Civility Today

How well do you critique cultural practices and social assumptions, and how do you know? What is your acquaintance with critical pedagogy ? What is your acquaintance with social criticism ? What is your acquaintance with civility ? What have you contributed to Civility Today this year and what do you intend to contribute next year?  What has provided you with a sense of control over your life this year, and what has made you feel an unpleasant lack of control? Have people ever regarded you as a control freak ?  Whether they have or not, what is you awareness of abusive power and control and of ways to prevent it from happening in future? If you have difficulty understanding anything associated with the Adelaidezone , do you require remedial training in literacy, the English language, financial management, emotional intelligence, creative thinking, critical thinking, civility, etiquette, or any other socially useful subject? How do you usually assess social usefulness, and for w

Is compassion the essence of mental health? Is civility the essence of societal health? People have a tendency to conform to behaviours within a group context when they assess conformity to be beneficial to themselves in some way. That does not imply that the behaviours are moral. There is nothing morally justified about obedience itself. Only reasonableness is morally justified. Have you ever critiqued the Golden Rule ? Perhaps you assume that the rule implies that all people have the same expectations of particular situations.  But what does reality indicate? When have people mistakenly assumed you appreciate something because they do? The Golden Rule has nothing to do with empathy and much to do with imposing tastes, values and expectations on other people. Behaving towards other people as you wish them to behave towards you does not take their tastes, values, interests and opinions into consideration in any way whatsoever. Perhaps people have attempted to insist upon you eating s

"But why should I care?" That is the most important starting point of any critique. What does it mean to care ?  How do you usually critique claims of care and expectations of caring? How do you critique rudeness, especially when it is used as a tactic to attract attention, and money, and votes? While criticism may be critiqued for including unnecessary and abusive ad hominem practices, reasonable critiques do not seek to encourage antipathy , or even sympathy for that matter.  A good critique will seek to encourage insight, prevent hubris, express compassion and define appropriate standards.  It will do so through logical reasoning and the presentation of facts rather than argumentum ad passiones pathos or the ethos of argumentum ad verecundiam .  The latter is associated with criticism of science and scientists . What do you usually consider to be the basis of human behaviour ? Is it the instinct for survival and the desire to meet needs associated with that instinc

You may or may not associate critiquing with civility.  Yet civility is actually an impossibility without the ability to judge experiences and communicate the associated assessment process appropriately. It is as necessary to critique claims of goodness as it is to critique perceptions of badness. What is good and bad about critiquing, from your point of view , and why? What is good and bad about your point of view, and why? What is good and bad about Civility Today , and why? As a genuine critique is an artistic expression , unlike rude criticism, it is associated with the application of knowledge and skill in the service of greater understanding and possible improvement. How do you prefer to critique an experience ? How do you prefer to judge the application of knowledge and skills ? How do you prefer to assess competence , including your own? How well-developed is your critical thinking ? How well-developed is your moral competence ? How clearly do you distinguish between ethics

Do particular expectations of politeness make you feel comfortable or uncomfortable? Do you often feel as though politeness prevents the facts of difficult situations from being appropriately discussed? Is polite social criticism usually ignored? Are you a practitioner of polite activism ?  Do you regard self-pity as impolite? Have you ever thought of politeness in terms of loyalty ? Do you usually regard attention seeking as a form of rudeness? Perhaps you will politely answer these questions quite soon. What are the conventional behaviours you regard as polite and consistently follow? How do you feel when people behave otherwise? What do you know about the Civility Today patronage etiquette and how politely do you respond to the associated expectations?

There is no point in giving money to people unwilling to act as contractually obliged to perform. What is your acquaintance with contract law in Australia , and elsewhere? What is your acquaintance with the social contract in Australia, and elsewhere? What is your acquaintance with the arrogance associated with social status in Australia, especially social status as expressed through the mass media and conspicuous consumption ? How do you promote peace and civility if not through your leadership? Perhaps you are an entertainer of some sort. Perhaps you entertain people with stories about ancient mythologies, including purportedly religious ones you claim to have relevance in the present. Perhaps you often insult the intelligence of reasonable people. Unfortunately, most people do not listen to politeness .  They do not listen to well-reasoned points of view.  They listen to entertainers, even when those entertainers are aggressive in fact and/or fiction. How often do you attemp

Welcome (again) to Civility Today .  Perhaps you regard this daily news service as a gift. How do you usually respond to the receipt of gifts? Perhaps you are seeking to purchase a gift subscription of this publication for someone you love, or someone you teach, or someone you currently detest. Do you regard civility itself as a gift?

If you have had the courage to express civility on the world stage and/or a national stage this year, or in earlier years, how have other people usually responded to your efforts?  When dominant social groups, and individual members of those groups, are greedy, arrogant, rude and possibly even cruel, how should members of non-dominant social groups respond? What have you been learning about integrity this year? How authentic is your responsiveness towards injustices and other causes of suffering? How does your empathy want you to respond to perceptions of distress? What do you do when cultural practices conflict with that desire? What have been your experiences of anguish this year, and why? And how have you responded to those feelings, directly and indirectly? Perhaps you do not believe it is possible to respond authentically to anguish with civility. Yet incivility is the cause of much societal anguish.

What do you now know about Civility Today , and how have you responded to that knowledge? If you provide a news service, how have you been using the information within Civility Today to help you improve your expressions of civility in various situations? When did you most recently show you value this news service, and how? Perhaps you do not regard Civility Today as a news service at all. When have you faced insensitive responses to your respectful expressions of honesty , and how have you responded to those situations? If you have honest and highly knowledgeable concerns about misuses of your personal data , in various situations, how do you respond to unethical practices, particularly those concerning psychographics and other techniques associated with invasions of privacy? Sensible forms of aloofness are often necessary.  This is especially the case when more overt civility is likely to lead to contemptuous responses. Yet there is no guarantee that anyone, in any situation,

How do you know when politicians, their staff and public servants disregard the basic requirements of civility, and how do you respond to such rudeness ? What do you know about the history of such matters ? How have you attempted to improve standards this year, and how have people responded to your efforts?  You may be aware that a physiological stimulus is the precursor to a response, whether the response itself is primarily physiological or otherwise. What do you know about civility in terms of physiology? If you have ever been expected to follow an inadequate or inappropriate code of conduct in order to be accepted within an organisation or group, how did you respond? If no-one else, or at least not the people in the higher ranks of the associated hierarchy, appropriately follows and upholds a code of conduct you value, how do you respond? What have been your experiences of complaining and campaigning this year?  How have you used your emotional intelligence and moral inte

What does the word ' attention ' mean to you? Perhaps you would pay more attention to the word 'attention' if it was presented to you as " ATTENTION! ". How much or little attention have you paid to Civility Today the year, and why? Perhaps you prefer to pay attention when the word PAY is highlighted .

Do you associate civility with compassionate civic engagement ? Do you associate genuine compassion with a sensitive awareness of suffering and a well-informed desire to contribute towards its alleviation? Are you capable of distinguishing clearly between genuine compassion and fake compassion? You may or may not be aware that fake compassion is one of the most offensive forms of incivility.  Its perpetrators pretend to be caring when they are actually cruel.  They use deception to dupe people into admiring them. How genuine is your compassion? How do you tell whether individual actions and collective actions are genuinely compassionate or fake?

How do you distinguish between compassion and pity ?  How do you distinguish between compassion and advocacy ? What do you know about compassion and civility as the basis of enlightened activism ? What do you know about compassion in relation to peace?

If you have had any relevant experience in relation to the systematic study of civility and compassion, how would you define and describe that experience? What do you know about passion and apathy in relation to civility and compassion? What do you know about objectivity in relation to civility and compassion? What do you know about bias and pathos in relation to sympathy ? What do you know about compassion and sympathy in relation to vulnerability and popularity ? How do you usually respond to perceptions of suffering , and in which contexts? How do you know when suffering is deliberately hidden, either by a sufferer or by a perpetrator of harm? How do you respond when suffering people are treated rudely, indifferently or otherwise cruelly?

Do you usually associate civility with compassion? If so, how do you define compassion ?  How do you know when compassion is insufficient? How do you know when compassion is misguided? There is no point in attempting to express compassion without an adequate grasp of the facts.   Non-factual compassion is usually a sign of stupidity.  It tends to be associated with gullibility. Yet adequate compassion is always required if civility is to be meaningful. Perhaps you are often too busy to express adequate compassion.  Perhaps too many relatively unimportant distractions prevent you from being more compassionate. Perhaps you have been a victim of psychological manipulation too many times.   You may have found that far too many people have sought compassionate understanding from you without offering the same in return. Perhaps you prefer to avoid being compassionate, possibly as a consequence of previous emotional exhaustion, occupational burnout, and experiences of being bullied or oth

What have you been learning about civility in relation to credibility this year, and where?

Who is responsible for your wealth, or lack of it? Do you usually consider wealth in terms of money or knowledge ?  Too many people continue to provide unnecessary financial support to wealthy entertainers, including sports-related ones.  They therefore contribute to the wealth of the associated managers, agents, entourages, advertising, sponsorship teams and broadcasters while unnoticed people, all over the world, are dying through insufficient government support and overstretched health services. What do you know about wealth in relation to management ? Perhaps you mistake being wealthy for being influential. Perhaps you mistake being famous for being influential. The famous and the wealthy are often required to employ security services for their own purposes, whether privately or through public funds. Wealthy people may or may not buy influence in particular situations.  They may or may not promote themselves as philanthropists and/or as funders of a particular political

Well-informed, intelligently kind approaches to good relationships are reasonable investments in health , wealth and wisdom. Well-informed, intelligently kind approaches to simple living are reasonable investments in health, wealth and wisdom. Well-informed, intelligently kind approaches to suitable independence are reasonable investments in health, wealth and wisdom.  How do you tell when apparently solid wisdom is merely a veneer? How wisely do you assess intentions ? Many people, all around the human world, still do not have sufficient health or sufficient health care or sufficient wealth or sufficient income support or sufficiently pleasant interpersonal experiences, even if a few of those people have somehow acquired wisdom.   Yet even with a basic education, the illnesses and disabilities and daily stresses experienced by impoverished, badly nourished people prevent most of those individuals from acquiring the informational, cognitive, physical and political resources wi

How is civility associated with your advocacy? How have you been advocating civility this year, both directly and indirectly?

What do you regard as the most appropriate way to protest against incivility and other rude practices?  How do you identify and define the matters most suitable to address through a courteous protest? Perhaps you prefer satire and the amusing expression of irony . Perhaps you prefer citizen journalism and/or social media. Providing advocacy towards ameliorating a difficulty does not make situations better unless adequate activism and suitable reform are also involved. Attempting to prevent problems does not make situations better if not enough people are actively contributing to the process of improvement, through properly structured educational practices and appropriate changes in habits, without coercion. Civility involves the expression of real leadership .  How do you know your approach to protesting adequately involves leading by example?  Raising awareness does not make situations better unless that awareness leads to an improved understanding and appropriate action.

Much of the literature associated with the Adelaidezone involves the theme of civility either directly or indirectly. Perhaps you are aware of at least a few examples:   notes news activism insights projects politics pleasantness journalism satire one satire two satire three satire four satire five grimoire crafts compositions enlightened patronage

Have you ever been envious of a person with social graces more refined and courteous than your own? Perhaps you resent calm confidence and amiable competence. Do you feel awkward when someone in your presence appears to be quietly contented and politely attentive in a situation you find stressful? Are you envious of people who consistently address difficulty issues with gentleness, reasonableness and insightfulness? Perhaps you envy people who express empathy better than you do.

What have you discovered through history about the juxtapositions evident between the irony of incivility and apparent hypocritical expectations of civility?  Perhaps you have rudely demanded deference from fearfully obsequious persons from time to time. Perhaps you have bullied people into complying with a silly statement of vague principles you do not follow yourself. There is much irony in politics when values are claimed to be national and possibly even natural yet frequently disregarded through the expression of prejudice and hubris. Often the loudest voices protesting against incivility actually express inappropriate rudeness.

How do you think about ethics and principles in relation to civility and development? Do you think well-informed kindness is the only hope for the world, including for the future of ethically worthwhile industries and peaceful, prosperous communities?  How are you developing, maintaining and interpreting the records of your investment decisions, and for what (future) purposes? Perhaps your principles do not include the secure and accurate provision of information for the benefit of posterity. Perhaps you have developed no archives.  Perhaps you have not even developed a library of essential readings and/or an appropriately inclusive meeting place for the discussion of important societal issues. How are you involved in developing and implementing various appropriate systems ?

Have you ever attempted to develop an intelligently kind culture anywhere?  If so, have you made your documentation of the process quite public ? How do you usually document your experiences of courtesy and discourtesy? How is the albedo effect affecting your plans for the future? How are you currently investing in good policy , or at least attempting to do so? How do you plan for the development and implementation of policies ?   What do you know about planning in relation to development?

Perhaps you wish to show you care about civility in a well-informed way, by carefully nurturing and developing it over the year ahead. While universal suffrage is usually regarded as the minimum requirement for democracy to exist, the centralisation of government and the development of authoritarian practices weaken liberal democracies and turn them into illiberal ones .  How will you be using your knowledge of civility to help strengthen democracy in the year ahead?

To address current and future homelessness in Australia , whatever the reasons for the affliction and all associated afflictions, the global Mozarty Party seeks to build beautiful model villages , for suitably compatible persons, in suitably compatible locations. If you are currently homeless and hungry, or attempting not to be homeless and hungry, with or without possessing the figure of an ephemerally and superficially beautiful model, you may be eligible to join one of the model communities associated with the proposed model villages, at least if you have the ability to uphold civility sufficiently reasonably. To address current and future immigration to Australia , whatever the mode of transport used for such purposes, the global Mozarty Party will generally prefer to provide homes first for needy Australian voters, in accordance with the rights of citizens in a democracy to live in safety and reasonable comfort within its political boundaries. The model villages will use

What is the future ? In particular, what is the future of civility in various parts of the world? What is the key to a healthy, happy future, and for whom, how do you know? Civility is associated with accurate assessments.  It is also associated with responsible responses to those assessments. How much time, and money, have you preferred investing in well-informed kindness in each year of your life so far? How much time , and money , do you intend to invest in that pursuit in future, and why? How do you assess probabilities in relation to likelihoods, risks and possibilities ? How do you assess the likelihood of future political landslides ? How do you assess the risks associated with extreme weather events? How have you assessed whether you may or may not retain access to Civility Today in the future? How do you usually attempt to insure yourself against likely unpleasant future scenarios ?  Perhaps you do not regard civility as an essential skill, whether in terms of providing