C is for Civility
First published in 1902, Heart of Darkness was a powerful novel, to be brilliantly plundered in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. True to its title, it is a dark story, told at night by Marlow, a sea captain who had been hired to go upriver in Africa to retrieve Kurtz, a station manager based in the jungle where he collected ivory to send down to the company offices. A bitter critique of colonialism, of exploitation, and of the ways in which circumstances can make anyone a liar, it is almost overwhelmingly oppressive, as the small paddleboat works its way up through an ever-narrowing river, bordered by menacing vegetation and frightening night sounds. Brilliantly written, I think it is one of the most compelling pieces of fiction I have ever read.
An extraordinary tale, but today Joseph Conrad’s book is often read as racist, with its imagery of primitive savages, beating drums and almost animalistic horrors. It’s not how I see it. Using Marlow as the narrator, Conrad’s novel provides a damning critique of European capitalists, and the ways in which they exploited Africa’s people. Heading to Kurtz, Marlow describes those he meets as primitive, but he acknowledges, almost reluctantly, that he and these so-called ‘savages’ are really alike: the point of the story is to offer a frightening contrast by making it clear that Kurtz is far worse than those he abuses. There’s only one savage, and it’s Kurtz.
Each time I have read it, and I tend to leave it for long periods, I find another bleak message in the story. Conrad is depicting how easy it is for any sense of civility to be set aside, even if only done so by one diseased yet charismatic man set on dominating another culture; as the story unfolds it is clear both Kurtz and Marlow saw Africa as exotic, dangerous, and extraordinarily different. To make the contrasts vivid, we discover Marlow is taking a company manager with him to collect Kurtz and his pile of ivory. Conrad keeps reminding us how out of place the manager looks, dressed in formal European business wear, as if he has landed on the boat like some bizarre creature from another planet, ending up, by mistake, alone and in an alien land.
I know others read this story with a very different appreciation of its intent and values, especially those certain Conrad was a racist. Whatever your view, few readers can ignore the power of Conrad’s writing: surely this is a masterpiece. At the same time, most readers might finish with questions to be answered about what is meant by civilisation, by civility, and about how we respond to others. Just to reinforce the point, the book ends (it is often called a mini-book) with an illuminating coda: no, I won’t tell you what it was, but I hope I’ve said enough to encourage you to read Heart of Darkness if you haven’t yet. I can’t leave Conrad without offering a quote, not from this book, but one which reveals that he was just as able to be amusing, cutting or cynical as he was to reveal the darkness in peoples’ souls. I chose this one: “Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men.” Sexist or just sardonic?
What do we mean by civility today? One place to look is education, where we hope students gain an understanding of civics, in the belief this should be integral to good citizenship. In fact, many civics course are offered on a much narrower basis: they are intended to explain the foundations of democracy. Within that limited focus, I fear civics education is often delivered as if it were a quick visit to a museum. ‘See these wonderful things’: what the students see is a collection of old, rather fossilized exhibits. ‘See how it works?’: it is rather like looking at an early internal combustion engine; interesting to look at, even intriguing, but so what?
Civics education could be a forum for discussion, exploring ethics and values, with the mechanics of elections, parliamentary procedures and the role of the public service and judiciary all understood as a backdrop to asking how these tools can be used to create a better society. Civics education is about purpose, about the challenges concerning what is right, fair and equitable. All the time, the underlying question should be, “What do we mean by …?”
There are valuable approaches being used, of course. There are schools, even at the primary level, with classes where questions about democracy, justice, morality, identity and other relevant issues are explored. Universities have clubs and societies to examine these topics (any sense of a required liberal education having almost disappeared). However, they’re often designed to attract like-minded participants, often reinforcing prejudices and a lack of mutual understanding, rather than having all students meet together to address important shared issues, as a way to help appreciate and understand alternative viewpoints and values. We should be alarmed by current events in the USA where colleges and universities are going to considerable lengths to ‘protect’ their students from hearing or seeing things that might upset them.
Civics education is not just a matter of courses offered by educational institutions. It is a lifelong requirement. Many argue that school courses, programs with names like Studies of Society and Environment, (SOSE), are the best way to developing an understanding of good practice. As far as I am concerned, it’s not enough. It is like saying teaching basic mathematics develops numeracy: it doesn’t, as numeracy comes from everyday use, not classroom learning alone. In the same way, civic commitment comes from continuously discussing civics as an ongoing feature of life when living in a community. A shared community, and the principles that underpin it, have to be experienced, examined and reinforced on a continuing basis.
All well and good, but civility is much more than understanding and appreciating the mechanics of government processes. One hundred years ago or more, good civics might, just might, have changed the impact of Europe on Africa at a political or business level. However, civility is much more than good political practice. It is at the core of how we treat another person.
Back in the past, civilisation had a light touch, as most people as lived and worked in small villages. Dependent on their local lord and landowner, and managing an adequate life together, civility was largely invisible and assumed. The people who lived around you were your world, and you and they had to get on with one another. Nowhere to hide, preferences, predilections and peculiarities were well known; minor misdemeanors were either ignored or managed by the community, bullies confronted, and where bad behaviour went beyond the bounds of reasonable acceptability, the lord of the manor would step in. Autocratic lords back then responded quickly, often with a reputation to exercise harsh and immediate ‘justice’ on anyone who went too far!
There is much more to be said about the realities of village life before the industrial revolution, when survival was a real challenge, far more than these simple comments might suggest. However, rather than dwelling on that time, we can see people experienced a very different world with industrialisation, when cities and the scale of things changed. Suddenly ‘citizens’, people found themselves living and working surrounded by hundreds, then thousands of others, most with no real or personal connections, and no overarching sense of community in the sense they would have known in village life. As all that changed, a minor difference between loyalty to family and overall observance to broader rules became much starker. Now, impartial rules and laws governed behaviour, imposed by the power of the state, and within that framework loyalty, usually to members of the close family, was the only alternative.
Back in the 1990s, I picked up a book by George Fletcher.[i] An examination of the ‘morality of relationships’, it counterposed unquestioning allegiance to close family and friends with the acceptance of impartial rules and processes. The essence of his analysis was the incompatibility of loyalty and justice: “In the realm of loyalty, playing the lawyer and insisting on justice may well undermine the bonds of loyal sentiment. Equally true, letting loyalties intrude into the proper realm of justice brings about its own form of distortion. We are left with the question, then, when should justice and when should loyalty prevail?” [ii] Without doing too great a disservice to Fletcher’s analysis, he suggested loyalty dominates in intimate relationships, in families, while impartial justice is required for all our other, more impersonal contacts.
I’m sure you know the examples that are used to reveal this tension. Your adult son comes home unexpectedly. He confesses he’s in trouble. Let’s imagine he has taken part in a robbery, but he tells you he was an unwitting participant, tricked by some of his friends. You have no idea as to whether or not that is true. Then the front doorbell rings for the second time in the evening, and there is a policeman on the doorstep. “Sorry to bother you, sir. We were looking for your son. Is he here?” “No,” you reply, “Is there a problem, officer?” “Just following up on some information, sir. Do make sure he contacts us when you see him.” The policeman leaves.
You have just lied, broken the law in fact. Why? There are all sorts of rationalisations you might put forward: the legal system is biased; the police presume guilt, not innocence; you need to hear more; you need to speak to a lawyer. The fact of the matter is that, at least for a short time, loyalty to your son overtakes your willingness to allow the rules and processes of the legal system to take precedence. Presumed innocent? Protect your son? Loyalty to family members is so well recognised that in many jurisdictions a person cannot be required to testify when his or her partner is under investigation or in court. But Fletcher was concerned about loyalty. He saw loyalty as demanding, blind and dangerous. Loyalty pulls us to do things that – in our more rational moments – we would never consider. Loyalty expects, and does not wait for a more reasoned analysis. It is our capacity for loyalty that takes us beyond being mere rational and logical analysts, that demands we care for others, passionately at times, and sometimes wrongly.
Let me pose my question again: you have just lied and broken the law. Why? Years ago, we might have argued the unexpected arrival of your son faced you with an ethical dilemma. You had to make a choice between caring for a member of your family as opposed to accepting the fairness of an impartial system. Today, people make choices in situations like this for far less lofty reasons. They don’t see taking a decision as posing a moral or ethical dilemma but rather as a straightforward matter. They lie, cover up, seek personal advantage and happily protect their friends. In our highly individualistic society, they consider impartial rules and processes (and governments, too, they’d argue) should, as far as possible, be ignored, reduced or bypassed.
We can think of other examples. If your family has, let’s say, a hotel and functions business (my, I have such a creative mind!), and your own quite independent activities allow you to improperly (unfairly, unethically) encourage clients to stay at the family hotel (and thereby increase its revenue and profits), then many people would do so, while refusing to disclose any information that would reveal this was a kind of ‘insider trading’! Good example, maybe??
At the same time, all of this is tangled up with two other concepts: integrity and trust. Stephen Carter, an insightful and thoughtful essayist, in his book on integrity observed, “a reputation for integrity, which one must possess in order to be trusted by colleagues, has to be earned”. Noting we tend to be cynical about our political leaders (and this was back in 1996!), he felt there was a need for reliability in politicians as much as in business leaders. Integrity, he suggested, “creates the trust that we need for ordinary social and political intercourse”. [iii]
When we are loyal to our close kin, is this because we trust them? Do we expect them to show integrity? Or are these issues only to do with the world of justice, where trust and integrity are the building blocks for a set of impartial rules that we accept and follow? Stephen Carter thought further as he moved on to a broader canvas and explored ‘civility’. He established some principles to underpin civility, and through civility, for democracy, too. One of these was “Civility has two parts: generosity, even when it is costly, and trust, even when there is risk” [iv]
When our community was around us and social engagement was face to face, we had to practice tolerance on a daily basis, accepting people we knew with civility, adopting the principles of generosity and trust. Your neighbour, workmate, or local shopkeeper might have a different view of the world to yours. Indeed, when the level of social interaction with the people living close by was much higher, those differences of opinion were evident, and, by and large, they were accepted. Your workmates and neighbours might tease you about your views; they might even attempt to suggest you were wrong about some critical issues. However, constant proximity can encourage and support tolerance. Around a barbecue in the evening, you can hold a robust discussion, yet everyone still leave as friends. Perhaps the beer at the barbecue helps, but there is something about conversations with people who live and work in the same small village that can lead you to say to yourself ‘Jack has some odd ideas, but that’s just Jack’. Once that closeness disappears, however, any differences are less likely to be accepted.
As social engagement declines, so, too, do trust and civility. The more you avoid discussions with people who have different views, the more prone you are to become close-minded. This creates some of the dilemmas we face over a liberal approach, seeking to be free of needless government control, free to make choices in the open market, free to associate with whom you want, free to enjoy the liberty of individuality. As we know, these ideals quickly fall foul to self-interest. A free market leads to exploitation and massive wealth disparities. Associating only with those like you creates barriers, and the rejection of others’ views. And, puzzlingly, the wish for minimal government runs up against the desire to have government protect your rights.
Civility challenges self-interest. As Carter suggested, it requires generosity and trust, both for those we know, and for strangers. Today, it is a vital resource in short supply.
[i] George Fletcher, Loyalty, OUP, 1993
[ii] Ibid, pp 162-3
[iii] Stephen L Carter, Integrity, Harper, 1996, page 31.
[iv] Stephen L Carter, Civility, Basic Books, 1998, page 280.
