Of Swords, Ploughshares, and Pens: The Return of/to Civility, Against Winning, and the Art of Peace

Abstract

Civilization is a precarious practicality. Its existence derives from difference and is dependent upon relation properly understood. Far from a disembodied idea, it thrives on feeling, emotion, and passion at least as much as ideas and must always be tempered by prospects of comity; it remains forever subject to nothing less than civility. Civilization is notoriously hard to come by, even if taken for granted by those who pretend to it, and even harder to keep elastic and supple. Institutions are its bulwark, the arts at once its sentinels and its physicians, charged with cleansing the mental palate, sharpening the eyesight and the hearing, and ordering the heart’s otherwise willful motives. In quoting (so much), the essayist signals his or her invitation to others, welcoming them in for conversation, dialogue, exchange of point of view; it is an acknowledgment of attention to others, a restraint on the selfishness that hogs attention.