You are most extremely confused about civiity. It's no help to be polite to a notoriously vile person. It is the boos that were civil -- the cheers that were rude. Do you cheer a rapist? Clap lustily for a man who publically demeans and harasses the small and weak? Smile pleasantly at a man who orders pet cats killed and hung on the owner's porch. If so, friend, you ARE
rude and vile.
Civility is not so shallow! Men and women of competing interests and occassioned displeasures can and do live civilly with one another. But not if they pave the way for the vile, the thief, the liar, the corrupt by extending only happy-faced saccharine faux-politeness. By so doing the whole of the city, of the society, is taken down into the muck. Proper rebuke is a necessary part of true civility.
Well said.
"It is the boos that were civil -- the cheers that were rude. "
A very interesting point of view, and argument. No, I don't smile pleasantly at anyone who would kill cats and hang them from the front porch. I have seen a marked decline in the overall population of what I & family consider to be "proper" behaivior. Blame it on Rock & Roll, breakdown of the family, bad ju-ju...but, people just aren't as nice to one another as they used to be.
As I said earlier - I must be a Precambrian-con, or just plain old fashioned - but society is much to coarse in a lot of respects these days.