Intentional Civility

Abstract

Abstract The meaning of civility is culturally dependent—as are the rules associated with the term. If museums and their staff want to welcome all peoples, then the rules of civil behavior have to change to reflect that intention. Yet museums have mostly lived with the traditional, class‐dependent notion of etiquette. The area that the concept of civility should be concerned with covers our interactions in spheres generally considered separable: public behavior; staff behavior; content behavior; community relations. Museums would do well to examine those behavioral elements that have been assumed to be self‐evident: like not talking in the library (whereas there are now talking‐based rooms). Normative behavior is always changing, but interestingly, as it changes, it generally remains mostly in the service of peaceful outcomes. I am suggesting that direct interrogation of our unexamined rules about interactions with each other in every context—and adjusting them to reflect a changed society—might be more significant than previously assumed.

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