Public Rudeness

Public Rudeness - My View

Dear Editor:

Seventy-nine percent of our neighbors think that America has a serious problem with rudeness. It did not take a poll for the average person to reach this conclusion. Unless one lives alone in an igloo in the Arctic he sees rudeness in action daily.

Contrary to Kristine McKenna it is not the nose blowers, or to Matt Crenson, it is not the cell phone users that are the most dangerous but the rude person behind the wheel of a car is a deadly missile looking for a target.

Public rudeness is but the natural fruit of the "me-generation." From my perspective the decline in public civility has some definite causes. Among them are 25 years of in your face TV, movies and comedy. This with 20 years of rap music has produced a generation of your "in your face adults." Two generations of latchkey kids have grown up primarily with day-care and school to mold and shape their social skills. The kids who grow up without discipline at home and in school are now the rude adults who demand their way and throw temper-fits if denied. Militant feminists have persuaded men that the courteous gestures of old fashioned gentleman are obsolete, unwanted and unneeded.

A sharp decline in the influence of Christianity in the last two generations of young Americans has left a noticeable deficiency in their public behavior. The refining civilizing influence of Christian morals and manners is sorely missed.

To see first hand what we have lost, one needs to visit a small town in the South and talk with its senior citizens. In our youth, especially our mothers taught us manners at home. Our fathers enforced those rules. We were also taught them at school and our principals enforced them. We were taught the basis for good manners in Sunday school and church as we learned the Golden Rule, to treat others as we wished to be treated. Even our neighbors reinforced our manners. If we behaved rudely, they corrected us or called or visited our parents to inform them. Would you believe our parents thanked them? We saw good manners in the movies we watched. We read about them in the books and magazines we read and in the songs we heard and sang. We saw them displayed by the adults in our life.

Young people respected adults and especially elderly people and reflected that in the way they addressed them and dealt with them. Men respected women. Boys respected girls. Children respected parents. Students respected teachers. Neighbors respected each other. Decent kids respected each other. Those who failed to do so were publicly corrected and even disciplined if they continued to act without civility.

In restoring manners and civility, progress can be made by going back to the old ways.

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