Civilized discourse ...

... Dangerous Considerations: A Notebook. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

I like this: "... Musil defended artistic individualism and warned against the collectivism growing in various European states. He also insisted that there was no connection between culture and politics; the very existence of culture contains something fragile, capricious, unpredictable, he said, and even a decent political system won't necessarily produce great art."