Civility Tour
Between November 2009 and May 2011, NEH Chairman Leach conducted the American "Civility Tour" to call attention to the need to restore reason and civility back into politics, a goal that in his words was "central to the humanities." Leach visited each of the 50 states, speaking at venues ranging from university and museum lecture halls to hospitals for veterans, to support the return of non-emotive, civil exchange and rational consideration of other viewpoints:
According to Chairman Leach, "Little is more important...than establishing an ethos of thoughtfulness and decency of expression in the public square. Words reflect emotion as well as meaning. They clarify -- or cloud -- thought and energize action, sometimes bringing out the better angels in our nature, sometimes lesser instincts."
Since the completion of Leach's Civility Tour, rallies for reasoning politics like Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity, and pragmatic, reason-based social initiatives like pluralistic rationalism, have reflected Leach's call for civil, non-emotive and reasoning dialogue between those with disparate political ideologies.
Read more about this topic: National Endowment For The Humanities
Famous quotes containing the words civility and/or tour:
“People will no more advance their civility to a bear, than their money to a bankrupt.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“Left Washington, September 6, on a tour through Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and Virginia.... Absent nineteen days. Received every where heartily. The country is again one and united! I am very happy to be able to feel that the course taken has turned out so well.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)