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Special Report

We Are a Rude Awakening

By on 8.28.09 @ 6:08AM

If rudeness is so pervasively commonplace throughout our society, does it cease to be rudeness?

(Page 2 of 2)

Their kinder, gentler social world certainly makes Plato’s “society is the soul writ large” ring true.

Respectful manners of yesteryear came easy because they came from within, from the heart. The zombied “have a nice day” politeness is, sadly, characteristic of today’s social world. Being genuinely respectful and solicitous of one another is literally heartfelt because it taps into empathy, a moral emotion that is literally and figuratively at the heart of the moral brain. Empathy makes it possible to put ourselves in others’ shoes, to feel their pain, and to do for others as you would have done to you.

Another 18th century figure, the Scottish philosopher and economist Adam Smith, very astutely viewed empathy as the backbone of a code of ethics that keeps society running smoothly. In point of fact, his Moral Sentiments has served as the philosophical fulcrum beneath much of the neuroscience research on morality.

Astonishingly, Emily Post, who had neither philosophy nor even a tid-bit of neuroscience at her dainty fingertips, declared that “manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others….no matter what fork you use”. What’s more, as Mark Caldwell points out in his book A Short History of Rudeness, Post brilliantly observed that when society misbehaves, good behavior and morality come “unglued from each other”. With this she unknowingly laid out the neural architecture and dynamics of the moral brain that neuroscientists are proving today. Without ever having to take off her white gloves.

Similarly, has our behavior come “unhinged”?… From the wellspring of moral values deep within our brain?

Yes. Let’s simplify. Our moral neural circuitry, that scaffolding inside our brain, has been short-circuited by the self-centered, self-besotted ways we have come to acquire in full force. The pleasure associated with satisfying our newfound solipsistic cravings is trumping our moral code and “telling” us that our views and our needs — to show we’re right, to exhibit dominance, to get what we want and now — are more important than anyone else’s. It’s the new dopamine fix and the addiction is to self and self alone.

Inward, narcissistic focus means we don’t focus on others. We can’t be bothered to understand how others feel because we are devoid of empathy and a lack of empathy is the sine qua non of antisocial or sociopathic behavior. The extreme on psychology’s continuum or sliding scale of diagnoses has the Ted Bundys of the world — whose lack of empathy was so severe he could kill without remorse — while the other end of the scale holds the rude-ites — who hurl insult and injury in various forms of rudeness without any compunction whatsoever for the effect it has on others.

Emily Post’s insightful wisdom, yet again: Unconsciousness of self is not so much unselfishness as it is the mental ability to extinguish all thought of one’s self, like turning out the light. Perhaps she read Plato who warned society against becoming so self focused as to be void of the glue that holds it together.

So we live in a society that is Platonically coming unglued, falling apart. E pluribus unum was the de facto motto of the United States until 1956 when Congress adopted “In God We Trust” instead. But now it might as well be erased from our currency, too, as it no longer has any purchase. It is now all about unum.

But is this phenomenon particular to our society alone? Take Asia and South America. There is a palpable levity felt long before reaching Tokyo’s Nareda Airport when gate agents at the departure gate bow solemnly to passengers as they walk onto the jetway towards the plane. There is no personal, cheesy chit-chat blaring from the galleys and interrupting your dreams. Onboard a Japanese airline, the calming blanket of silence is more somnolent than any Ambien experience. And the flight attendants are truly embarrassed if you have to ask for something they haven’t anticipated. A truly empathic experience that stays with you after you leave the airport and throughout the land of the rising sun.

Below the equator, in Brazil, there’s even a word — not found in the English language — that uniquely conveys the empathy one feels for his brethren. Coitado means “poor thing” but when it’s not enough to express, Brazilians go a step further and say pobre (poor) coitado. There is a palpable solidarity of humanity in the land of samba — a chronic awareness of the needs and plights of others — that comes with a very visible and critical mass of empathy. You can get a taste of it in the unbridled warm hospitality that even the American Airlines ad says Brazilians are the warmest people. Empathy is truly the social lubricant, and it also explains why Brazilians — even the poor — are extraordinarily cheerful people.

So why are we so self-focused? The great entertainer, the television, now virally aided and abetted by the Internet, has torn into our social fabric with a dollar-chasing commercial enterprise that puts the self, raunchy and rude behavior, and, of course, violence, on a pedestal.

Emily Post’s gentle reader is now the coarse viewer absorbing vulgarities as social mores. I need point no further than the pathological smut broadcast as normal conduct in: Megan Wants a Millionaire, Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire?, Big Brother, I Love $, Keeping Up With the Kardashians, My Redneck Wedding, The Girls Next Door, cosmetic surgery makeover shows, and so much more. And, lest we forget, the biting and gratuitous rudeness of Simon Cowell.

If ratings are an indicator, it is clear that viewers are captivated by the antisocial behavior and enchanted with the neurotic focus on the self and instant fame. The Arts & Entertainment Channel used to live up to its name but began to lose viewers until Dog the Bounty-Hunter (trash extraordinaire) brought it out of its rating doldrums to the number one spot.

Who is watching this stuff? Millions, sadly. But, more to the point, there remains a chicken-and-egg conundrum: Did the show satisfy the cravings of society or did cravings lead to the shows?

It is self-evident that the first estate, the elected elite, has also been glued to the screen, if their behavior is any indication. Or could it be that the sundry coarse indiscretions of Clinton, Foley, Sanford, Ensign, Spitzer, Craig, and so on, served as inspirational content instead.

In spite of all this mess, we seem to be pre-occupied with being a great country. Can we even be great behaving like this? One thing is certain, we have met our enemy and, indeed, it is us.

Page:   12

About the Author

Marilia Duffles is a contributor to the Financial Times and the Economist. She has also written for the Globo, Brazil’s leading newspaper.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (53) |

how to grow taller | 8.28.09 @ 6:43AM

Chimps trust when they receive generosity, express resentment when others don't share and swiftly punish those who behave selfishly.

Melvin| 8.28.09 @ 7:50AM

My parents raised me in a atmosphere of civility, that men took their hats of when stepping inside a structure or even when addressing a woman or an elder.
It was expected that men opened doors for women and the woman replied with a thank you. But times have changed haven't they.
Women openly assail unsuspecting individuals with a foul mouth vulgarity that would make Satan himself blush.
Men and Women walk the streets half undressed with undergarments in open display as well as their charms for all those to see whether they want to or not.
The feminist moved beat it into our heads that men are evil, and vile and if a man should be stupid enough to open a door for a female he should glared at with mocking contempt.
How many times have any one of us walked into a convenience store and stood their for an inordinate amount of time while the person beyond the counter didn't even acknowledge our existence. How many times have we went to the post office and were totally ignored until the bureaucrat behind the counter decide he or she was damn good and ready to help us.
We used to be called the, "Ugly Americans" abroad when we traveled, now we are just ugly to each other here.
In response to "How to grow taller" Why don't you just shut up and give me my damn banana.
My apologies to "How to grow taller" I was just using his post as an example of the human aspect of sharing.

Campy| 8.28.09 @ 9:59AM

"Did the show satisfy the cravings of society or did cravings lead to the shows?"

Methinks another question to be asked is: Or do the shows lead to cravings?

When trash is standard fare and not only accepted, but glorified, what other result is expected? GIGO.

Robert Rosencrans| 8.28.09 @ 10:34AM

Manners require judgment and desire and motivation. Public schools and colleges are churning out masses of citizens who can not be told they are wrong or have failed. Therefore, failure is objectified, perhaps glorified.

Public gatherings or shopping excursions become adventures of maneuvering around rude unfocused drivers for the pleasure of going into a store to deal with unfocused people there brushing by you with a cell phone glued to their ears. It is they who are important, not you. In essence, they buy into elitism. Who are you to get in their way? Their out of control brats bump into you in the check out line and there will be no chastisement.

Fifty years of the pursuit of faux equality has bought us to this point and one can only wonder what lies ahead.

L. Ross| 8.28.09 @ 12:00PM

"I felt sorry for Congressman Barney Frank having to stand up for both issue and self as he humbly battled the babbling rabble-rouser who kept belligerently interrupting him."

Sorry, but after seeing Barney Frank's smug, self satisfied performance on 60 minutes and learning of his central role in the mortgage meltdown, I think belligerently interrupting him is the most mild interaction that Frank has earned.

TLM| 8.28.09 @ 12:31PM

Why are people rude? Easy. They never learned boundaries. Parents for the last few generations did not parent. They became "friends" to their children. Doing everything they could to make sure they were liked by their kids. The children have control and any bad behavior is not modified. They end up not receiving any sort of education about personal responsibility or social acceptability. They are wild animals that educate themselves with knowledge from their friends (equally as clueless and wild) or television (moral-free and filled with negative reinforcement). Boundaries are extremely important for a society to function well. They keep your junk in and other people's junk out. They keep you aware of how you are influencing your environment and how it is influencing you. Sadly, this key feature to healthy interaction has been lost in this society. You can only teach what you know. And what our society now knows is rudeness.

Dave Williams| 8.28.09 @ 12:58PM

Thank you for a well-written, thought-provoking article. However, please permit me a point of pedantry -- and I don't mean to be rude -- but Jane Austen died in 1817, a full twenty years before Victoria became queen.

PolishKnight| 8.28.09 @ 1:07PM

Perhaps some of the answer to the question of where politeness went has to do with it's arbitrary nature: pinky-fingers extended when drinking tea became equal to holding open a door for a struggling elder. I know many people like this who are the rudest jerks imaginable... when they think they can get away with it under The Rules. It's the distinction between manners and etiquette.

Consider the tradition of taking one's hat off when entering a building or addressing a lady. For one thing, most men don't wear hats nowadays and, if they do, they are these cheap flip-ups that don't denote any class. And women's liberation eliminated the concept of women falling behind men in certain ways to maintain their virtues including not wearing pants, earning more money in laeu of staying-at-home with the kids, etc.

Liberalism itself, of course, has long been about throwing manners to the wind in the goal of personal gratification and empowerment or spreading the word of their supreme, greater beliefs. Yes, it's shocking and even depressing to see conservatives screaming during town halls but, then again, hasn't this rudeness worked for the left for decades? Don't many of them secretly regard conservatives as polite suckers, required to fight with both hands tied behind their backs? Don't we have an MLK day (and no GW or AL day)precisely because of the rabble rousing tactics of passive resistance?

Nick| 8.28.09 @ 1:32PM

Miss Duffles,

With all due respect, you need to stop being so nostalgic about the manners of our ancestors.

While they may have been polite in their writtings, I'm sure even Emily Post could be rude if her pique were aroused.

The common folk could be just as rude in Victorian times as they can be today. Do you think Mary Kelly (a prostitute killed by Jack the Ripper) drank her beer with her pinky extended?

We must remember that while customs, circumstances, and technology may change over the course of history, PEOPLE do not.

And if you are going to buy into the canard that manners are "hard-wired" into our brains, you are on the road to believing murderers, like Ted Bundy, are not responsible for their actions because they are "born that way".

Padoux| 8.28.09 @ 1:52PM

Reared in the south I was taught to yes mam & yes sir, which I still use today often when dealing with strangers even though I am 63. At table we were admonished not to "speak over" or interrupt our elders. The vulgarity & lack of manners today is appalling. I try to be polite to all but I get very angry when others are rude & completely indifferent to others, whether in a crowd, driving, in a store or movies theater. Many people if they bump into you offer no "pardon me." They block aisles in markets indifferent to others. I also do it by accident but apologize & move, or if I bump into some one say pardon me. These are small things but go a long way to making life a little more pleasant.

Al Adab| 8.28.09 @ 3:06PM

"Does it cease to be rudness?"
Perhaps. I might remind you that "Treason doth never prosper, for when it prospers none dare call it Treason".

Ken (Old Texican)| 8.28.09 @ 4:01PM

Who the heck cares what anyone named "DUFFLES" has to say?

Stupid choice of articles, spectator!

From now on, I am being polite to communist murderors when I don't stick my 12 guage shotgun up their left nostril! (grin)

Dixie Pixie| 8.28.09 @ 4:31PM

To: (Old Texican) New and Improved with “Chemical X”
and now called (Ken)

Before you use any weapon remember the following wise words.

Lee Marvin Do you know what your only mistake was?
Charles Bronson No, What?
Lee Marvin You let someone see you.
“The Dirty Dozen 1967”

Dixie Pixie| 8.28.09 @ 4:37PM

To: (Old Texican) New and Improved with “Chemical X” and now called (Ken).

Before you use any weapon remember the following wise words.

Lee Marvin---------Do you know what your only mistake was?
Charles Bronson---No, What?
Lee Marvin---------You let someone see you.
------“The Dirty Dozen 1967”------

Sorry about the mucked up spacing.
I forgot the TAS word editor changes the usage of spaces.

Ken (Old Texican| 8.28.09 @ 4:58PM

(Sigh!) Okay, Pixie...how about "when I stick my 12 guage up his/her sundon'tshine"? (grin)

Alan Brooks| 8.28.09 @ 9:35PM

America's rudeness is as nothing compared to its tastelessness. But even the Baltimore Sage couldn't have known that no one will ever go broke underestimating taste.

So you can all rest assured that our economy WILL recover.

chen| 8.29.09 @ 1:35AM

America's rudeness is as nothing compared to its tastelessness. But even the Baltimore Sage couldn't have known that no one will ever go broke underestimating taste.
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So you can all rest assured that our economy WILL recover.

Kevin, Meath| 8.29.09 @ 7:01AM

Since the 1960's it has been pushed not to conform, to push against any boundaries society places and that in many ways has been a very good thing. However it can be a negative thing and poor manners and foul language in society is one of those negatives. The media/society encourages it. The rebel is always the hero, the 'maverick' cop the central character of many a film, those who take 'direct action' ,especially if its violent, for the 'cause' become lionised, to quietly and politely work at something is considered 'weak'.

James Wilson | 8.29.09 @ 11:04AM

I think the reasons for the decay of manners is reciprocity and the death of the arts. The first is essentially reactionary; it's very hard to remain polite when the other guy is breaking all the rules. Take lawyers as an example. Once upon a time lawyers were honorable and considered among the MOST honorable people in society. Now they are the epitome of dishonor. That was brought about by (purportedly) good intentions. Clarence Darrow and his 'progressive' buddies decided it was okay to do anything at all to win because of their higher purpose: to end the death penalty. When one side is willing to go to any length, it almost forces the other side to go further or else lose. History is full of honorable losers and winning scoundrels. When polite manners become a symbol for weakness in a culture, two things are certain: that culture is moribund, and the first to go will be those with good manners.

The second reason is the death of the arts. It doesn't matter whether it was a plot by the Frankfurt school or just an unhappy accident, the central organizing principle of art today is to shock, and as it gets harder and harder to shock people, 'art' has to go further and further into forbidden or taboo realms. The fact that those areas were taboo for a reason doesn't worry an individual who after all is trying to win a place for himself, after all, everybody else is doing it.

Though I agree that Victorian manners were far too stultified and grimly rigid, it doesn't follow that all the areas they considered taboo shouldn't be. In the end that is what the 'left' is all about--fighting against the non-existent Victorian world. Liberals in America have apparently never met any conservatives because they're still attacking stereotypes that vanished long ago, which is one reason they're so surprised at the rude behavior of many conservatives in the Town Hall meetings recently. They keep looking for mustachioed men in beaver hats, but they persistently refuse to appear--no doubt they're secretly sending out orders from Chatsworth House where they maintain their little slice of Victoriana. Beware, someday you too may receive your orders on pretty hot-pressed paper well-covered in beautifully flowing script.

Etiquette Man| 8.29.09 @ 12:01PM

The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter. . . . Children . . . no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs and tyrannize their teachers.

--(Attributed to) Socrates

james j wilson| 8.29.09 @ 12:22PM

It is unfortunate that Ruffles, in generating these questions, in herself provokes no answers .

Sick cultures show a complex of symptoms., but a dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters.
A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant that a riot--Heinlein

The evils produced by extreme equality become apparent only gradually; little by little they creep into the heart of society; they are noticed every now and again so that, when they are at their most disturbing, habit has already nullified their effect-Tocqueville

Polemicscat | 8.29.09 @ 5:31PM

Rallies and demonstrations are not places for reasoned discussion of governmental policy. It wasn't in 1968 when it was the main tactic of the left. It was encouraged then by the always-left- leaning media. Today, the right has learned that having public demonstrations is the only way to make objections heard when the left still controls the media.

The Founding Fathers could be more literate and reasonable when they disagreed with each other because, for one thing, there were fewer people (and a smaller percentage of the population) involved in politics.

If anyone wants to get away from rudeness, the only place to find good manners is in the nation's South. But there it is disappearing as rude people from the north settle there.

Alan Brooks| 8.29.09 @ 11:34PM

no, you're romaticizing the South. I spent a dozen suumers there (near Asheville, NC, which is a choice city), and though many dignified Robert E. Lee- types live in the South, they have always been in the minority. You don't think the South is heaven on earth, do you?

Romanticization is just fine for rightwingers-- but not for solid conservatives. Nothing wrong with being rightwing, but I grew up in a squishylib family and am exclusively interested in solid conservatism.
BTW, Rudeness IS acceptable in small doses-- cruel to be kind in the right measure.

A. Brooks| 8.29.09 @ 11:36PM

wait, that is summers, not 'suumers'-- this isn't Finland.

and to hell with chen and his footwaer blurbs.

Johnny Knuckles| 8.30.09 @ 8:05AM

"Knees, backsides and hand-bags took swipes at me as people rushed towards the empty seats in my row with nary an "excuse me" being uttered."

What are you doing sitting at the aisle end of the row with empty seats in the middle? Maybe all those bumpity folks thought you were terribly rude for blocking the row of empty seats. For shame!

Michael L. Hauswchild| 8.30.09 @ 8:29AM

"thought laws don't hold a torch to manners:"

An armed society is a polite society. (See Old Texan.)

Grzmlyk| 8.30.09 @ 2:44PM

I believe the entitlement mentality has had a corrosive effect on civility. It bred our lovely gangsta' culture and the whole concept that the point of life is simply to "get paid" - gratification of the self above and at the expense of other human beings, detached from outdated concepts like mutual benefit and rightfully-earned desserts (and reflected as well in the credit-card culture that continues to erode our financial well-being).

The welfare state has fostered a zero-sum mentality to things both material and spiritual. Not coincidentally, this is the opposite of what the great "social justice" movement (i.e., "from each according to his needs. . .") pretends to facilitate.

While rudeness has certainly existed from time immemorial, we have now institutionalized it and, through white guilt, political correctness and the diminution of the expectation of civlity, we actively encourage it - in no small measure thanks to the entitelement mentality.

As just one of myriad examples, look at the way we sexualize women today (thanks, women's lib!). We - and, too often they - glory in their utter, crass objectification. We sexualize kids at an ever-younger age, and the raunchy pornification of mainstream society is accepted with nary a wimper (I have no doubt that we are about to witness the erstwhile squeaky-clean Miley Cyrus go the "Skank" route as she embarks on the next phase of her career - because that's where the money is for young female pop stars).

A glance at some of the Internet's never-ending supply of porn sites is monumentally disturbing - not just because porn is now so prevalent and easy to access, unsettling as that is, nor because porn has, despite its assimilation into middle-class mores, always been about exploitation and the basest of human instincts.

No, there is something even more upsetting on display. In its neverending quest to push the sensationalist envelope, porn has become about something entirely removed from the old fashioned voyeristic thrill of watching two (or more) people "do it."

Indeed, the content can hardly be classified as sexual at all anymore. It's more akin to what it must have been like to watch circus geeks of old: Insensitive, dehumanized, non-descript people abusing themselves and each other in anonymous and ever-escalating ways that have nothing whatsoever to do with even the pretense of mutual pleasure. They are in fact lone (and ultimately lonely) acts of simulated self-gratification through the abuse of other random bodies or body parts - preferably strangers'.

What comes through most is a disturbing brutality that is painful to watch - along with the depressing awareness that so many performers are so willing to subject themselves and others to increasingly horrifying acts that are the exact opposite of what true sex is.

And there seems to be no end to the supply of these human beings willing and even proud to abase themselves in this way.

Likewise, there seems to be no bottom to the pit of human degradation into which so many are now so willing to plunge - or at least watch others plunge.

Ironic as it sounds, you know a culture's really gone to when its pornography glorifies sadism above all else.

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Dave Lincoln| 8.30.09 @ 11:11PM

"America's rudeness is as nothing compared to its tastelessness. "

Yeah, Chen, the kind of tastelessness that makes someone spam a political opinion web site with shoe ads every damn day? I'll show you rudeness, Chen; sell me just one of your knock-off shoes for 5 RMB, and I'll stick it up your Chink ass!

Now that's rudeness!

BTW, Mirilia, you may think the Oriental people are not rude (and in many ways they are indeed more polite), but try waiting in line to get on a bus in China or onto a subway in Tokyo. You can explain to all the people in front of you that they are not supposed to cut ;-) I wish you all the lucky in the world, as they might say.

Your experience is from a $2,000 ticket in coach or a $6,000 ticket in business class on an Asian-owned airline. Do you call that enough experience to make you an expert on politeness of peoples of the world? Of course, they're going to be real nice to you at 2 or 6 K. I would too. Bidness is bidness.

Larry Disney| 8.31.09 @ 12:16AM

There are no consequences for bad or rude behavior. Not so many years ago rudeness would elicit a rebuke at the least, a poke in the nose was not unheard of. A few centuries ago a duel was not out of the question. People are polite when the alternative might get them killed, smacked or humiliated. Now we just hunker down and tolerate what would previously have been intolerable.

pmcronin| 8.31.09 @ 5:21PM

I haven't been on an airplane in several years, and I don't remember ever flying JAL, but I've flown on Asian and American owned air lines. I've got to say that the mob scenes of non-westerners at Narita to board the bus at the gate to get to the aircraft to the 3rd World is anything but polite, and more closely resembles a "Survival of the Fittest" mentality. I've generally observed much more order and courtesy at American airports; Tokyo always reminded me of an early a.m. crowd outside a Walmart awaiting the opening for the Black Friday Super Sale.

Firelite | 8.31.09 @ 5:31PM

I listen to a talk show host in Houston who clowns Queen Sheila almost daily. He creates these hilarious parodies about her that he plays on his show. Everybody I know listens to them and forwards the link for others to hear. They are friggin awesome.

I don’t know how long he will keep them up, but you can hear them by going to: http://www.ktrh.com/pages/michaelberry.html

Funny stuff. We here in Houston have been watching Sheila and her silliness for years. You’re only now finding out how bad she can be.

Jimmy Carter| 8.31.09 @ 8:07PM

I'm surprised noone has mentioned breeding children with overinflated egos by telling them to have self-esteem when they have accomplished absolutely nothing to earn it; creating all these people that think they are the most important person in the world.

Larry Disney| 9.1.09 @ 12:48AM

Hey Jimmy, It seems to have worked for Obama.

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