Era Of Bad-Mouthing Boors Must End
Ticked off someone with an item in a column recently. He was furious. Really rude. Then a woman at a public meeting asked just what I was doing there, in a tone generally reserved for accusing someone of committing a felony.
Both incidents happened on the same day. But I can’t say that I was encountering anomalies. Seems to me that being rude has gotten as American as eating apple pie. Hostility abounds. Civility doesn’t.
Not that I haven’t allowed a bad mood upon occasion to make me mouth something too harsh. Hard as I try, there are those times I’m ashamed of myself because I snip or snap at someone for no darn good reason.
And I suppose that everyone, at least once a year, says something so insolent that it causes the kind of guilt that generally only a mother or minister can provoke. But it seems to me that there are those people who don’t limit their rudeness to an annual event. Rather, they thrive on verbal abuse. They seem to enjoy aiming an insult here, a sarcastic comment there and a put-down in between.
Certainly there is no lack of models upon which to base such behavior these days. Listen to five minutes of talk radio for a great lesson in the art of being discourteous. And watch some of the television interview programs that feature mothers who sleep with their daughter’s boyfriends, children who hit their siblings, and friends who steal from friends and are proud of it. On camera, these uncouth people yell at the moderator, the audience and each other with wild abandon. It makes any sane, sensible viewer wonder if civilization is tottering on the edge.
Customers order clerks around, and clerks give them what-for. Lyrics to pop music laud putting down women, other races and law enforcement. Members of Congress call one another names on the House floor. The speaker’s mother says her Newty called Hillary a bitch.
Bosses demean employees with angry outbursts. Employees take it out on other employees. Parents use barbarous language to scold their children. Politicians lambaste opponents with nasty, negative commercials. Total strangers snarl at one another. Rude, rude, rude, rude.
What will turn the tide so that when a newspaper reader is upset he doesn’t feel compelled to resort to snotty remarks? And if an inquiry is legitimate, why can’t it be asked politely? Just seems to me that “have a nice day” has been replaced with “stick it in your ear.” And that “excuse me” is fast becoming “move it, buster.”
Inherent in the intent to slap down someone else with words of ill will is the loss of respect for others. As Jane Addams put it, “Civilization is a method of living, an attitude of equal respect for all men.” (Jane said that a long time ago; today she would have added “and women.”) Sorry to say, tact, courtesy, empathy, respect and all those other virtues that define civilized people seem to be “out” and I’ll-say-what-I-please, “in.”
America needs a concerted effort to change how people relate with one other. There are ways to ensure that such a change becomes rooted in our national consciousness. We could, for example, add one word to the Pledge of Allegiance, so that we say in unison, “with liberty, justice and civility for all.” Oaths taken with one hand on the Bible could change to “I pledge to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth and I plan to do so politely, so help me God.” A line could be added to the Lord’s Prayer that says, “and forgive us our smart mouths as we attempt to be more cordial to others.”
Indira Gandhi said, “No one can shake hands with a clenched fist.” In the same vein, I submit that no one can truly communicate with angry words. Expressions of valid concerns are lost when cloaked in resentments. Statements of sound judgment are obscured in a fit of pique.
Besides, civilization is not only ill served when we clench our fists, but also when we treat others with rudeness rather than with respect.
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