In case you're thinking about a career in higher education,
you cannot be afraid of aging,
because students every year are between 18 and 22,
whereas you keep getting older.
It is actually quite depressing.
Anyhow -
(Laughter)
Anyhow, as I watched them cause harm and bringing harm to one another,
it made me want to devote my professional career
to ending violence and making our world a safer place.
And so I spend a lot of time
teaching people about bystander intervention.
And as I'm teaching them about bystander intervention,
something I'm talking about is what a bystander is.
A bystander is really someone who is in a crowd
or they witness something that's a potentially harmful event,
and they do nothing.
We're all bystanders at some point to something that's happening.
But the reality is that when we're seeing something,
there are things that stop us from intervening.
Imagine you're driving down the street, you see someone on the side of the road,
and you recognize they need help, but you keep going.
Or think about overhearing an argument,
and as you hear that argument, you don't feel too great about it,
but you tell yourself that it's none of your business.
Or perhaps you see someone who's highly intoxicated,
and you think, "Mm, this night isn't going to end too well for them."
But you tell yourself, once again, this isn't my responsibility.
And so what happens?
We end up being the bystander because we froze, perhaps we panicked,
but ultimately, we didn't do anything to act.
There are a lot of reasons that we don't act.
And bystander effect - some of you have heard of that -
is one of those things.
But a big thing, and there are a few of them, ambiguity.
Anytime the situation is unclear and we're not too sure
what's going to happen, we're less likely to intervene.
Diffusion of responsibility is one of the biggest things
that stops us from intervening.
All of us are in this room.
If something happens in this room,
whoever it is in need of help is less likely to get help
because what we're thinking
is someone else in the room will do something,
but they don't, and so that harm still occurs.
The other thing is perceived cost.
We start to think about: What is this going to cost me?
Am I going to be in harm's way?
Will my loved ones be at risk?
Am I going to have to invest too much time or energy into this?
And if so, then we tell ourselves,
"Well then I can't do anything about this, I'm not going to intervene."
And so we walk away from the situation.
There are a lot of reasons that people don't intervene,
a ton of obstacles, and they're real.
They're legitimate fears and concerns that we have to face.
But what we have to think about is the fact that sometimes
when we're seeing things, we don't want people to think,
"Oh, you know, that person just didn't want to help."
We want people to recognize that those obstacles got in the way.
And so, I want you to think about this for a second.
What does this slide say to you?
[MORALITYISNOWHERE]
Shout it out. What do you see?
(Audience) Morality is nowhere.
OK. So wow, we have a lot of glass-half-full folks in this room.
(Laughter)
So some of you see "morality is nowhere";
some of you see "morality is now here," right?
Either way, you're right. The slide says both.
But the point of this is that what we're lacking in society is morality.
We've really gotten to a place where morality doesn't exist anymore,
and it's concerning, it's alarming.
And so what we need to start to do is think about how can civility
help to bring back morality.
I know a lot of you are probably thinking,
"Well, if her point is to talk about civility or morality,
then why did she title this 'Reviving Civility'?"
Well, the reason that I did that is because civility is something
that I believe, and don't get me wrong,
when I'm thinking, I recognize in my mind it's questionable,
but I believe that civility is something that can be taught.
It's a skill set, right?
When you think about civility, you typically think about these things:
being polite, being a reasonable person, engaging in civil dialogue.
When you think about morality, that's a much tougher conversation to have.
Morality is a self-driven, internal battle that plays out in people's consciousness,
like a rivalry between Batman and the Joker, right?
We all think about Batman and Joker and how intense that is,
and you can visualize that.
Well, that's how it feels to talk to someone about right and wrong.
You aren't going to often have people get in a room and reach the same conclusion.
But civility - we can get people to agree on what civility means.
Now, I want you to remember,
when I'm talking about civility and reviving it,
I'm not just talking about these principles.
I'm talking about really taking civility and thinking about it
in a place of civility being politeness, yes, respect, yeah,
but caring and compassion, brotherhood, sisterhood, caring about humankind,
and reviving and bringing back the best qualities of humankind.
That's what I'm talking about and want you to think about
when talking about reviving civility.
And so we have to really start to shift to being more selfless and less selfish.
We have to be willing to put people's needs as high as our own
if we really want to have a chance to reduce the violence
that's happening at alarming rates in our community.
We can make our community safer if we start to revive civility.
So how many of you are familiar with the Golden Rule? Most of you?
[The Golden Rule "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"]
Or some of us have heard that
as "Treat others the way that you want to be treated."
Well, imagine, if in our classrooms, ,
in our homes, our families, our friendships, our workplaces,
if instead abiding by the golden rule
and treating people the way we want to be treated,
what would happen if we treated them the way they wanted to be treated?
It doesn't seem hard, but if you think about it,
all these years, we've been practicing the golden rule,
and seriously, how narcissistic do we sound telling people
that we're going to treat them the way we want to be treated?
When we do that,
we're nullifying and negating the experiences of who they are,
and we're projecting our own needs and desires onto them instead.
And when you think about that, it's quite selfish.
And so we have to get back to this place of morality.
Morality is our reach here, I want you to remember that.
Morality is the reach; civility is the base,
and so More M.I.C.E: this is really just so if someone says,
"What did Jennifer talk about at TEDx?" you can go and say "M.I.C.E."
And they're going to look at you and say "mice"?
But I want you to really be able to remember that that meant:
morality, integrity, civility, and ethicality.
And you're going to say "ethicality is not a word,"
but I found it in the dictionary - it's a word.
(Laughter)
So my point was to make sure we were moving from not just using nouns
but talking about action.
So really, ethicality is being ethical, right?
If you leave here today,
and each of you commit to the best principles and best things
that come along with being a person of integrity,
being compassionate about civility,
really doing everything you can to be ethical in your character.
Then what we're going to do
is we're going to start to influence others around us.
And as we influence others around us,
they're going to influence the people around them,
and they're going to influence others around them.
And it's like a ladder.
Remember, morality is the reach, civility is the base.
And so if you start to climb that ladder, and you start to influence others,
then we have a real chance at changing our culture
and reducing, or maybe even eliminating, violence.
I don't want you to think those are families.
When you look at those people up there,
that doesn't represent a family as much as it shows
that it's the responsibility of men, women, and children
to practice civility and bystander intervention.
So there really is a path that we have to take.
And what I want to talk you through now is what it takes for a bystander
to move from a place of civility,
in a sense, being a noun, to it being an adjective.
And so what we have to do is we have to care,
and we have to start taking in things in a much more meaningful way
and thinking about others in our communities.
And once we start to care, and we start to think about civility,
then we will start to notice the things that are causing harm in our community.
We are living in a society where we witness incivility every day,
to the point that we don't even recognize how much it has messed up our country.
And so we have to start to get back to that place
where we're intervening,
where we're doing things for one another,
where we're caring for one another.
And if we do that, then we have a chance, we really do.
And so what you have to do as a bystander, when you leave here,
you have to start to think about what it takes to intervene.
And know your obstacles; those obstacles are real.
I'm someone who talks to people about bystander intervention,
and I don't always intervene every time I see something
because those obstacles can get the best of me as well.
What you do have to do is you have to notice the situation
because if you don't notice it, that ambiguity again,
if you don't notice it, you can't do anything to intervene.
Another thing you have to do is quickly interpret that situation.
Going to that example of you see someone arguing.
You see a couple arguing.
You have to quickly determine if that warrants your response.
If you think that warrants your response,
the next step is assuming responsibility.
And once we can all get to that place where we assume responsibility,
then we are truly living out what it means to revive civility.
And assuming responsibility does not mean that I want you
to put yourself into harm's way.
You don't have to do that. That's why 911 exists.
There are people who, for a living, go and save the day.
But by you taking the step
to either get involved and step in and help someone,
or taking the step to get someone else involved who is able to intervene,
then you will help to make our world a safer place.
That's the point.
If we can revive civility,
we really will get to a place where we can end violence.
And so, I'm not asking you tonight, by choosing civility,
to go out and spend all your free time
volunteering at your local domestic violence or rape center,
though you might.
That would be kind of cool.
Nor am I asking you to go out and get trained in nonviolence training,
though again, you might.
That may be a thing you want to do.
But what I am saying is that when you leave here,
hopefully you'll always notice when something needs your attention,
when someone is in harm's way,
and you'll think about the fact
that you can do something to intervene and change the outcome.
And when we start to change those outcomes,
other people will see us, it will rub off, and we will have a shift in our culture,
and make our campuses, our workplaces, our society, a better place.
And so my question for you tonight is not if you're different from the rest,
because regardless of what we've personally been a bystander to,
we're not alone.
We've all experienced those things.
But it's not if you are different from the rest.
My question for you tonight is, "Will you be the difference for the rest?"
And if you're the difference for the rest, how do you get there?
We get there by reviving civility.
And so I ask that as you leave here, think about the difference you'll make,
and that you will bring back civility with me.
Thank you.
(Applause)