Civility: talking with those who disagree with you

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the idea that Civility, in one of its meanings, is among the most valuable social virtues: the skill to discuss topics that really matter to you, with someone who disagrees and yet somehow still get along. In another of its meanings, when Civility describes the limits of behaviour that is acceptable, the idea can reflect society at its worst: when only those deemed ‘civil enough’ are allowed their rights, their equality and even their humanity. Between these extremes, Civility is a slippery idea that has fascinated philosophers especially since the Reformation, when competing ideas on how to gain salvation seemed to make it impossible to disagree and remain civil.

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Guests

• Teresa Bejan 2 episodes
  Professor of Political Theory at Oriel College, University of Oxford
• Phil Withington No other episodes
  Professor of History at the University of Sheffield
• John Gallagher No other episodes
  Associate Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Leeds

Reading list

• Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration
  Teresa M. Bejan (Harvard University Press, 2017) Google Books →
• From Courtesy to Civility: Changing Codes of Conduct in Early Modern England
  Anna Bryson (Oxford University Press, 1998) Google Books →
• The Fortunes of the Courtier: The European Reception of Castiglione's Cortegiano
  Peter Burke (Polity Press, 1995) Google Books →
• Civil Histories: Essays Presented to Sir Keith Thomas
  Peter Burke, Brian Harrison and Paul Slack (eds.) (Oxford University Press, 2000) Google Books →
• How Civility Works
  Keith J. Bybee (Stanford University Press, 2016) Google Books →
• Keywords of Identity, Race, and Human Mobility in Early Modern England
  Nandini Das, Joao Vicente Melo, Haig Z. Smith and Lauren Working (Amsterdam University Press, 2021) Google Books →
• The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere
  Jurgen Habermas (Polity, 1992) Google Books →
• Rhetoric and Courtliness in Early Modern Literature
  Jennifer Richards (Cambridge University Press, 2003) Google Books →
• Civility, Legality, and Justice in America
  Austin Sarat (ed.) (Cambridge University Press, 2014) Google Books →
• In Pursuit of Civility: Manners and Civilization in Early Modern England
  Keith Thomas (Yale University Press, 2018) Google Books →
• Society in Early Modern England: The Vernacular Origins of Some Powerful Ideas
  Phil Withington (Polity, 2010) Google Books →
• The Making of an Imperial Polity: Civility and America in the Jacobean Metropolis
  Lauren Working (Cambridge University Press, 2020) Google Books →

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Programme ID: m002f9f4

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002f9f4

Auto-category: 170 (Ethics)