Persuade or Be Persuaded

Civility is rooted in the freedom of thought, which sets each of us as sovereign ruler over the private kingdom of our mind. Socrates always prefers to turn the linguistic tables: he’d insist that his oddball gadfly approach amounts to true civility. He might point out that etymologically the word “civility” comes from the Latin civis—citizen—and that the demand to think by agreement couldn’t be more citizenly: it proposes to settle all questions by the method appropriate to political ones.

Source: thepointmag.com