38 Introduction
experience that provides the basis of much that is represented as theoreti-
cal and even universal. If this introduction began with acknowledging the
violence and “incivility” of much of contemporary life in the Middle East,
critics point out that also within the United States more and more “inci-
vility, rancor and meanness ... characterize public talk.”^32 It may be wise to
consider whether the fleeting and temporary quality of public spheres, as
described in many of these chapters, is particular to the Middle East, or to
parts of the world outside the institutionalized liberal-democratic order.
It might be that fragility is rather an essential quality of the public sphere
itself—and that public civility needs to be continually and vigilantly con-
structed, buttressed and protected.