Civility is elusive for sure
Since 2009, I have presented thoughts regarding civility on several occasions, pertaining to several types of situations.
Six articles and 13 years later, civility has proven to be quite elusive.
Every day, most newspapers from around the nation, put on display, evidence of the lack of civility. Neighborly disputes regarding music being played “too loud," children, God forbid, playing in the street or in a community park without one or both parents within an arms’ reach or someone starting his lawn mower to early.
At times, these disputes have gotten out of hand, resulting in the participants sitting in a police station or worse, the nearest emergency room.
More:Your turn: Power should not determine truth
As children, of all ages, observe their parents and friend’s parents solving their disputes with angry voices, name calling and sometimes physical violence, one has to know the observant children, are “learning” to deal with their disputes on the school bus, in the class room and on the playground from the scenes they witness daily.
In 2009, I wrote about something I had seen once too often. A parent, on their cell phone, smiling and chatting it up, until one of their children tried to get their attention. The parent turned and snapped at the child, “Shut the h… up, I’m on the phone.” (What lesson learned?)
In 2011, I was shocked to read the headlines on the front page of the Rockford Register Star, “Going, Going, Gone”, accompanied by several photos of a departing RPS Superintendent. (Civil?)
By 2014, my thoughts regarding civility turned to, what seemed to me as a lack of accepting each other as being human. I was witnessing, in every aspect of my life, what appeared to by a total lack of patience. (Always in a hurry)
Two years went by, in what seemed like a blur. 2016 arrived and I am asking, “Has contempt, for anyone different than ourselves, reached a point in our lives, forcing us to choose our friends by beliefs and actions?”
2017 came, and I found myself comparing man’s conversations with each other as combat. Conversations had become confrontations. Those writing and enacting our laws, had set the tone, with their behavior, and a great deal of their constituents, chose to “follow the leaders”.
Holy jumping Jiminy, what once had been a sacred place for finding compromise has become a room of exchanging ugliness in the politest terms.
What we have been hearing, from the leaders of this great country, for far too long, are statements such as: “The one thing our opponents can expect is, expect nothing.” “We can get what we want, by doing nothing.”
Seems civil behavior has been discarded, and replaced with “I don’t have to cooperate if I don’t want to.”
Sadly, this behavior is on display in town halls, school board meetings, grocery stores and sadly on the highways at 70 mph. Lack of civility is, unsafe at any speed.
The writings of the professionals, regarding civility, since I began my own writings in 2013, have not gone away.
The wordsmiths of the world have tried to grasp the bull by the horns and wrestle it to the ground. Millions of words have been put on paper, yet the men and women I referred to earlier seem to be ignoring the pleas of the pundits who represent authors, religious leaders and scholars. (So sad)
Until civility is spoken and written, using a capital C, I believe those of us writing about it will always have something to write about.
George B Graham Jr. is a Rockford resident. He is past president of the Kishwaukee Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution, lifetime associate member of the Korean War Veterans Association and member of the Macon Historical Society, Macon, Missouri.