Wil Wheaton, my favorite ST:TNG actor turned geek, writes about a concert ruined by the behavior of the people near him. The 150+ comments on his post contain many similar stories.
I really honestly wonder: are people worse-behaved, more selfish, than they once were? Was there some mythical, magical time when “common courtesy” was the order of the day? I once read an article that blamed the behavior of modern children on the disappearance of the “neighborhood scold.” Surely that can’t be right. As the comments on Wheaton’s post show, rebuking people who are acting like jerks usually does nothing but provoke more jerky behavior. Do we just concede that the race for the commons has been won by the jerkiest? If not — what?
The age with out jerks, with courtesy is as mythical as Eden.
Don’t you know or remember, the neighborhood scolds, were/are one of the jerks spoiling many an innocent action. Rebuking the scolds, censors and grumps generally just invokes the self certified righteousness too.
Speaking as an expert boring sobersides non-participant, at least 20% of the time the best answer is to join the rowdy and obnoxious. That doesn’t of course work if you are the target of fun/bigotry. It is probably also not a good idea in the age of the totalitarian monitoring camera’s and deep computer archives. Security forces and totalitarian technology are one of the “If not” … perhaps time for some {Anarchy Parks} (Larry Niven short story vision) or we deploy the scolding/censoring zap bots everywhere.
… finally on the dire front of “If not”, perhaps we make it so there are no commons, and every thing is bolted down, fire proof and all the walls are padded, sound absorbing and treated so the paint will not stick.
Bah but no humbug today. (-:
L DeGroff
May 31st, 2008
Sigh. I’m sure you’re right, and if this were an easy problem to solve I reckon someone would have done so by now. If it’s a choice between yahoos running wild and Singapore, I guess I’ll take the yahoos.
Satchel
May 31st, 2008
Well, at least now I don’t feel like such a crank!
The bastards really ARE as obnoxious as I think they are. I also feel a little better about not confronting the assholes at my daughter’s graduation. I have been feeling like a wimp. Reading this post, I think perhaps I was right in my initial belief that to confront the jerks would only antagonize them and make their behavior worse…..
…. And, yes, the scolds were assholes, too, but at least we learned to sit up straight and not talk when the music was playing or speaches were in progress.
NIW
May 31st, 2008