Even in a community renowned for its hospitality, we’ve all experienced incivility from time to time.

Parents shout at coaches and umpires on the baseball field; drivers make rude gestures when someone cuts them off; cell phones ring everywhere from restaurants to religious services.

Incivility rears its head not just in the way we treat each other but in the way we treat our community. We’ve seen litterbugs turn sidewalks into trash dumps and heard car stereos thumping noise pollution in the streets.

Somehow civility has been treated as an ancient art that’s gone the way of handwritten thank you notes and white gloves.

But civility isn’t just good manners; it is having respect for people, following a simple code of conduct that’s been spelled out for centuries: Love your neighbor as yourself.

George Washington had it right when he was just 16, writing a school essay on &uot;Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation.&uot; A good many of his rules we’ve pretty much abandoned (&uot;Do not go out of your chamber half-dressed&uot; was important enough to be No. 7 on his list.) But his last rule is at the heart of civility: &uot;Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.&uot;

So how do we build civility in modern society?

We have to teach our children to have respect for their teachers and other authority figures.

We have to allow our communities to enforce the laws that protect civility, such as noise and litter ordinances.

We simply have to respect each other, at home, at work, at school. And we have to take responsibility for ourselves and our actions, to &uot;keep alive&uot; our conscience.