For decades, the word languished in dusty history books and long-forgotten elementary, middle and high school classes. Yes, there actually used to be required classes in “Civics.” The focus of those classes was to hammer home the idea of civility, educate students on civic processes and to create good citizens.

However, just as vaccines seem to have lulled the US population into a false sense of security about just how immune we are to disease, the definition of “good citizen” as well as “civility” has taken the same slippery, slide downhill. After all, shouldn’t being an attentive, voting and conscientious citizen be automatic? It would seem that the assumed automaticity of civility has been grossly overestimated and perhaps replaced with a more reactionary form of existence. Instead of remaining informed, alert and aware, most of the population has fallen asleep—only to be jarred awake by sudden events like school shootings and embassy bombings. All the while, our interactions are doing the same. They have slipped into a neutral, disconnected and nonchalant nothingness. In other words, our self-serve, automated, AI world is creating inhuman humans who are becoming devoid of civility, as it is no longer required for most interactions.

The Ringer, even has an entire section dedicated to the ever-changing vernacular, Lexicon. “When a word or phrase suddenly and (sometimes) unexpectedly hits our collective consciousness, you cannot stop hearing or reading it.” Civility is one of those words.

Kate Knibbs a writer for The Ringer surmises that teaching children to avoid hot button topics like politics and religion is creating a generation of people who are unable to discuss challenging topics, might have something to do with our slip in civility. In “How ‘Civility’ Became a Buzzword—and Lost All Meaning,” she says, “While politicians and pundits invoke “civility” to call for a return to decorum, they fundamentally misunderstand the original concept of the word, instead glomming on to a more shallow and recent definition.”

Knibbs cites a 2010 Johns Hopkins article in the “Dallas Morning News:” “Here is a possible definition of civility for our times: The civil person is someone who cares for his or her community and who looks at others with a benevolent disposition rooted in the belief that their claim to well-being and happiness is as valid as his or her own.”

The trouble is that the word civility is now being weaponized against anyone who speaks up against the majority and Knibbs continues, “Over time, “civility” became more associated with order than justice.”

In a 2014 article for the New Yorker, Hua Hsu addresses the twisting definition by saying, “The language of civility has always been a code of sorts, a way of holding life’s quotidian messiness up against lofty, sometimes elitist ideals of proper behavior.” In answer to the current state of societal unrest, Hsu continues, ““Over the past decade, however, civility has come to assume a more prescriptive dimension. At a time when our ideological divides feel wild and extreme, civility has become our polite-sounding call to fall back in line.”

Perhaps, we are looking in the wrong direction in regard to our missing civility. The collective culmination of experience and wisdom may answer our yearning for a kinder and clearer way of understanding each other in an unexpected way—by pausing and using that inner “space” to listen to ourselves and each other. It may seem idealistic, but listening to ourselves costs us nothing but time and listening to each other might offer an unexpected consequence—humanity.