All my life I have placed great store in civility and good manners, practices I find scarce among the often hard-edged, badly socialized scientists with whom I associate.

From Naturalist by Edward O. Wilson, his autobiography.

I left at the end of the spring term, carrying an inoculum of the military culture. Up to college age I retained the southerner’s reflexive deference to elders. Adult males were “sir” and ladies “ma’am,” regardless of their station. These salutations I gave with pleasure. I instinctively respect authority and believe emotionally if not intellectually that it should be perturbed only for conspicuous cause. At my core I am a social conservative, a loyalist. I cherish traditional institutions, the more venerable and ritual-laden the better.

All my life I have placed great store in civility and good manners, practices I find scarce among the often hard-edged, badly socialized scientists with whom I associate. Tone of voice means a great deal to me in the course of debate. I try to remember to say “With all due respect” or its equivalent at the start of a rebuttal, and mean it. I despise the arrogance and doting self-regard so frequently found among the very bright.

I have a special regard for altruism and devotion to duty, believing them virtues that exist independent of approval and validation. I am stirred by accounts of soldiers, policemen, and firemen who have died in the line of duty. I can be brought to tears with embarrassing quickness by the solemn ceremonies honoring these heroes. The sight of the Iwo Jima and Vietnam Memorials pierces me for the witness they bear of men who gave so much, and who expected so little in life, and the strength ordinary people possess that held civilization together in dangerous times.

I have been reading much lately on the American Revolution and the astonishing capacity of Massachusetts and Virginia to bridge their cultural differences in order to accomplish their shared goals.  Wilson's words echo those of Washington as he assumed military leadership of the Continental Army and had to navigate his way among the Yankees with their flinty personalities and directness unfamiliar to Virginians.