The Battle for Civility: Part I

Amid all of the things I do each day, I try to cut out a little piece of time for a personal research project.  Recently, after finishing an extended conversation with a friend who is a scholar of political science, I realized, "I didn't get it."  We were discussing liberty and civics.  His idea is that when American schools stopped teaching Civics as a general course in high school curriculum, our understanding of liberty "went out the window."

Having passed American Heritage as a requirement at BYU, I though I had a pretty good idea of how the U.S. system of government worked, but after our conversation, I realized I didn't understand how civics differed from civility, which is one of the five words in our motto.  I  immediately wondered how civilization tied into these two words.  I was curious about what these words have in common and in what ways do they differ?  I began to formulate my research question, "What is the origin of civil behavior and how do I express my own standard of civility?"

The Latin root for civic is civis, which means citizen but the Latin root for civility is civilis, also found to be the root for the word civilization.  The first word means a citizen of a state or community and the latter means the condition of being transformed from rudeness or darkness of thought or action to that of a condition of refinement or enlightenment. (The New Websters Encyclopedic Dictionary. Avenel Books.1980 pg 150).

The web site www.English-for-students.com/civ.html defines these words in the following way:

Civic- relating to a citizen
Civics-the science dealing with the rights and duties of a citizen
Civil-trained, refined, relating to citizens
Civility-Quality of being civilized; the manner of a civil person, politness
Civilize-To bring up from barbarianism; to train to live with others
Civilization-The cultural development of man; the process of developing from barbarism

In the list of words given, it is significant that civility is in a central position.  The definition uses the uniquely different word civil-citizen and combines it with the idea of civilize which is the refining and raising of an individual or society from those who are in darkness.