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I was recently having a Sunday morning breakfast--my decadent treat--reading a paper and enjoying the quiet solitude of eating alone. This is a regular outing for me: Sunday morning at my favorite diner with my favorite waitress who keeps my coffee cup filled as I dig through every word in my newspaper.
I was seated at my regular spot--a small table just large enough for two--when a young professional couple sat down at a similar table next to me. The two tables share a fixed bench seat against a wall--I was seated in that bench, looking out into the restaurant. The young woman took off her coat and proceeded to lay it down on the seat between us as she prepared to sit at their table. In swinging her coat over her table to place it on the seat she slammed the coat into my face. Now here's the kicker: I wasn't particularly troubled by this--I assumed that she did this accidently--but what followed was a lesson in today's youth. She ignored her transgression, though she had to have known what she had done, and her boyfriend glared at me as if to dare me to say anything. I stared back at him until he finally looked away and then went back to my paper.
The couple conversed rather loudly about their work at school--obviously speaking so that others (including myself) would hear them. They were both finishing up their first year at the local law school: a very prestigious university. Both had that preppie dressed down, upscale look so common at our best (or at least most expensive) schools. And both had an arrogance and sense of entitlement that was off the scale. In short: they were highly privileged 20 somethings.
Which brings me to the questions in this story--have we become so ill-mannered and coarse that we can't even recognize boorish behavior? Does anyone under the age of 40 even know what boorish means? The answer to the first question is obviously yes. The answer to the second (unfortunately) is no.
And that brings me to the real point of my piece. A few years ago I happened upon a definition of stupidity that seemed to capture the best of them all. Specifically it was this: an act is stupid if it does harm to others with no benefit (or even harm) to the person performing it. It is independent of intelligence--some of the stupidest people are highly intelligent, some of the least stupid people are quite slow. It is directly linked with wisdom, which, again, is not determined by intelligence.
And here is my indictment--with the advent of selfishness that has infected our teaching and parenting, stupidity has exploded. Stupidity and lack of self-control go hand in hand. To be sure, virtually no one else seems to note this, but to me it is unavoidable--manners, codes of behavior, are what bind societies and prevent harm to to us all. They set down rules that are easy to follow and act as universal arbitors--ever ready to quiet a problem and heal a harm. In shedding them, we open the gates of chaos to bring forth the plague of ugliness that infects our daily lives.
Without some level of recognized courtesies, we are left adrift in a sea of turmoil. No restraints exist except those imposed by a formal authority. The only restraints on our behavior are those dictated by law and imposed by actual force. And when this becomes the norm, only an authority can sort out an issue and reach a determination. Wonder why litigation has exploded? Look to the lack of personal behavior and accountability as a contributor to this. Wonder why life is so coarse? Ask someone below 40 what he or she would have done in my place at that diner. I suspect the recommended response would not be a random act of kindness nor a senseless act of beauty.
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