CASTINE, Maine -- Being a good citizen these days, we're told, means striving to reduce our carbon footprint - to walk in a way that reduces our detrimental effect on the planet's biosphere. A "footprint" is a good metaphor for our individual impact on the social or natural environment. It's personal, tactile, organic, and immediately comprehensible. It's elementary. We're bipeds; we all walk and leave tracks.
At my school, the students in sixth-grade science class can calculate the size of their carbon footprint with an online tool - based on heating fuel, car type and annual mileage, electricity use, and other factors.
This is, no doubt, a valuable component of citizenship. But there's another footprint we ought to consider, too - one that has every bit as much to do with the quality of life here in the biosphere as fossil fuel emissions or ozone depletion, if not more. I'm thinking of our "civility footprint." It's not a physical emission, but, just as with our carbon footprint, civility has a huge effect. In this case, the benefits go up as the size of the footprint increases.
And what are those benefits? I used to think that civility just meant "be nice," as mom used to say. Now I realize there's a lot more to it - a more global consideration of being nice, attentive, focused, generous, humble, and thoughtful. The trick is measuring the footprint.
I recently discovered Choosing Civility: The Twenty-Five Rules of Considerate Conduct, by Piero Massimo Forni, cofounder of the Johns Hopkins Civility Project and a professor of Italian literature. His rules of civility begin with "Pay attention."
The rules are a blend of considerations. They include the very concrete and the very abstract; the interplay of respect, responsibility, and compassion; ways to think outward, as well as inward; global and local mindfulness; hope, resiliency, and aspiration; individual and group safety; manners; and kindnesses. They could be the charter for any community, school or family. And so many of the concepts relate directly to learning - such as "pay attention." They are a stance for growth in knowledge, inspiration, and imagination.
So, are civility emissions as measurable as carbon emissions? Can we measure a civility footprint as we would a carbon footprint? Well, did you "keep it down, and rediscover silence" today? "Refrain from idle complaints?" Were you "inclusive" today?
