Civility’s fading (and failing), so commonly supposed as the contemporary condition, has been attributed for the most part to the increasing heterogeneity and diversification of modern urban environments. It has been blamed also for a variety of social ills. These have ranged from charges of selfish and hyper-individualized societies, care-less and increasingly litigious (consider Stephen Carter’s flat and flatulently insistent excuse for Christian revivalism), to complaints of societies stricken by runaway crime rates, vulgarity and violence.