The article in the Star Gazette titled Black Friday Increasingly Frenzied really made me worry about our society with its talk about pepper sprayed customers, smash and grab looters and bloody scenes in the the shopping aisles. Has the whole meaning of Christmas changed when I wasn’t looking? Is it truly all about greed, selfishness, and THINGS! Whatever happened to peace and good will to men? Whatever happened to love thy neighbor as thyself? Wish Andy Rooney was still around to comment on this with just the right words so people would laugh and pay attention. But we do have the comedian/actress Whoopi Goldberg who wrote Is It Just Me?: Or is it nuts out there?, taking on the idea that the loss of civility is affecting the quality of life for all of us. I’ve noticed a lot of books written about civility lately but will the uncivil read them? Maybe if we change the atmosphere, the culture will change. So here are a few more recent books extolling civility.
Saving Civility: 52 Ways to Tame Rude, Crude & Attitude for a Polite Planet by Sara Hacala
The Civility Solution: What to Do When People Are Rude by P. M. Forni
Civility: Manners, Morals and the Etiquette of Democracy by Stephen Carter
Miss Manners Rescues Civilization: from Sexual Harrassment, Frivolous Lawsuits, Dissing and Other Lapses in Civility by Judith Martin
A World Waiting to be born: Civility Rediscovered by M. Scott Peck
Phyllis Rogan, Reference Librarian
Steele Memorial Library