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Absolutely. I've noted people have become much less civil over the last 20 years in most areas of the country that I've visited or lived. Unfortunately, I don't know why this is happening other than perhaps people are being taught to be more self centered and to care less for their fellow man than in previous generations.
I have noticed that we have lost common courtesy. No more please and thank you anymore. Have you noticed that when you hold a door for someone they don't even say Thank you?( I feel like letting it slam them in the a..) I also think that the younger generations aren't taught respect like when I was a kid.
Now I know this is a big generalization and it is not true for all but I do think people have gotten worse.
People are not necessarily getting meaner, they are getting weaker aka unraveled. people of today lack discipline and that is a dangerous outcome when you consider most people also lack a moral code equivalent to what one would have in our not so distant past. People are becoming more raw. The polish is starting to come off. There are many reasons for this but that is for a different thread.
Well, to be perfectly honest, I can pinpoint exactly when it started happening: The day people started thinking that good manners were pointless.
Show me a person who thinks that basic etiquette is just a bunch of arbitrary rules, and I'll show you a person who is in it for himself.
Show me a person to whom 'please' and 'thank you' are obsolete, and I'll show you somebody who does not know the meaning of gratitude.
Show me some a person who does not hold the door open for somebody else, does not yield his seat on the subway for a person who is older or infirm, and I'll show you somebody who was raised by wolves. For we are all in it this together. And public civility happens one kind gesture at a time.
Show me a person who swears a lot, and I'll show you somebody who has a poor vocabulary.
Show me a person who loses his or her temper, and I'll show you somebody who has run out of ideas.
I moved to the South fifteen years ago. At first, I found their emphasis on manners to be a bit over-the-top. But I've really come to understand that the civility of the place makes for a very nice way of life. I also think it's a huge reason why the South is beginning to attract foreign business in greater numbers than most other regions of the country (By the way, the excuse that workers in the South earn lower pay is evaporating into thin air. The pay gap has almost closed between the South and the rest of the region). Now, when I go back home to Chicago or Cleveland, or travel to Boston on business, I find the casual rudeness to really detract from the place. More than once, I've observed it and thought to myself, "Wouldn't it have been just as easy to be nice?"
I think we can thank the media for this. Commentators who think they know everything, and more than the next person (even how to run the country). People get defensive and start putting down everyone. Hollywood is the worst. Since when did people claiming to be actors/producers/directors become the be all, end all, and know all of politics? Sure everyone is entitled to their opinions, but I certainly wouldn't go to Hollywood to check facts about our country's economy and how to get back on track, and I definitely do not see most of them as relating to the average citizen. I also wouldn't go there to find any personal role models. They hate when rag magazines and media trash their images, but are certainly not against trashing other peoples' (i.e. political figures). It then trickles down from there...
If that were true, then the people of overcrowded Japan should be the meanest and most surly in the world.
America is the product of the media, point blank. its' citizens do not think for themselves or draw their own conclusions (generally speaking). they allow thousands on the internet (scary i know), tv, radio, and the movies to do that for them. other civilizations that have been around for thousands of years are not so media dominated. Americans are bombarded by countless commericals, billboards, ads, etc. telling them what is cool and what tastes good aka the next thing they should consume. Thus, they are not their own person. They are the person that everything is telling them to be. Thus, they really are not their own being. They belong to something else...
I think we can thank the media for this. Commentators who think they know everything, and more than the next person (even how to run the country). People get defensive and start putting down everyone. Hollywood is the worst. Since when did people claiming to be actors/producers/directors become the be all, end all, and know all of politics? Sure everyone is entitled to their opinions, but I certainly wouldn't go to Hollywood to check facts about our country's economy and how to get back on track, and I definitely do not see most of them as relating to the average citizen. I also wouldn't go there to find any personal role models. They hate when rag magazines and media trash their images, but are certainly not against trashing other peoples' (i.e. political figures). It then trickles down from there...
Well, that's a good point. I would also offer that television and movies really do not reflect how normal people should talk to one another.
Case in point? My kids watched the Disney Channel every day. Yet, I noticed that they were all beginning to be really mean to one another and argue with their mother and I.
So I decided to sit down and watch the so-called 'safe' programming. What did I find? Lots of sarcasm, put-downs, arguing, and talking back to the parents. Teachers were hopeless dupes to be outfoxed, and parents were equals. The Disney Channel is no longer allowed in my house as a result.
The problem with that? As a parent, you have to work and keep the household running. If you don't have kids who simply do what you ask of them without questioning, then you wind up having ongoing, exhausting trench warfare over little things such as taking out the garbage or picking up one's room. And if a kid can't get it together to follow your instructions on simple things like that, then what chance will he have on the job or out in the world?
So, yeah, Hollywood and Television bear a great deal of blame here, simply because children see it on the big screen and little screen and think that's how real people interact.
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