A long-standing lament of mine is the loss of civility in our culture. I see it on the highways when fools think they have the driving skills of Jason Bourne and come flying by me, weaving in and out of traffic. And I, looking for divine retribution, hope to see them in a ditch a few miles down the road. Perhaps movies are to blame, viewers thinking, “how hard can that be?” Maybe action films, like some stunt scenes, should come with the disclaimer, “Don’t try this on the highway, you idiot!”
There seems to be a growing epidemic of “me first” mentality in our country, and if “me first” doesn’t work, “get even” kicks in. What’s with these drivers that pull out a gun when somebody cuts them off or even looks at them wrongly? Who in their right mind feels a compelling need to slam into an offending car and run them off the road? Oh, I know we all at some time or other fantasize that we had one of those James Bond cars where you push a button and machine guns come out so you could blast away at the fool in front of you. But that’s just a fantasy, and most of us know enough not to act on those impulses. Maybe the next generation of self-driving cars will help return some level of civility and sense to America’s Roads. We can only hope, although some unhinged programmer working in a subterranean location in an Central Asian country we can’t pronounce, will invent a “revenge mode”, where the passenger hits a concealed switch and the car lashes out.
A few years ago, I had the responsibility for disbursing tickets to families of students that had been accepted to a state music festival. One parent, having missed the deadline for ordering advance tickets (because her son had left the order form in the bottom of his backpack – sound familiar, anyone?) contacted me. Mother’s default plan was a phone call and, in an elevated tone, told me that she was not about to miss her son’s performance, it was our fault, etc., etc., etc. I calmly replied to her, after she’d finished her tirade, “so, if I understand this situation correctly, you need my help to get tickets, and yet you’re yelling at me. Do you find that this system works well for you?” Sadly, for many people, they do. Yelling is not their fall back, it’s their primary means of dealing with others. The person or persons that coined the phrase, “The Customer Is Always Right” should hang their heads in shame and / or be publicly horsewhipped. This person or persons, thinking they’d had an advertising brainstorm, have created several generations now that think everything they do must be right. Let’s be brutally honest – the customer is often dead wrong but won’t admit it because, even in the face of evidence, they still must be right. How many times have we seen criminals, captured over the body, knife in hand, crazed looks on their faces and covered in the victim’s blood, pleading “not guilty”? Years ago, while I was working as a hotel desk clerk, a lady appeared at the desk in the morning demanding a rate reduction because the air conditioner in her room didn’t work. I asked her if she’d turned in on, to which she replied, “no, I didn’t know how.” Somehow, her ignorance became the air conditioner’s fault entirely. (Although I will admit that, from time to time, inanimate objects do thwart me. I believe that they have the capacity to deliberately plot against me, often working hand in hand with gravity, but that’s material for a different day.) Or we’ve all seen the person who sends something back in a restaurant not because there was anything wrong, they simply ordered the wrong item, or “it wasn’t what I expected.” Really? You didn’t think to ask before you ordered? An expensive entrée just became garbage because the diner didn’t inquire, “what is this like?” but again, it’s not their fault, because “the customer is always right”.
I find it hard even be rude to a telemarketer. I patiently listen to their pitch before telling them I’m not interested. My wife chides me to “just hang up”. But I can’t when there’s a live human on the line. Well, I can when they become unduly persistent. You’d think someone selling siding or roofing would stop when I let them know that I live in a condo, but occasionally they don’t get it and I have to shut them down. Or there are callers working on behalf of folks with a debilitating disease. I know they’re professional fund-raisers, and I know they’re paid not to take “no” for an answer. These are people trying to earn a living , and it isn’t in me (mostly) to be deliberately rude. I had an interesting call from a charitable fundraiser recently, one that isn’t high on my list of “must donate to”. I suggested, as I always do, that he could send me the paperwork and I’d send what I could. He suggested an amount, and I agreed. About ten minutes later, the “verifier” called back to “confirm the address.” Don’t you love those? Two calls now to perpetuate the annoyance. She mentioned another, larger amount, which I said was not what we agreed. She then informed me, not pleasantly, “that was their minimum for mailing out envelopes” and that if I donated less, I’d have to do it with a credit or debit card over the phone. I then told her that I wasn’t in the habit of giving that information to a cell phone number in North Dakota, and that our business here was done. The lady clicked off in huff, as though I’d somehow spoiled her day.
It still amazes me after more years than I wish to divulge that people respond to a smile and simple “hello” while I’m out walking in the morning. It’s completely unnerving, particularly to the highly suspicious, the chronically unhappy, or those that look like they took a large sip of vinegar before setting out. What that means in real life is that the element of surprise niceness can be and usually is disarming. I will say, however, that my father, a brilliant man, had limited patience with those that didn’t understand ideas as he did, and he showed his impatience from time to time. While I doubt that I inherited his intelligence, I know I did get his unfortunate impatience with, shall we say, “those that fail to grasp” and frequently have to pause before saying something we all will regret.
There are daily reminders of a lack of civility, sometimes in the extreme. In “breaking news”, a man on a cruise with his family, an anniversary cruise no less, bludgeoned his wife to death because “she wouldn’t stop laughing at me.” Not only was he not particularly repentant, he was in the process of dragging her bloodied body to the balcony, presumably to throw her overboard, when ship officials arrived. Sadly, I’m not inventing this. Several years ago, I read of a woman that pulled out of a line of traffic and ran over a police officer at road construction because, well, “she was in a hurry”. It turns out that she was late for a hair dressing appointment. Well, that certainly justifies bold action. Who among us hasn’t reacted dramatically with the possibility of flawed hair looming? Which brings us to . . . . .
Now that we have an occupant of the White House who makes no pretensions whatsoever about being civil to anyone at any time, be they other world leaders, staffers, or those that merely disagree with him, the pattern is escalating. He expresses a compelling need to see himself as a “winner”, and as so often happens, those that must win are very adept at identifying and labelling the “losers”. They tend always to have their finger pointed at someone else. A former in-and-out White House Communications Director, in a short space of time, raised the bar considerably on profanity in public discourse. I recall those great lines from the movie, “Christmas Story”, as father is in the basement trying to fix the furnace. “My father worked in profanity the way other artists work in oils or clay. It was his true medium.” We knew that Richard Nixon used this caliber of language privately from his Oval Office tapes, but now, apparently, it’s acceptable to flaunt it publicly in magazine interviews. Perhaps it’s an indicator of the times, but I can’t always force myself to accept it. Thoughtful, refined use of language is fading from the landscape, to be replaced by insults and denigration of others. At least when Winston Churchill referred to someone as “a sheep in sheep’s clothing” or “deep down, he’s very shallow”, it was elegant – you had to pause and think about it a moment. Empathy is largely becoming a casualty of our civilization. One might call this the New Dark Ages, where we run roughshod over the sensibilities not just of ourselves but of those around us. Where we make false assumptions based on accents or manner of appearance. Where we sit in judgement on those whose outlooks, attitudes, and lifestyles aren’t ours. Where those who are different must be inherently bad, flawed, lazy, deranged. Maybe it’s time we collectively as a civilization stood up and said, “this isn’t where we should be going”. As a starting point, maybe we should hold public officials accountable for their words and the actions. We used to. Maybe it’s time we all said, “we’re thinking . . . . .NO.”
I'm Thinking...No! 