What Happened to Civility?

We all know the experience by now: The loud person at the next table in a nice restaurant is babbling on a cell phone. "Where are you? . . . . Oh. . . . . Can you take out the trash?" It is not that we would mind it if something truly urgent were at stake, like a heart attack or something. But everywhere we are subjected to streams of discussion that do not concern us or are none of our business. Worse, sometimes we have to listen when the guy with the cell is fighting with his wife!

All of this is a symptom of an increased loss of manners and civility in the U.S.A. today. Appropriate behavior in appropriate circumstances seems to have been left behind.

I know that saying this will make me sound prim and almost Victorian. So be it. It is worth reminding ourselves that there are plenty of societies in the 21st century world where appropriate behavior is valued, encouraged and rewarded.

But what do I mean by civility? Stephen Carter, law professor at Yale and novelist (several years ago he published The Emperor of Ocean Park) wrote a wonderful little book called Civility: Manners, Morals, and the Etiquette of Democracy (Basic Books, 1998). Here is how Carter defines civility: "Civility . . . . . is the sum of the many sacrifices we are called to make for the sake of living together. When we pretend that we travel alone, we can also pretend that these sacrifices are unnecessary. Yielding to this very human instinct for self-seeking . . . . is often immoral, and certainly should not be done without forethought. We should make sacrifices for others not simply because doing so makes social life easier (although it does), but as a signal of respect for our fellow citizens, marking them as full equals, both before the law and before God. Rules of civility are thus also rules of morality: it is morally proper to treat our fellow citizens with respect, and morally improper not to. Our crisis of civility, then, is part of a larger crisis of morality. And because morality is what distinguishes humans from other animals, the crisis is ultimately one of humanity," pp. 11-12.

Cell phone behavior and road rage are standard examples for people commenting on civility today. But several other examples come to mind:

--At a distinguished Indiana liberal arts college known for its progressive policies, faculty and students, a distinguished conservative journalist is invited to speak. During the presentation, an outraged student throws a pie in his face.

--At a downtown Indianapolis retail establishment, a young woman enters the front door, runs up to a cashier and blows an airhorn in his ear, laughs and runs out the door. The cashier has his hearing potentially damaged and is unable to function out of shock.

--A telemarketer manages to get through the web of "n0-call" which I have established and refuses to stop pitching his goods, leaving me no alternative but to hang up.

--A server in a restaurant endures verbal abuse from a customer who has brought her personal problems into the "marketplace." The server is expected to give good customer service (at below standard wages!) to this woman.

What other examples could you add to this list from your own experience?

On television we see the examples of Jerry Springer, Dr. Phil, Family Courts and we think that it is normal to be rude and to let everything out, no matter how hurtful or uncomfortable it is for others. I can't forget the remark a friend from Latin America once made that after she arrived here in the U.S.A. she felt as though she could say or do anything that was on her mind because this was the way Americans act. When I asked why she had this opinion, she said that this is visible all the time on television. And she is right.

Even at the highest levels of our government, incivility seems to have taken hold. Maybe the arrogance of the Bush administration and its inability to see beyond its own policies, allows it to say things that normally should not be stated by governments. What about the derrogatory comments on France and the supposed "old Europe" when we were being pushed into the tragic war in Iraq? This kind of public language does not model careful conflict resolution among adversaries but encourages verbal abuse, pushiness, cultural insensitivity and rudeness at all levels of society.

As we train our children, places where in former times we worked out good rules of behavior, for example, the dinner table where we say "Thank you" and "Please pass the gravy" have almost disappeared. And the habit of writing thank you notes after Christmas, graduation, even weddings, seems to be a rapidly disappearing art.

My many years living in Africa taught me about the huge difference in cultures. It is still true, even in urban areas of Africa, that when you greet someone, you shake hands and ask how they are doing. You do not walk by a person without saying something, usually a formal greeting of some kind. The idea that you are not and isolated self-made person but someone who belongs to a larger group, with responsibilities to it, is what regulates all behavior. Of course, there are rude persons in Africa and rude behavior. That is human nature in all societies and at all times. But on that continent, which we often unfortunately characterize as "under-developed" the common good comes first.

In South Africa, there is a word umbuntu which implies togetherness and human-ness of the society in general.

I am thinking that America needs a good dose of umbuntu.