The First Breath of the Last Gasp of Civilization

Often, when people find out that my wife is married to a writer, they assume she must be wealthy and wonder why she bothers to work. Well, quite aside from the implied sexism in such a question (as if a woman whose husband is wealthy should not want to do anything productive with her life), the fact is that writers are not all rich. Very few of us are. (The ones you hear about the most might be well off, because they're bestselling authors and that is why you hear about them.)Most of us have to work in addition to writing. Many writers teach. I used to. But for the past 15 years, I've worked in retail and I've noticed something about people and how things seem to have changed in the way they behave toward one another.

There was a time when people were generally civil. They had, for the most part, anyway, good manners. They said things like "Please" and "Thank you." They were patient and considerate. But a lot of that seems to have gone by the boards. The expression, "Excuse me," for example, used to mean, "I beg your pardon." But nowadays, it seems to be a demand for attention, as in "Drop everything you're doing and take care of my needs immediately." And if at first it doesn't get the desired result, it is repeated, with increasing volume and insistence.

It's not just at my job where I've noticed this sort of thing. I see it in the grocery stores, in restaurants, in the post office, almost everywhere, in fact. There has been a dramatic increase, in recent years, in rudeness, impatience, and selfishness. And as a writer, part of what I do is observing people and I've been trying to figure out what is responsible for this.

Is it increased stress in society in general? Are people frustrated in their workplace, so that they have become hair trigger in taking their frustration out on others outside of their jobs? Is it that my generation, the so-called "baby boomers," have done a lousy job of parenting and not taught proper manners to their children or held them accountable? And, in extreme cases, is this resulting in violence, such as the sort of stories we've been seeing on the news of late? What has happened to simply being polite?

People "unfriend" those who disagree with them on social media. Or else they "flame" them (or whatever such personal attacks are called these days)or post inappropriate things about them on the net. They feel it is perfectly acceptable to "shame" people who are not the dress size they feel they should be, or who wear their skirts too short in their estimation, or believe differently than they do. And there seems to be this unprecedented sense of entitlement among so many people who think only of themselves and their own needs and give no thought to anybody else.

When I was growing up, we knew who our neighbors were and had relationships with them. Now, in so many cases, we not only do not know our neighbors, but often have no contact with them, unless it's to complain if they are making too much noise or not keeping up their lawns the way they should. People cut you off in traffic without even bothering to signal their intentions and often feel it's more important to reply to a text or cell phone message than to watch out for the bicyclist or pedestrian they might and often do run over. And each year, it just seems to get worse.

I don't have any great solutions to offer, but perhaps a small suggestion is in order. Here's a radical idea: start each day with an affirmation. "I am going to do my best to be polite today. I will work on developing some patience. And at least once, each day, I will try to think of someone other than myself." Corny? Maybe. But it's a small thing. What's it going to hurt to give it shot? If enough people do it, who knows, it just might make a difference.