Common Courtesy – Where Did It Go, and Can We Ever Get It Back?
Posted: Tuesday, November 21, 2006
by Danny Davids
The driver of the automobile in the lane next to you suddenly pulls in front of you with no turning signal, cutting you off. As you slam on the brakes you tap on the horn. A window rolls down on the driver’s side and an arm slips out, flashing you the international hand gesture of goodwill. A few minutes later the same thing happens again, except this time it’s the driver in front of you who is getting cut off. He lays on his horn and gives the same gesture to the driver who just did to him what he did to you only a mile or so ago.
If it were just a matter of failure to show courtesy, I might be able to deal with the change. But there’s a darker side as well. People refuse to show the slightest bit of courtesy to others, yet they expect to receive courtesy anyway. If they don’t get the special treatment they feel they deserve, they consider it a personal affront and in many cases look for ways to retaliate for being “disrespected". And times of stress, like the holidays, make the problem even more evident.
As someone fast approaching the half-century mark, I would feel comforted if I could lay the blame for these attitude changes solely at the feet of the younger generation. At least I could feel somewhat self-righteousness. Unfortunately, I see this type of personality change reflected in people in their 40s and 50s and 60s. Even people in my parents’ generation are getting into the act.
I’m no psychologist, but I’ve been around the block a few times and have had ample opportunity to see people act and react in a number of situations. I have an idea or two as to why our society is becoming less concerned with showing courtesy to others.
A loss of humility. If we think we’re better than somebody else, our rights supersede theirs. What I need (or want) is more important than anything else. I see a lot of this in the business world, where position carries more weight than knowledge or experience. “I have a title after my name; you don’t. I’m important; you’re not. I’m okay; you’re not okay." (If you don’t get that last line, read Thomas A. Harris’s 1967 classic book on transactional analysis, “I’m OK – You’re OK"). Strangely, those who are on the receiving end of this attitude seem to take pride in their lowered status. “I don’t have a title after my name; you do. I’m not important; but neither are you. I’m not okay; you’re not okay."
A loss of respect. Regardless of the social level you perceive yourself to have reached in your environment, when you don’t view people as valuable individuals in society, it’s not necessary to show them any courtesy. This lack of respect comes at us from both sides. Those who feel they are better than us show no respect because we haven’t worked as hard as they have and so we don’t deserve it. Those we feel are beneath us show us no respect because they’re jealous of where we are in the grander scheme of things and must have gotten there through less-than-honorable means…and who can respect a person like that?
A loss of control. We answer to our employer, our co-workers, our vendors, our customers, our family members, our government. When everybody else is getting what they want and need at our expense, a person can feel like they come in dead last in the rat race. Add things like terrorist attacks, unemployment, rising oil prices, and “acts of God" like hurricanes and health issues, and there aren’t many things we can control. So we clutch at the few things we do have control over – our relationships with people we don’t even know. Chewing out a customer service clerk for something that isn’t her fault may not be fair, but it certainly puts us in the driver’s seat when dealing with control issues.
A loss of responsibility. When your self-esteem is out of kilter (either thinking too much or not enough of yourself), when you have no respect for other people, and when you feel as though you’re not in control, it’s easy to excuse your actions. Look at the crimes being covered on the evening news. Drive-by shootings, random acts of violence, brutal attacks with the accused showing no remorse whatsoever. In almost every case, there’s a reason why the person charged with the crime should be excused from punishment, because he or she couldn’t really be held responsible for his or her actions. It’s a sad commentary that in a world that demands somebody accept the blame for when things go wrong, nobody wants to stand up and say, “It’s my fault," even when it is.
So what do we need to do to change our society’s approach to common courtesy? Try these few simple steps to see if you can improve your attitude and that of those around you.
Start with yourself. You are not responsible for making the people around you change their ways. However, you can change your own habits. Accepting that it’s not your job to make everybody else in the world behave is liberating. It’s also necessary to remind yourself that it IS your job to make yourself play nice!
Remember the Golden Rule. Before you let loose on somebody with a derogatory verbal onslaught, think for a moment about what that person might be feeling or going through. Think about how you would feel if somebody responded to you in the manner in which you’re about to respond. If you’d be hurt, let it go. If you have a tougher skin, let it go anyway. One hundred years from now, how important will this issue be?
Focus on the value of human life. Whether a person is a CEO, an award-winning actor, a middle-class worker, or a homeless person on the streets, he or she is worth something. Each of us has something to contribute to society. Sometimes it’s easy to find out what our contribution should be; other times we have to hunt and dig and search to figure out what we can do to help make things better for those around us. It is not our place on this earth to judge people for what they are, but to prepare them for what they can become.
Work from the bottom up, not from the top down. We’ve heard it before – we can’t legislate morality. Government isn’t very successful implementing social change. However, when change starts with the individual and gradually works its way up the system, change is much more effective and more lasting.
Sure, some of this stuff sounds old-fashioned. And yet we could all benefit by reintroducing these concepts into our lives. It may take awhile, but we can make the world a better place for ourselves and certainly for our children and grandchildren. Besides, nobody ever died from being nice to somebody else. Okay, so there was one notable exception. But none of us is divine, so I think we’re safe.
This Article has been viewed 1,994 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)Danny, Touche! I concur. As a point of note, common courtesy is not common, neither is common sense. I guess at one time they were in great supply. There is a lot of angst on and off the road. People think it may be a particular region's problem, but coming from New England and now living in Los Angeles, I see much of the same. Of course, you see it on a greater scale in LA but if you go to Boston, Chicago, even Salt Lake City! it's on the rise. And I agree with you that we can't get caught up in it. I used to have "aggression" problems, but have curbed it to a great degree because it solves nothing. Here's what I'm trying to say: One moment of patience may ward off great disaster. One moment of impatience may ruin a whole life. ~Chinese Proverb Patience, humility, self-reliance, accountability, on and on. These principles used to be taught in the home. Today they seldom are. They are not even taught in schools. If parents don't want to teach them (many parents have not only left teaching--helping their kids with the homework--but parenting up to theachers--I've seen it for years, first hand) then they need to be taught in schools. Fast. Before things get not only out of hand but disastrous.I realize we live in cycles, where the pendulum swings one way for awhile and then back again. Still, it bothers me that there's such a lack of concern for our fellow man. Maybe the pendulum will swing back with the next generation. I sure hope so.
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.