Mere civility
Subtitle: disagreement and the limits of toleration
By: Teresa M. Bejan
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 2017
Language: eng
Number of pages: 272
ISBN-13: 9780674545496
Subjects: Toleration; Courtesy; Political aspects; Freedom of speech; Discussion; Forums (Discussion and debate); History
Description: Civility is often treated as an essential virtue in liberal democracies that promise to protect diversity as well as active disagreement in the public sphere. Yet the fear that our tolerant society faces a crisis of incivility is gaining ground. Politicians and public intellectuals call for "more civility" as the solution--but is civility really a virtue? Or is it something more sinister--a covert demand for conformity that silences dissent? Mere Civility sheds light on this tension in contemporary political theory and practice by examining similar appeals to civility in early modern debates about religious toleration. In seventeenth-century England, figures as different as Roger Williams, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke could agree that some restraint on the wars of words and "persecution of the tongue" between sectarians would be required; and yet, they recognized that the prosecution of incivility was often difficult to distinguish from persecution.--
Notes: Based on the author's thesis (Ph. D.--Yale University, 2013).

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: Wars of words; title: "Persecution of the tongue": Toleration and the rise of religious insult; title: "Silver alarums": Roger Williams's "mere" civility; title: "If it be without contention": Hobbes and civil silence; title: "A bond of mutual charity": Locke and the quest for concord; title: Conclusion: The virtue of mere civility; title: Epilogue: Free speech fundamentalism.