What rock have you been under for the past 20 years?
I have lived in California my entire life, sometimes in San Franciso and Sometimes in and around Sacramento. Manners and courtesy died some 20 years back.
It has been a decade or 2 since anyone has ever waved at me in a car when I allowed him to merge into my lane or come in from a parking lot to a crowded street.
Courtesy and manners died a good 20 years ago and it has gotten worse since then.
Pop culture has made it worse, or perhaps art is just imitating life. 40 years ago we would NEVER have tolerated commercials with abrasive people bullying others. Today it is encouraged and it is the role model who is telling people off to be left alone to eat a burger, or pushing people aside to grab the last product from a shelf.
And the flood of immigrants has only made it worse. Some cultures from over-crowded conditions embrace might makes right. In these countries, there is no waiting in line for your turn. They method is just to shove to the front, pushing others aside. Now that those immigrants are here, they have brought with them their “shove you aside, push to the front” mentality.
We are a long way from Ward Cleaver, sharing, holding doors open, saying “you first” or granting a courtesy wave.
Today it is all about “you dissing me”, “F you”, the middle finger, what can I get by force, up yours, eat my dust, get outta my way.
As we become a less Christian nation, the Golden Rule is dying. I just can’t believe you haven’t seen it until 2012. Manners and courtesy died a good 20 years ago or more.
I lived in gods country (100 miles from Minneapolis) until a few years ago. out there, problems like this, didn’t happen.