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List of contents
- Foreword
- Chapter 1: Introduction
- Chapter 2: Temptations to Incivility
- Chapter 3: Temptations to Rudeness
- Chapter 4: The Big Values
- Chapter 5: Living the Big Values
- Chapter 6: Rules, Rules, Rules
- Chapter 7: Managing the Face
- Chapter 8: Righteous Incivility Revisited
- Chapter 9: Disappointments and Consolation
- Works Cited
- Endnotes
About the author
Amy Olberding is Presidential Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oklahoma. Her work focuses on early Chinese ethics. She is the author of Moral Exemplars in the Analects (Routledge, 2011), several academic journal articles, and she has also published work with Aeon, The Forum, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. When not studying and teaching philosophy, she farms.
Summary
When so much of civic life is painful and fractious, why should we be polite? Drawing on the work of early Chinese philosophers who lived during great political turmoil but nonetheless avidly sought to "mind their manners," Amy Olberding explains why politeness still matters, and why it is essential to human life, due to our deeply social nature.
Additional text
"In this deeply personal book, philosopher Amy Olberding brilliantly shows how ancient Confucians can help us to grasp the centrality of manners and civility to good lives today. The Wrongness of Rudeness has important lessons for anyone who has ever struggled to be polite -- or wondered whether it's worth the bother." -- Stephen C. Angle, Mansfield Freeman Professor of East Asian Studies, Wesleyan University
