Growing concern about incivility is one of America’s more appealing trends. Increasingly, individuals and institutions are seeking ways to burnish the Golden Rule. The concern isn’t new — professor P.M. Forni started the Johns Hopkins Civility Project 12 years ago and published a book in 2002: Choosing Civility: The Twenty-Five Rules of Considerate Conduct. Civility even has a Facebook page called “The Civility Initiative,” where Forni and visitors exchange thoughts on the subject.

But recent events and trends — from rowdy town-hall meetings to sideshow rants on television to the outburst of South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson — have brought vague unease about manners into sharper focus.

In Wilson’s home state, University of South Carolina President Harris Pastides has made civility a focal point of the institution’s goals. And an Atlanta public relations executive, Mark DeMoss, has organized a coalition of conservatives and liberals, religious and secular, in his own Civility Project to promote a grass-roots, voluntary effort toward renewed civility. His Web site (www.civilityproject.org) urges a voluntary pledge to be civil in discourse and behavior, and to stand against incivility.

President Barack Obama addressed civility directly in his commencement address to Notre Dame earlier this year, and recently said, “One of the things I’m trying to figure out is, how can we make sure that civility is interesting.”

That’s more than enough evidence to declare a trend. But do Americans really want to be civil?