Cartoon – pen & watercolour 9″ x 12″
artwork & content Copyright 2008 Jean Burman
If you’ve ever been left holding the door for an endless stream of otherwise-occupied people… (in an act of kindness gone madly wrong)…
If you’ve ever stepped aside at the checkout to allow someone with one item to go through first… (only to have the fully laden grocery trolley suddenly materialise from nowhere)
If you’ve ever pulled back in traffic to allow a car to merge into your lane (and four more barge in as well… without so much as a wave of thanks)
(I could go on… 
)
you will have experienced first hand the distressing modern day phenomenon of bad manners.
My father used to say “I’d give anything away… but I don’t like having it taken from me”
It’s not so much that you want them to reciprocate… it’s just that you wish things could be different… and that if they were going to be so downright rude… you’d hope they could be a little more courteous about it! (chuckles)
Good manners.. not to be confused with “etiquette” which is a whole ‘nother kettle of comparatively insignificant fish… is definitely going out of style!
No longer taught in schools… and less valued or encouraged at home… this next generation could be forgiven for not having an ice-cube’s hope in hell of dealing… (with decorum and grace)… with the burgeoning wave of bad manners, inconsideration, disrespect and self-centred boorishness that is fast becoming the norm in modern society. And no… it’s not just the young who are at fault. It seems that we more mature folk (ahem)… who were taught well… have either forgotten our P’s & Q’s… or have choosen to abdicate from our responsibility to pass them on! ~grin~
Fred Astaire
The hardest job kids face today is learning good manners without seeing any.
If you have ever wondered what cyber rage… road rage… supermarket rage (and any other type of rage you’d care to mention) had in common… wonder no more. All forms of modern “rage” from the superficial to the full scale global variety… have their origins in the loss of what we humans used to value highly and used to do rather well. Once upon a time… common courtesy… consideration… tolerance… and good manners were the order of the day. It made things tick. It made us feel good about ourselves and others. It gave us a rudder to steer ourselves by.
That was… until there were too many of us on the planet!
I blame population growth… an increasing anonymity… and the consequential loss of our sense of “community”. Anonymity provides the perfect cover for the rude and ignorant… who espouse the attitude
“No-one knows me… no-one can see me… I can do and say what I like”.
Back in the day when everyone “knew” someone… or at least… knew someone who knew someone else who knew you (if you know what I mean! LOL)… we all had to be accountable for our actions. “Reputation” was everything. Now there are no consequences… and someone’s pulled the pin on the checks and balances!
Confucius
Consideration for others is the basic of a good life, a good society.
These days… what we seem to have is a bunch of anonymous “out of control” people. They look like everyday people but hand them a mobile (cell) phone or a mouse… put them behind the wheel of a car… or in charge of a supermarket trolley (not to mention… in charge of a country! ~grin~) and those who would be war mongers grow horns… cruising the supermarket aisles and roads…. and surfing the superhighways of the planet with “virtual” impunity! Unwilling and unlikely to take responsibility for their words let alone their actions… there appears to be no cure for this run away condition! *wink*
Eric Hoffer
Rudeness is a weak imitation of strength.
Except… of course… for you and me! And what are we going to do about it?
Well I guess we’re going to do what we’ve always done. We’re going to continue to hold the door… defer to others at the supermarket checkout… and pull over to let someone else into our lane!
And why?
No… not because we are stupid… or for some perverse reason we feel the need to go around looking for punishment!
No…. we are going to keep doing it because it’s the right thing to do… and someone’s got to do it! We need people to once again set the example. Besides… if enough of us do it… it might even become trendy and fashionable… and the pendulum may swing (ever so laboriously) back the other way.
Oh… how I wish it would be so… *sigh* (((chuckles))))
Arthur Schopenhauer
Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.
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