It feels like such a paradox to me. I continue to be fascinated by the duality. And lost for an explanation.
On the one hand, all of us are aware of the changes taking place in our society these days. We’ve repeatedly noted that common decency and civility are too rapidly disappearing on a grand scale. This seems most apparent in politics and on social media.
And yet, I don’t think this is the reality most of us notice as we daily encounter the variety of people in our lives. Is it? Am I being too Pollyanna here? It doesn’t feel that way. It’s as if the forest is sick, but the individual trees are all healthy. Why is this?
I first noticed the broader universality of this experience two summers ago when I spent seven weeks following the Missouri River from its source in Montana to its mouth near St. Louis. I traveled over 6000 miles through 9 states of the upper Midwest, and I continually ran into the America and the Americans that most of us have grown up with. By and large, people were consistently and overwhelmingly friendly, courteous, and respectful. By a long shot. Some of them became good friends, but all of them were strangers at first.
Moreover, my more recent travel experiences related to that trip (and its resulting book) are strikingly similar. For the most part, I continue to encounter people who seem to be the proverbial salt-of-the-earth. There are exceptions of course (especially in vehicles, it seems), but their infrequency seems to prove the rule.
And as an update, since I wrote this over 3 years ago, I should note that I continue to notice the phenomenon. Invariably, if I bump into someone in (my admittedly limited) social setting – store, building, etc – and say “excuse me”, for example, I continue to get responses like “hey, you’re good, buddy” or “no problem” or “no, my fault”, or whatever. This seems to me to be true regardless of whether they’re masked or unmasked, male or female or even wearing a MAGA hat or a Biden hat. The rancor of the political divide seems to disappear in more intimate settings. Am I naive?
How do we explain the gap between the common decency most of us encounter daily, and the kind of rudeness, division, and hatred that seems to exist in politics and on social media?
Is it social media itself? Is it that simple? Do we, as a society and as individuals, continue to be courteous and civil in person most of the time, and then switch hats and change manners when we get online, losing both accountability and eye contact? Or when we get in situations where we are in power? I sense some truth there, but surely that’s not the only factor. Any thoughts out there?
It won’t surprise you to learn that the more I encounter this paradox, the more I wonder. Is there a role education can play to minimize the growing gap between these personal and societal behaviors?
Perhaps that answer is no, but I don’t think so. At the same time, this feels like another place where ‘education’ will have a much broader definition than one centered on only schools and classrooms. Surely, this gap will be more effective as a three-pronged effort among parents, schools, and society in general. We cannot and should not leave this to schools alone. Indeed, it is probably true that a youngster’s attitudes towards decency in all situations are influenced as much, if not more, by families and society, than directly by schools. This is not to minimize the role of schools in continuing to promote and reinforce overall decency. It is instead to remind us of our own significant roles.
I suspect most of us are discouraged – even cynical – by the obvious decency deficiency that is so apparent in society now. Perhaps we can take heart from the fact that it seems to be alive and well at our personal daily levels. And perhaps we can be encouraged that we can play a role in the situation from the inside out, through our own self-awareness and through broader education.
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