I also believe in the value of civility, it is the minimum
necessary to make non-violent social exchanges possible.
Sometimes that minimum is also as much as I can manage. And it
does not preclude being angry or passionate, but in each
situation, and on the average for each culture/subculture, it may
preclude certain ways of showing one's anger or passion.
There is such a thing as 'latitude' in social relations: what
someone will let us get away with, temporarily. The degree of
latitude depends, among other things, on past history, on mutual
interests, on relative power, status, respect, prestige,
affection, etc.
I have a very Zen/Dao sense of human (and non-human)
connectedness, but as Eugene reminds us (and as I have argued in
other ways around here) connectedness does not imply either
mutual understanding or agreement. I think, Angel, that you see
that we can and may need to disagree while remaining still
connected. But perhaps you see more of link between connectedness
and understanding than I do. JAY.
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JAY LEMKE.
City University of New York.
BITNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM
INTERNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU