Incivility

Incivility is a general term for social behaviour lacking in civility or good manners, on a scale from rudeness or lack of respect for elders, to vandalism and hooliganism, through public drunkenness and threatening behaviour. The word "incivility" is derived from the Latin incivilis, meaning "not of a citizen".

The distinction between plain rudeness, and perceived incivility as threat, will depend on some notion of civility as structural to society; incivility as anything more ominous than bad manners is therefore dependent on appeal to notions like its antagonism to the complex concepts of civic virtue or civil society. It has become a contemporary political issue in a number of countries.

Civil behavior requires that people communicate with respect, restraint, and responsibility, and uncivil communication occurs when people fail to do so.Universal pragmatics, a term coined by Jürgen Habermas, suggests that human conflict arises from miscommunication, so communicative competence is needed to reduce conflict. Communication competence "involves the ability to communicate in a such a way that: (1) the truth claim of an utterance is shared by both speaker and hearer; (2) the hearer is led to understand and accept the speaker’s intention; and (3) the speaker adapts to the hearer’s world view." If people disagree about the truth or appropriateness of their interaction, conflict will occur.

According to Habermas, we should establish communicative norms that lead to rational conversations by creating the social coordination needed for interactants to pursue their goals while recognizing the truth or appropriateness of their interaction. Such norms, or social rules, include: "all participants must be allowed to speak freely, all participants must be allowed to speak for themselves (to enable them to establish their own ethos or "selfhood"), and that communication should be equal, with no one participant commanding more attention from the others than is afforded to them on their turn."

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