For centuries in the West, a “community” meant the people who shared communion — literally. You lived near the same church, worshipped the same God in the same way, and believed that those outside your fold were in spiritual danger. Unity was enforced by ritual, habit, and - if needed - by force.
Then came the Protestant Reformation, and the unity shattered. The wars that followed were brutal, personal, and theological. Neighbors weren’t just “wrong”; they were heretics. Europe spent more than a century discovering how vicious a disagreement can become when people believe their salvation hangs in the balance.
Out of that exhaustion, something new emerged: civility. Not agreement. Not mutual admiration. Just the simple, radical practice of not attacking one another — verbally or physically — in the public square. To be a “civilian” was to be civil: to refrain from violence, to coexist with people whose beliefs you considered misguided, dangerous, or even damned.
It was a hell of a shift, but it made the modern world livable.
You no longer have to argue theology with your grocer. You don’t need to warn your insurance agent they’re going to hell. (Today that’s more of a heat-of-the-moment suggestion than a community service announcement.)
Civility didn’t eliminate disagreement; it allowed society to survive it.
It remains one of the great inventions of the post-religious-war West.
And now we have an administration of people whose salaries we're paying who are such true believers in their mission that they've abandoned civility.
This lack of civility, like the anti-vax movement, is medieval.
