of diversity.
Comment: Carter's premise seems valid at first. After all, who hasn't noticed that people seem to be getting more uncivilized in our society? We have increased cases of road rage, clerks at stores ignore us and are impolite, and the moral fabric of America is decaying. This is the accepted view that Carter reemphasizes in this book.
He makes it very clear that he values the moral consensus we seemed to have in the 50's (However with Carter having been born in `54 it is unclear how he knows exactly what that consensus was) and while he makes passing note of the problems of the fifties such as racism and sexism he still wishes to have some sort of return to the values of the fifties while retaining the freedoms of today's world.
What Carter fails to realize is that the moral consensus of the 50's was an imposed one that created the racist and sexist strictures of the 50's. It was 'the good old days' only because the opinions of large sections of the country were totally ignored. Carter's rationale in Civility suggests, rather underhandedly, that we should all be conforming to one moral code. That moral code, in Carter's writing, seems to flow directly from a middle/upper-class, white, Protestant viewpoint.
If Carter's ideas are followed, all recognition of the wonderful different ethnicities and religions that make up this country will vanish. America will again be the melting pot, a homogenous, bland mixture of nondescript gray, with no diversity, no room for freedom of speech, no room for the change that is vital to life.
Rating: 4
Summary: An excellent read
Comment: This book's topic is as simple as it's title, but this is a good thing. The theme of this book is the lack of civility in the modern world, and how to fix this problem. The answer he suggests is a return to our religious values. This is applicable not only to those of us who are Christian, or even to those of us who believe in God, but rather to all, because the basic assumptions such as the dignity of human life is farily starightforward. If more people would heed his advice, the world would be a much better place.
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Title: Integrity by Stephen L. Carter ISBN: 0060928077 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 29 January, 1997 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Culture of Disbelief by Stephen L. Carter ISBN: 0385474989 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 01 September, 1994 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Choosing Civility : The Twenty-five Rules of Considerate Conduct by P. M. Forni ISBN: 0312281188 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 28 February, 2002 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: God's Name in Vain: The Wrongs and Rights of Religion in Politics by Stephen L. Carter ISBN: 0465008879 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 16 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: The Dissent of the Governed : A Meditation on Law, Religion, and Loyalty by Stephen L. Carter ISBN: 0674212665 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: November, 1999 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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