Wednesday, August 19, 2009
The End of American Civility:
By Phillip T. Alden
August 19, 2009
N.B. I should be working, but I felt this was an essay I had to write, (and post.)
I cross-posted this essay to my Live Journal web log.
I am forty-five years old and I’ve spent most of my life in the United States, (where I was born.) As time goes by I have seen my fellow Americans become not only less-civil, but openly hostile to people who don’t believe the same things they do.
We are all seeing it over this “health care” circus, but it started long before Barack Obama was elected President.
And it’s been helped along by people like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, and that awful woman whose name escapes me at the moment. It doesn’t help that people like Rupert Murdoch has given these people a platform upon which they can launch their hatred and intolerance.
I have heard people say things in public, and in front of TV cameras, that they would have been ashamed to say a few years ago. This is not progress, it is the opposite – regression. Our society is regressing into a state where we all act like animals. Violating pictures of the President and calling him (and others) a Nazi is an abhorrent action to any American Jew. To say such a thing is inexcusable, and the people who have made such public statements should apologize to all Jews for their insensitivity and their horrific comparisons.
But they won’t. Because these people are proud of the hate-filled rhetoric they are spouting. I guess it’s a result of George W. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind.” There’s no more room to teach civics or civility in American public schools. I recently had a young adult tell me he had no responsibility to vote or take part in his representative government.
And this isn’t happening just at town hall meetings on health care. This is happening everywhere. My friends report incivility in supermarkets, in movie theater lines, and in retail stores. Incivility is the new standard of behavior. When people say; “I’ve got my health care. Fuck you;” they don’t even realize the damage they are doing both to others and to themselves. Because all that hate and anger and racism has to come through them before it comes out of them. Just as the axe blade is dulled from chopping down the tree, these people damage themselves as they insult and damage others.
But, sadly, they will not realize this. By the time you are spouting Nazi rhetoric in public your mind is beyond understanding the effects of your words and actions. It would take serious reflection and meditation for these people to truly realize what they are doing.
It’s very sad and it makes me weep for my country. When Erik and I travel to other countries I am struck by the civility and polite behavior of people. Not everyone is acting like an asshole with no conscience or regard for their fellow man, Americans are acting like assholes with no conscience or regard for their fellow man. It’s shameful, and in the eyes of the world, it makes us look like troglodytes.
But these people don’t care how the rest of the world views them. They don’t care how civilized Americans are appalled at their words and actions. They have been conditioned to be so self-absorbed and self-interested that opposing viewpoints and civilized observations mean nothing to them. They are blinded by hate and rage that has been spoon-fed to them by people like Limbaugh and Beck. They do not even realize they have become tools of people who don’t even care about them. They are being used like a washrag and will be disposed of just as easily.
What may be truly sad is that, in their anger and their fear, they think they are helping themselves, and they aren’t. History has shown us time after time that only when you help others do you help yourself. People who believe that they can help themselves and screw everyone else are dangerously deluded, and it’s only after their twisted worldview has fallen apart that they realize their selfishness was their enemy and not their friend.
Some of them never realize it, and blame others out of bitterness for their failure as human beings.
As I’ve been watching the video clips online, I look at these people and realize that I would not befriend them, I would not date them, and I would avoid them whenever possible. I don’t think these people realize how ugly they appear when they act this way. If these people went to a job interview for a position they really wanted, and their interviewer caught their “Nazi bit” on the news, they likely wouldn’t get the job, and they’d never know that their behavior cost them that opportunity.
A long shot you think? The world is much smaller in some ways than you realize, and people see things. Your public behavior can, and will, come back to bite you on the ass.
But even if it doesn’t, these abhorrent actions damage civilized discourse, and civility in general. This lack of compassion, open hatred, and hate-based rhetoric will make this a poorer country than you can envision. It’s already happening.
I don’t expect these people engaging in uncivilized behavior to take this essay seriously, or to look at themselves and see room for improvement. But someday they will have an experience, and they will wonder how the persons involved can be so inhumane and cruel. They may even weep at the inhumanity.
And they’ll never realize they are part of the cause. Maybe that’s the saddest part of all.
By Phillip T. Alden
August 19, 2009
N.B. I should be working, but I felt this was an essay I had to write, (and post.)
I cross-posted this essay to my Live Journal web log.
I am forty-five years old and I’ve spent most of my life in the United States, (where I was born.) As time goes by I have seen my fellow Americans become not only less-civil, but openly hostile to people who don’t believe the same things they do.
We are all seeing it over this “health care” circus, but it started long before Barack Obama was elected President.
And it’s been helped along by people like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, and that awful woman whose name escapes me at the moment. It doesn’t help that people like Rupert Murdoch has given these people a platform upon which they can launch their hatred and intolerance.
I have heard people say things in public, and in front of TV cameras, that they would have been ashamed to say a few years ago. This is not progress, it is the opposite – regression. Our society is regressing into a state where we all act like animals. Violating pictures of the President and calling him (and others) a Nazi is an abhorrent action to any American Jew. To say such a thing is inexcusable, and the people who have made such public statements should apologize to all Jews for their insensitivity and their horrific comparisons.
But they won’t. Because these people are proud of the hate-filled rhetoric they are spouting. I guess it’s a result of George W. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind.” There’s no more room to teach civics or civility in American public schools. I recently had a young adult tell me he had no responsibility to vote or take part in his representative government.
And this isn’t happening just at town hall meetings on health care. This is happening everywhere. My friends report incivility in supermarkets, in movie theater lines, and in retail stores. Incivility is the new standard of behavior. When people say; “I’ve got my health care. Fuck you;” they don’t even realize the damage they are doing both to others and to themselves. Because all that hate and anger and racism has to come through them before it comes out of them. Just as the axe blade is dulled from chopping down the tree, these people damage themselves as they insult and damage others.
But, sadly, they will not realize this. By the time you are spouting Nazi rhetoric in public your mind is beyond understanding the effects of your words and actions. It would take serious reflection and meditation for these people to truly realize what they are doing.
It’s very sad and it makes me weep for my country. When Erik and I travel to other countries I am struck by the civility and polite behavior of people. Not everyone is acting like an asshole with no conscience or regard for their fellow man, Americans are acting like assholes with no conscience or regard for their fellow man. It’s shameful, and in the eyes of the world, it makes us look like troglodytes.
But these people don’t care how the rest of the world views them. They don’t care how civilized Americans are appalled at their words and actions. They have been conditioned to be so self-absorbed and self-interested that opposing viewpoints and civilized observations mean nothing to them. They are blinded by hate and rage that has been spoon-fed to them by people like Limbaugh and Beck. They do not even realize they have become tools of people who don’t even care about them. They are being used like a washrag and will be disposed of just as easily.
What may be truly sad is that, in their anger and their fear, they think they are helping themselves, and they aren’t. History has shown us time after time that only when you help others do you help yourself. People who believe that they can help themselves and screw everyone else are dangerously deluded, and it’s only after their twisted worldview has fallen apart that they realize their selfishness was their enemy and not their friend.
Some of them never realize it, and blame others out of bitterness for their failure as human beings.
As I’ve been watching the video clips online, I look at these people and realize that I would not befriend them, I would not date them, and I would avoid them whenever possible. I don’t think these people realize how ugly they appear when they act this way. If these people went to a job interview for a position they really wanted, and their interviewer caught their “Nazi bit” on the news, they likely wouldn’t get the job, and they’d never know that their behavior cost them that opportunity.
A long shot you think? The world is much smaller in some ways than you realize, and people see things. Your public behavior can, and will, come back to bite you on the ass.
But even if it doesn’t, these abhorrent actions damage civilized discourse, and civility in general. This lack of compassion, open hatred, and hate-based rhetoric will make this a poorer country than you can envision. It’s already happening.
I don’t expect these people engaging in uncivilized behavior to take this essay seriously, or to look at themselves and see room for improvement. But someday they will have an experience, and they will wonder how the persons involved can be so inhumane and cruel. They may even weep at the inhumanity.
And they’ll never realize they are part of the cause. Maybe that’s the saddest part of all.
# posted by Phillip T. Alden @ 8:40 PM 
