The task of civility

Urban living calls for a rather special and quite sophisticated type of skills, a whole family of skills of civility that is the activity which protects people from each other and yet allow them to enjoy each other's company. Pure sociability is detached from the circumstances of power malaise and private feeling stances. Civility has as its aim the shielding of others from being burdened with oneself. This aim is pursued in the hope of reciprocation. Shielding others from being burdened by intereference . Of course, civility like language can not be private. But civility of one town is a feature of its social setting that is learned and practiced. Civility is the urban environment which must be civil, if its inhabitants are to learn the difficult skills of civility. Where society is rolling toward degeneration, and preoccupied with mere trivialities - people remain stagnant.