Tonight’s 20/20 was really interesting — it dealt with the question of whether our world is getting ruder. According to their poll, the overwhelming answer is “yes”. I agree with them, but thought the show really overlooked the underpinnings of why rudeness seems to prevail.
Sticks noticed that I was watching this show and asked me if I thought he was ever rude, or if I could point to any instance where he was intentionally rude. Honestly, I couldn’t think of one, though I did remind him that his almost-pathological need to look anywhere but at the person he’s speaking to could be interpreted as rude. He’s been trying to work on that — it’s actually painful for him to take that risk. If it were up to him he’d not talk one-on-one to anyone at all. But I digress….
To me, manners begin and end at home when the kids are little. I have just a few requirements for my kids: They need to be grateful for what they receive, they need to engage in the conversation rather than interrupting it, and I expect please and thank you’s to be part of their daily vocabulary. We discourage swearing but I confess that I will erupt from time to time and haven’t set a stellar example, though I tend to swear at things, not people. However, they do not have vocabularies that are peppered with “f’s” and “sh’s”. In fact, I’ve never heard or overheard them use those words, though I’d be a fool to assume they don’t.
I’m assuming that some of what we taught sunk in, because the feedback I’ve had from parents of their friends is that they enjoy our kids when they visit, and one of the words they use in connection with them is that they have ‘manners’. In fact, if my kids have a flaw in this area of their lives, it is that they tend to be a bit judgmental of others who they perceive to be rude. Again, T and I accept responsibility for this — we have low tolerance for rudeness, too.
Rude seems to be everywhere, though. Today as I was driving to the Valley I was held up by two accidents. Both were rear-enders, both were preventable. Had people been just a little bit less in a hurry and willing to place a little more space between them and the car ahead of them, they’d have a car without dents and I would’ve been on time for a funeral I very much wanted to be on time for. As it was, I rudely turned up 20 minutes late despite leaving an hour and 20 minutes ahead for a 45 minute drive. This morning after I dropped Sticks off at school at the crack of dawn I had a “VERY IMPORTANT PERSON” tailgating me all the way to the freeway and for most of the time I was on the freeway. It was 6:30 AM, there was no traffic, and if 70 was too slow for him he should’ve gone around me. I felt like I was being tailgated as a message: GET OUT OF MY WAY; I’M VERY IMPORTANT AND YOU ARE SLIME”.
Which brings me to back to the 20/20 report tonight. Here’s a quote from the article on the web site:
ABC News: Putting Politeness in Perspective
The bottom line is, rudeness seems both dehumanizing and threatening, whether you play by the rules of a Victorian snob or a modern street gang. Manners are what bind people.
Well, yeah. Being rude and selfish means sending a message to others that the only one in the world that matters is YOU. And that, unfortunately, is a message that way too many kids are getting these days, which I think is one thing giving rise to the ruder world today. The message that “it’s all about ME” is one that kids are taking way too seriously.
ABC dealt with rude behaviors but really glossed over where they come from. We live in a world with instant access to information and other people, but it hasn’t come with a corresponding book of etiquette. We live in a world where we can sit in the isolated comfort of our living room and call someone an asshole without considering the consequences. Just read through a few comments on Digg to see that principle in action. People toss off nasty comments all the time online without thinking, so what makes us think they can separate that behavior from their in-person persona?
One example on 20/20 was smoking outside in public. I’m a smoker. I didn’t smoke inside even before California made it illegal. I don’t smoke in the house, never have. I don’t blow smoke in people’s faces and I don’t light up in a crowd. In fact, smoking is a pretty isolating thing to do, and that’s one of the reasons I do it — I am by nature a shy person and sometimes the effort to maintain contact is overwhelming. (Yes, I know I need to quit, I’m working on it, no lectures please)
Here’s an example of the ABC report turned in reverse: I will be in a parking lot (not next to a door, not blowing smoke into someone’s pathway inside), when a family will walk past. The children will begin the fake coughing and hacking exaggeratedly, holding their nose while walking by and commenting about that ’stinky smoker’. This has not happened just once. I can think of at least six or seven times in the past year that it’s happened. The thing about it that just drives me nuts is that Mommy and Daddy are right there cheering them on. Honestly if my kids did something that rude and disrespectful to an adult, they’d be over there apologizing to their face immediately.
Mommy and Daddy are missing a teaching opportunity to help their kids learn to dislike the choice a person makes without extending to the person making the choice. Instead they’re teaching Junior that it’s okay to be rude if the choice is something rejected by the majority. Manners aren’t a democracy. They’re what we do to make people feel more like people– people who matter.
Whatever happened to simply walking by? Why the need for a nico-nazi statement? The social codes today say smoking is bad and by extension so are smokers, making them fair game for whatever their kids feel the need to blurt out at the time. The message is that because it’s something THEY don’t like, they’re entitled to express that in a public and demeaning way and to encourage their kids to do it too.
Media has a part in it, too. When we’re paying Howard Stern megabucks to be obnoxious on Sirius, isn’t the underlying message is that we actually value rude, outrageous people? There is a school of thought out there that argues that Stern simply does what we all wish we could do. I don’t wish to be anything like Stern. Big deal, the guy thinks of ways to be shocking. It’s still “all about him”.
For me, that’s the bottom line. If we come at things with an “It’s all about me” attitude, we’re foreclosing any productive participation in community with others, because by definition it’s an isolating approach. Yet that is what many are doing and what many are teaching their kids to do. Breaking boundaries isn’t always a good thing. Boundaries facilitate communication and community, because it really isn’t “all about me.” There is a greater good that’s worth cultivating through simple consideration of others.
