When I first heard that our school’s theme for the year was civility, I was pretty surprised. My first thought was “What does that even mean?” What does civility mean? Google defines civility as formal politeness and courtesy in behavior or speech. I think it’s reasonable for us students to be polite and courteous. In fact, I’d say we already do that. However, for the 600 of us SSFS students, there are 600 other people who could not care less about being polite or courteous.

One of the main reasons civility is our theme for this year is actually kind of counterintuitive. We want to promote civility on our campus to neutralize the lack of civility off of our campus. I’m not just talking about just anywhere outside of SSFS. This lack of civility goes as high up to the presidential election. I’d argue the presidential race is the most uncivilized thing happening right now. Regardless of your political leanings, you should to acknowledge that both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have said incivil things. Clinton referred to Trump’s supporters as a “basket of deplorables” and Trump generalizing all Mexicans as rapists and drug dealers. With this sort of uncivilized language seeping through our televisions, how does this impact the way we interact with each other?

How does this whole “civility” thing play out in everyday life? I’ll provide a true scenario. I was on a bus when we drove past what looked like a possible crime scene. As we drove past, someone next to me said “Whenever someone gets pulled over it’s police brutality.” I had no idea what to say, so I said nothing. What was I supposed to do? As much as I may have wanted to say “I don’t think you get the issue in its entirety” or something along those lines, I wasn’t sure if it was my place. This is a tough scenario to be in. I think of this kind of situation as a clash between morals and respect. I want to respect a different viewpoint from my own but is that even possible when I think it is morally and ethically wrong to kill innocent people and even worse to try to justify it? By not saying anything to this person, did I actually do the right thing? Or did I simply leave them off the hook?

If I were to go back to that moment, I probably would have done it differently. I would have asked “What makes you say that?” From that question on, I would have to put a lot of trust in the other person’s ability to be as reasonable or, civil, as I am or am trying to be. I think this is the best thing anyone can do in regards to our theme of civility. In terms of discourse, civility is required on both ends. I think it’s fair to expect that any civility you give will be returned, a civil act in and of itself (civil-ception?). Really, I think we just have to be as willing as possible to go with the flow and adjust as necessary. To think that embracing civility will negate any grievances or disagreements would be quite the oversight.