Civility, Legality, and Justice in America

Description

Throughout American history, the discourse of civility has proven quite resilient, and concern for a perceived lack of civility has ebbed and flowed in recognizable patterns. Today we are in another era in which political leaders and commentators bemoan a crisis of incivility and warn of civility's demise. Civility, Legality, and Justice in America charts the uses of civility in American legal and political discourse. How important is civility as a legal and political virtue? How does it fare when it is juxtaposed with the claim that it masks injustice? Who advocates civility and to what effect? How are battles over civility played out in legal and political arenas? This book brings the work of several distinguished scholars together to critically assess the relative claims of civility and justice and the way law the weighs those virtues. Copyright Contents Contributors Acknowledgments Intro: The Meanings and Uses of Civility ●Austin Sarat 1 The Difficult Work of Liberal Civility ●Teresa M. Bejan & Bryan Garsten Thomas Hobbes on Contumely and Contempt Benjamin Constant on Calumny and Delicacy Conclusion: The Difficult Work of Liberal Civility 2 Civility and Formality ●Jeremy Waldron 1 2 3 4 5 3 Civility and the Undocumented Alien ●Leti Volpp Introduction Defining Civility Civility and Citizenship Citizenship and the Alien Civility and the Alien Conclusion 4 Against Civility: A Feminist Perspective ●Linda M. G. Zerilli The Political Problem with Civility Rethinking Civility as a Political Concept Conclusion Afterword: Civility and the Politics of Sexuality ●Heather Elliott & Gerald Lunn Introduction Agreements and Disagreements (Civil, of Course) Civility and Legality Civility Is a Lesser Virtue Civility Is for Strangers Does Civility Permit or Smother Disagreement? Civility and Identity Civility’s Duality and the Politics of Sexuality Criminalizing, Pathologizing, Institutionalizing Coming Out ACT-UP and Queer Nation Civil Rights Litigation: The Right to Marry Conclusion Index