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Author Bejan, Teresa M., 1984- author.

Title Mere civility : disagreement and the limits of toleration / Teresa M. Bejan
Published Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2017

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Description 1 online resource (x, 272 pages)
Contents Introduction: Wars of words -- "Persecution of the tongue" -- "Silver alarums": Roger Williams's "meer" civility -- "If it be without contention": Hobbes and civil silence -- "A bond of mutual charity": Locke and the quest for concord -- Conclusion: The virtue of mere civility -- Epilogue: Free speech fundamentalism
Summary 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.-- Provided by publisher
Related To Based on (work): Bejan, Teresa Mia. Mere civility. New Haven, Connecticut : Yale University, 2013
Notes Based on the author's thesis (Ph. D.--Yale University, 2013)
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 243-263) and index
Notes Online resource; title from resource home page (EbscoHost, viewed March 21, 2019)
Subject Courtesy -- Political aspects
Toleration -- Political aspects
Discussion -- Political aspects
Freedom of speech.
Forums (Discussion and debate) -- History
FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS -- Interpersonal Relations.
PHILOSOPHY -- Political.
Forums (Discussion and debate)
Freedom of speech
Höflichkeit
Toleranz
Redefreiheit
Politische Ethik
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780674972728
0674972724