Lately, everywhere I read, I see articles about the increased cruelty/meanness/rudeness of our modern world. Articles titled How America Got Mean, Bad behavior at ‘Barbenheimer’ reflects a worrying trend, If you’ve felt like people are getting crueler, you may be right, We no longer know how to behave in public, and others are proliferating like Taylor Swift number one albums. And, when I read them, I think, “Yes! This is why I hate going to the movies/flying on planes/driving in cities.”
But is it true? A recent article in Nature posits no, that the illusion of moral decline is just that. Studies show that cooperation between strangers has actually increased over time. (You will NOT convince me we are much much ruder on planes, however.)
What do you think? Are people genuinely ruder than they used to be? And, if so, why do you think that is? And, for me, most importantly, what can we do to change that?
WARNING: Long, boring post on the technical aspects of the Nature article. The Nature article doesn’t really address moral decline so much as it addresses the perception of moral decline. In other words, it doesn’t treat morality as a constant and then scientifically research whether that constant has declined or increased. They provide evidence for the idea that ” the perception of moral decline is a psychological illusion to which people all over the world and throughout history have been susceptible.” The big problem with that is that morality is, to many a man-made construct in a constant state of flux, so decline/incline is strictly a personal belief. A simple example of this would be opening a door. For many years it was considered poor manners for a man not to open a door for a woman. The practical reason for this is that ladies of certain ranks wore long, cumbersome attire for centuries and often had both hands occupied in keeping their dress from tripping them and didn’t have a free hand for the door. In the 60s/70s it became a sign of the patriarchy to open a door for women; I remember it being discussed in a re-run of “The Partridge Family“. (They believed door opening was simple courtesy, not oppression.) Right now, it is often considered rude not to open the door for the person behind you or at least make sure they have the door before it would slam in their face.So an older person might consider something rude that young people would vehemently disagree with simply because the standard changed as society did. I’m not going to get into class structure or culture but both heavily impact what is considered rude. IE, slurping noodles acceptable in China and Korea, frowned upon at Olive Garden.
Sorry for the long post but I just had to get that off my chest.
And yet I think the metric they use does speak to moral decline in as much as moral decline is subjective. If, over time, the sense we have never changes, then it’s unlikely IMO that we are acting more immorally.
That’s true, and yet I would add that the perception we are is too variable for us to answer the question objectively. It’s like the term freezing. I can say I am freezing in my air-conditioned home when I am many, many degrees from actually doing so. OTH, there is a scientific standard for freezing that would serve as a guide if I were in actual danger of hypothermia. So I can have a perception of freezing (meaning very cold/uncomfortable), but there is also a way to check if I am actually in danger from cold. The problem is we haven’t set that constant for morality. Statistics would be needed to tell us if we actually are more immoral, even if we don’t perceive ourselves to be. I always think of Nazi Germany. A whole slew of people didn’t see what they were doing as immoral. How was that possible? And yet compare them to conquering nations throughout history. Weren’t many of those actions equally immoral but allowed to slide?
I think that, on the far edges–Nazi Germany, for example–we know that something is inherently immoral. But most of our judgement of the behavior of others is about things that are subjective. The WSJ just had an article about the ethics of reclining your seat on a plane. There is no consensus about this and yet, for those who are being reclined into, they feel strongly it’s a crappy thing to do. If you leave your spouse because you are miserable and you have kids, whether or not you are doing a moral or immoral thing is subjective.
I don’t think there is both an agreed upon standard OR statistics that would inform this in any meaningful way. So, for me, the standard Nature used has some legitimacy.
And, even with Nazi Germany, there is debate about whether or not many of the everyday Germans supported Hitler because they wanted to or because they were terrified not to. Were they all immoral? I don’t know the answer to that.
A lot supported Hitler simply because he had made their lives better. During Hitler’s early years, Germany flourished economically and culturally. He restored the national pride that had been badly damaged by the loss of WWI and the subsequent rage of Europe at what they saw as unnecessary aggression on the part of Germany. Churchill said WWII was unnecessary because of the constant blunders before the war that got us into it. It was the easiest war to avoid in all of history, according to him.
Yes, but not all. Are we all responsible for Trump’s America? I’m not trying to justify any behavior, but rather to say I think the vast majority of human behavior has enough grey zones that it’s very hard for cultures to agree on what is MORAL.
That’s pretty much my point. We can’t say whether or not we are more or less moral because as you point out “the vast majority of human behavior has enough grey zones that it’s very hard for cultures to agree on what is MORAL.” Without an absolute, less and more have no standard by which to be judged.
Agreed.
You’re seriously asking whether who Germans who supported Hitler were immoral? That answer isn’t obvious? If we can’t agree that Nazi supporters were immoral than we’re sunk as a society in more ways than a lack of kindness or manners.
Yes, supporting Hitler was immoral.
I’m thinking instead about those who resisted Hitler and the siren song of Nazism as well as those who were threatened with death if they didn’t go along.
I think our conversation points toward the issue people all have. You and I are looking at the same thing and approaching it intuitively and instinctively from different mindsets. Is there a way to reach an agreement? Or is agreement even necessary for civility? Those to me would be the real questions.
I would say agreement should not be the goal. The goal should be that I understand where you are coming from, you understand where I am coming from, we agree on what we agree upon and what we don’t, and we do these things with civility.
I’ve been married to Dr. Feelgood for 35 years. We disagree on the death penalty and on what is and isn’t acceptable to joke about. Those differing perspectives don’t keep us from being able to talk about these things–someday he will see I’m RIGHT!–and still love each other.
I agree “immorality” is very subjective. It’s easy to see in US right now. My view of what immoral will differ wildly from someone on the opposite side of our political divide. I think it’s immoral to withhold medical care for women or trans people, for example.Not just wrong, but immoral. Former friends at church believed premarital sex was immoral. Obviously I think there is common ground to be found, but one’s worldview will heavily influence what one considers immoral or not. The word has to be carefully defined in order to be useful.
I would say that we are more combative. For a long time, good manners meant not discussing things like religion or politics. In the 60s, many argued that by not discussing things we swept a lot of horrors under the carpet and allowed an unfair status quo to reign. IMO, true. They pushed against the idea that courtesy called us to remain silent in the face of offensive positions or to never engage in discourse on said positions unless we were in a political salon. Now we have gone to the other extreme and everything, from wearing rainbow-colored shoes to having an American flag in your yard, has become a statement on your personal belief system rather than just decor and is open ground for a fight with those who take offense to it. We need to find some middle ground
A couple of things.
First, social media has made it possible for you to say all kinds of loathsome things to total strangers from safely behind your cloak of anonymity. That may make it easier to say such things even when you are no longer anonymous.
Second, and this is an impression, not a provable fact, people seem to be looking for reasons to be offended and often react with intemperate language. (Related to this is the proliferation of obscenities, which many people still consider offensive.)
I have been thinking about this through the lens of a recent NYT article, The Instagram Account That Shattered a California High School.
I found this story depressing, heartbreaking, and horrifying. But a giant piece of it is about how the way we talk about the behavior of others is, increasingly, we don’t have nuanced options.
Here’s a quote from the end of the piece:
We are suffering from an economy that refuses to recover, a mass-casualty virus, a social climate that is extremely volatile, etc. I think this effects everyone’s behavior. And it’s understandable.
This is all true. But I think the rise of incivility (or bad manners, if you will) started happening way before all those things.
I was listening to a radio phone-in a couple of weeks ago that was specifically talking about behaviour in places like cinemas and theatres, and I’ve seen a few articles recently about theatre staff being verbally abused by audience members. Of course, in the phone-in, most of the callers were offering their stories of people who didn’t stop talking during the film, or were on phones etc. so most of them were agreeing with the premise that behaviour is worse now. And I freely admit that bevhaviour like that is one of the reasons I go to the cinema so rarely these days.
Then I consider the bad manners I see in the schools I work in. It’s not all students, of course, but the way they talk to each other, let alone to the staff, is often so… I was going to say rude, but it’s not even that; it’s that they have no idea how to actually talk to people in a reasonable manner. I’ve been teaching for eighteen years now, give or take, so the oldest of those students may even have kids of their own now – and if they weren’t taught what is acceptable by their parents, the chances are they won’t be passing that on to their kids.
And I agree with Lil about the effects of social media. The anonymity of online interactions – even where people do use their real names – has made it acceptable to spew all sorts of vile stuff at people you don’t even know. It’s normalised it, to an extent, and given how embedded technology is into our lives, some people are finding it more and more difficult to separate online life from real life, it seems.
Eh. Understandable, for sure. (This is a great article about this.) Excusable, not so much. We’ve lived through worse and been kinder to one another, I believe.
Most of the former restraints on people’s behavior have disappeared, at least in America.
If you look at old TV programs, nearly every single episode of “The Andy Griffith Show” or “The Rifleman” or “My Three Sons,” etc. reinforced simple kindnesses and goodness. Movies until the mid-60’s constantly reinforced the norms. (I think “Bonnie and Clyde” was the turning point.) Yes, the Hayes censorship code ruled: crime doesn’t pay and virtue was rewarded. Now, psychopaths in TV and movies have replaced heroes who sacrificed for the love of a person (“Tale of Two Cities”–plus, a thousand more examples) or country (any WWII movie). In contrast, our constant and extreme violence in video games, in TV and in movies normalizes extreme behavior. Now, we root for the thief and even serial murderers to evade detection.
Did the past themes of heroism reflect reality? Not all the time. Prejudice was reflected and even sanctioned by society. But a lot of past behavior norms were good for the society and for the individual.
The average girl used to be constantly told, “Be a lady.” Boys were told to “play fair,” not to hit girls, and occasionally, “Act like a gentleman.” It was against government standards to swear on TV. More people–statistically, a majority– went to church every weekend.
Now, psychology has replaced those norms and for the last 50 or so years, we agreed that it was better to let your anger out, not to repress it. And not to trust anyone in authority–police, teachers, clergy, Boy Scout leaders, or the government, including whoever is the President. Given the revelations of pedophilia and corruption, this reaction is understandable, but if you don’t respect anyone in authority, why should you restrain yourself? Even the military is having a hard time: enlisted personnel don’t trust officers, to the point where ships have had to return to port, as the crew doesn’t trust the captain. We have become a nation of cynics, and cynicism discourages humanity.
The US is the richest nation for the great number of people in the history of the world. We not longer compare ourselves to the next door neighbors; we compare ourselves to the Kardasians. The internet has set the standard of expectation for our country: we are entitled to bigger houses, eternal beauty and vitality, mates who don’t age or get sick, children who get A’s without effort–the best of everything. In turn, when we don’t get what we think we deserve (and we seldom do), we get angry. And too often, our behavior reflects that anger.
I also think that people are terrified of the future with global warming. If you look at books that are written for teenagers, they show not only a collapsed society, but also a hopeless world. Most young adults believe that the future will be awful for them. Should we be surprised when they get depressed, angry, and violent?
Both the left and the right are pessimistic about democracy continuing in America. We can’t agree even on the causes–except for the stupidity of the other side.
Humanity is ALWAYS on a life raft. Individuals and societies who refuse to cooperate sink, That’s a law of the universe.
(I am sorry that this is so depressing, but that’s what I see when I look at the US.)
Excellent and concise summation, Lynda X. Everyone now has “rights” but seemingly without personal responsibility. It’s easy to be a “victim” without accepting that, sadly, life isn’t and never will be fair. The majority are shouted and cancelled by tiny, minuscule minorities but are afraid to defend thenselves lest they be cancelled, lose employment or are demonised in public. Language and terminology are twisted and weaponised. The use of much of social media and its influence is pure poison. Manners no longer maketh the man (or woman) so all can be as rude as they like without fear or shame. I despair far, far too often
I am a public librarian in a US city – I interact with dozens of people of every social strata every day, and honestly, I think people are still mostly fine, with about 2% being difficult. I haven’t seen much change in the last 10 years since I’ve been working in public libraries either. We have huge problems of untreated mental illness, poverty/homelessness, and drug addiction in the USA that have grown worse over the years – but I don’t think individual people are any worse than they used to be. The vast majority of people are still polite to me when I’m interacting with them.
It’s kinda of like the one bad apples maxim—you can have hundreds of people be lovely and you’ll recall most the one who wasn’t.
Absolutely. First lesson with a new class and you will remember the name of the one or two students who were behaving inappropriately well before you begin to remember most of the others.
It has to be pointed out that civility in the past was reserved for certain people. Marginalized communities always dealt with hate, rudeness, and violence against them. But since that didn’t get media coverage much and was even legal (Jim Crow), then what we see when we look back is a distorted view of reality. We weren’t any more civil then, but the incivility was often aimed at marginalized communities. I would also say it was aimed at women, often is patronizingly “benign” ways. It was illegal in most states for a woman to get an bank account in her name until the Equal Credit Opportunity Act in 1974, that year after I graduated from high school.
When I was in school there were plenty of bullies, name calling for mentally or physically disabled people, rude names for people of color, etc. I went to elementary school in south Texas, and when integration happened it wasn’t pretty.
I’d love to say that politics is one area we’ve gotten less civil, and if you just look back a few decades that’s true. But if you look at our country’s history, political rivals pulled few punches in the past.
At the same time, I think events of the past 6 or 7 years has made anger and rudeness more acceptable in some ways. I don’t think we’ve increased in rudeness, I think in most cases the restraints have been removed and people feel more comfortable saying some things out loud than in the past 30, 40 years.
So I guess I’m saying that we could be seeing a rise in vocal incivility, but the underlying setiments haven’t changed much, just the freedom to spew it. When people see an “authority figure” spew hate and make fun of people, they feel emboldened to do the same thing.
Carrie, you are so right to point out the different life experiences of those in marginalized communities. Thank you. My dad was quite dark skinned and experienced some real nastiness from people simply because of how he looked. I only look vaguely “ethnic” so I did not get much of that, but my darker siblings got/get more.
I am impressed with the thoughtful and articulate comments below. I think taking a historical perspective is very interesting, but in giving my opinion, I can only speak from my personal life experiences, observation and perceptions of what is happening in this country and in the world and how it has changed since I was young.
My general impression is that, yes, people are ruder in society as a whole. Norms have changed and it seems to be ok to speak your mind, even if what is in your mind is filled with anger, pettiness or judgment. While it seems to be ok to set your own boundaries, recognizing and honoring other’s boundaries does not seem to be a priority. Everyone screams that they need to be respected and heard, but they do not feel that they need to respect and hear others. Compromise has been replaced with calling out, canceling, and demonizing.
In my personal life, I believe some of my impressions are affected by my age. When I was a young, attractive woman, men could be very polite or extremely rude with their comments and behavior. Women could be jealous and catty. Now that I am older, I do not get those negatives to the same degree. People are generally nice to me, and my interactions with strangers are generally very pleasant.
To me, civility starts with respect for others, and respect for the “rules” that help relationships function smoothly. Please, thank you, excuse me, letting someone else go first or have your seat, etc. Listening and trying to understand another’s perspective and searching for common ground. Loving (or at least respecting) your neighbor as you would be loved/respected. And realizing that everyone is your neighbor, including all the creatures on this earth.
This x 1000%
My husband often tells me that I’ve grown more intolerant as I’ve aged, and so I don’t know if my perception that yes, people have grown ruder, is based on my own inability to tolerate rudeness or if people are, in fact, ruder. Either way, I do perceive the world as a less polite place. I think, like Lil posts below, that Social Media has allowed people the anonymity that makes them say things they would never say in person, sort of the way we feel free to scream at other drivers when we are in our car, but would never roll the window down and yell at them if they could actually hear us.
But more, I believe the problem is that we, as a society, have trained everyone to believe that they have a right to live in a world that doesn’t offend them. And because they perceive this as a “right”, they feel free to 1) speak up if they don’t like something and 2) act in selfish ways in order to accommodate their own needs and desires, regardless of how those actions will affect others. I just had a long discussion about this with my daughter and husband. We were at a restaurant where a family with many children allowed one of those kids to run loose, weaving in and out of other tables and literally running up and down aisles, despite the fact that this kid was annoying all of the other diners. They wanted to enjoy their own meal, and letting their kid run around regardless of how that affected others was meaningless to them.
The problem is, there are 330 million people in the US alone, and it’s impossible to create 330 million perfect little worlds so that no one has to be inconvenienced or uncomfortable. People can’t always get their way – you can’t lean your seat back on the plane because your comfort makes the person behind you extremely uncomfortable. You can’t text your friend during the movie because the light from your phone is annoying to other theater-goers who also paid to see the movie. And yet people don’t seem to care any more if their actions are rude or inconsiderate to others.
Am I just a crabby old lady? Maybe. But I do believe the world has gotten ruder.
I’m replying to my own post to add – I also think some of the increase in bad behaviour is our reluctance, as a society, to shame people. As an example – my husband went to get coffee the other day, and all of the parking spaces near the shop were taken. He drove to a parking garage, parked his car and walked to the cafe. When he got there, some yahoo had pulled into a space that was clearly marked No Parking. My H was so frustrated, because he had followed the rules and yet this guy felt that he was special and could just park wherever it was convenient for him. I said that the problem is that no one ever calls people out for doing stuff like this, so they keep doing it. Why wouldn’t they? And yet, the fear of calling him out is that 1) he could have gun in his glove box, or 2) just an ugly scene could ensue. So without the ability to hold people accountable for bad behaviour, we have no recourse to correct it.
The fear of confrontation is so much bigger now that we are so awash in guns.
I agree that individualism–do what works for ME–has been ruinous to our social fabric.
Hey, Dabney,
I was thinking: you know how people stlll read “P&P,” as well as Heyer romances? If you told people at the time these that people would be reading their books 100 years later, people would never have believed it.
KAterhine Woodiwiss does not hold up well. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of even one writer at that time period who does.
If you are looking for column ideas, I’d like to know who you and other people would nominate for being read 100 years from now and why.
Lynda X
I wonder if people will even be reading!
This is a cool idea, though. Thanks!