I appreciate your comment, but I don't agree because the argument seems a little too absolute to me, or rather I don't believe civility inherently leads to a compromising mediocrity. I believe people can disagree and still be civil about it (see my first sentence here), even on big ideas. It's like the difference between two people debating politics by arguing the merits of their ideas vs. resorting to personal character attacks. The former can still be civil even in cases where the ideas are large and both sides are passionate, the latter is not by definition.
Of course looking at the usage of the word over time according to Google is possibly indicative of something disappointing to me personally...
Just another Perl hooker - Working on the corner... corner conditions that is.
