One of the areas that I tried to stress with my children, as I (well we, the husband and I) tried my (our) best to raise them to be good and kind men, is to make sure that they understood one basic rule:
Whatever room you walk into in life, be assured that there will always be atleast 1 asshole. The trick to having a good life is to make sure you are not that asshole…
Ok, not my most elegant of educational forays, but I think an important one. I am not so sure what prompted the epidemic of bad manners we are privileged to witness, but I can tell you, it is the outgrowth of the overwhelming vainglorious, self-important, and narcissistic tendencies of today’s society.
It could have been the advent of social media and all those (present company included) who hide behind pennames, or avatars. Everyone’s desire to have those 15 minutes of fame. Or it could be the addiction to reality TV, (what is really “scripted reality”) which includes highly planned violent and obnoxious scenarios. It could be chefs who spew vitriol, talent managers with no couth, the pornification of society, and/or a former POTUS who can’t tell the difference between a lie or truth, and a violent attack on the Capital or a simple tour. It could be the acquiescence to cancel culture, with its gangland bullying attacks and mob assaults, which is simply the epitome of this Lord of the Flies world in which we find ourselves immersed within and without.
In truth, quite frankly, it could be all of those things jellied together to create what I call the frontal lobe amnesia of good taste. This could be why I have this desire to avoid large crowds, don’t relish getting on an airplane, or subways, and find sitting alone in my car relaxing (well when the driver near me isn’t wilding honking his horn or screaming at me as they drive by). I simply attempt to keep myself to myself.
You would think though that being someone who is generally invisible in the world could have its perks in moments when the ogre of bad etiquette raises its thorny brow, but the irony is that this is exactly when the world decides you exist. Suddenly, this is when others conclude you should bear the burden of their unhappiness. This is when the older we are, the grayer we are, the smaller we seem, it makes us more of a target.
Were it that I would stay unimportant instead of being subject to others discord. It is not a wonder that back in the day those who were targeted as witches were usually elderly women, who lived alone, on the margins of society. Why is it that unimportant women always seemed to be scapegoated for society’s unhappiness and targets of its psychopathology?
Socrates lamented millenia ago:
“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”
Socrates may have gone a bit far with the crossed legs issue, but I am certain that it had to be a slight of some kind in ancient Athens.
Also his lament no longer only applies to children.
Not sure why we accept it.
Not sure why we don’t demand a stop to it.
And by the way, I require rules of decorum of anyone in my company…especially my sons.
To this day, I never cross my legs in a church. Why? Simply because the nuns in catechism class admonished girls who did so. Who knew they read Aristotle? 😆
Enjoyed reading it!