It is possibly worth throwing in at the beginning of the discussion an exhortation to all: consider the origin of the word ‘civil’, and the origins of our oppressive social order. City-dwellers have throughout nearly all of human recorded history been our intermediate classes. Skilled artisans, mercantile tradesmen, minor capitalists, lawyers… Our very definition of ‘appropriate behaviour’ actually means “acts like someone who lives in a city”: i.e. the urban middle classes.

Why should greater equality necessarily make people more civil, or greater inequality make people less? What you outline as problems for lower income communities aren’t necessarily associated with their being low income. They might be more closely associated with the fact that those communities are poorly served by public services like the education and criminal justice system.

Hmm. Your line skirts close to saying that civility,which amounts to consideration for other people, a necessity in cities (hence the civis/civility, where density of population means some kind of social accord is needed) is a luxury, one which the poor and dispossed should avoid until they are on a more equal footing with the privileged. I’d say there may be some case for saying much of what is termed civility these dyas might equate to social conditioning, and militate against the confrontation that might be necessary to achieve greater equality, BUT that there remain core civil values that nobody, no matter how poor should abandon: eg not kicking the shit out of someone

Civility in the sense of mannered introductions and exchanges is not just for urban humans.

I suggest reading Norman Lewis and Geoffrey Hoiusehold for accounts of how important manners were (and still often are) in small Spanish and Italian and South American villages. Disregard the accustomed exchanges at your peril.

Lewis once observed an exchange of courtesies in a Guatemalan bar which would have been perfectly well understood in 15th-century Spain.

“For all the suspicion I feel towards the concept of ‘golden ages’ or of our tendency to mythologise the past, there’s still something positive about people in civic society taking a look at the way they live & communicate with others”

Indeed, it is unfortunate that those who suggest that people were once generally more well-mannered are often accused of wanting to “turn the clock back to the 1950s”. Well frankly what’s wrong with turning back the clock in some areas if it means people are more considerate? It may be that due to the decline of deference we will never be able to restore the sort of social norms that once existed but we can at least try.

Civility is lovely, but it’s not a political issue.

‘It is possibly worth throwing in at the beginning of the discussion an exhortation to all: consider the origin of the word ‘civil’, and the origins of our oppressive social order. City-dwellers have throughout nearly all of human recorded history been our intermediate classes. Skilled artisans, mercantile tradesmen, minor capitalists, lawyers… Our very definition of ‘appropriate behaviour’ actually means “acts like someone who lives in a city”: i.e. the urban middle classes.’

Doesn’t ‘villain’ share a common root with ‘village’?

Words change their meaning though: its more common to find idealised fantasies of rural communities, while city folk are more likely to be regarded as unfriendly and ‘uncivil’.

Has the “broken Britain” meme really found resonance? I haven’t gained that impression.

The extreme left who invariably came from the middle class, often derided good manners as bourgeois, which did much to undermine civility. If one works as a craftsman, the patience one needs to aquire a skill and the ability to work in a team, makes one thoughtful . If one is working in heavy engineering; the conditions are often physically demanding and dangerous; one needs to be thoughtful to prevent injury to one’s self and others. Most of the senior craftsmen/foremen invariably ensured there was no swearing in front of ladies and this included when drinking in a pub. I cannot imagine most of the men I have worked with ever tolerating anyone abusing a woman in public , someone weaker than them or someone putting their feet on a seat next to them. When it comes to drinking I have known men drink pints of beer without becoming abusive or violent. In act the ability to hold one’s drink was something most of senior men/foremen considered important.

In many of the industrial parts of the UK there were extensive clubs- sports, gardening , choral, British Legion, working mens clubs, etc, etc, which all helped to promote civility. One aspect which is ignored is that if someone if physically fit and strong from work( construction, mining, farming, fishing, steel ,ship building) and sports( boxing , rugby union or league) then one is unlikely to be intimidated by a few puny youths hanging around . Consequently, the public space does not become dominated by a few drunk puny teenagers becaue people are scared to venture out.

Bring back national service and the cane! All will be well then.

“The extreme left who invariably came from the middle class, often derided good manners as bourgeois, which did much to undermine civility.”

You’re right. It’s been scientifically proven that reading Marx makes you twice as likely to swear at random people in the street.

Shatterface:

What I was getting at was the the concept of civility is associated back to Roman times with the superiority complex urban humans have over the rural: civilis vs. paganus, a social dichotomy which has never gone away. It’s class war right back to Caeser Augustus. Arguably, given the divisions in Attic Greece between the citizens and the farmers, that its a form of class war that goes back considerably further. Gawaine and Shakespeare’s As You Like It both explore the issue in some detail.

Anecdote warning… As I walk to work each day, two or three lads in a group tend to belt along the pavement on bicycle. Their actions are antisocial and I’d ascribed their behaviour to malice: I’m coming this way, whether you like it or not.

Today, one of the skidded to almost a halt before passing me, squeezing himself between the edge of the kerb and a lamp post, which changed my assessment. The behaviour was still antisocial, but the youth understood that the imperative to avoid a collision was on him. My judgement on the incivility switched from malice to teenage ignorance.

And all antisocial behaviour needs to be assessed in the same way: do people act selfishly because they do not understand the consequences, or do they act knowingly and not care.

In the former case, Ye Olde Farts will declaim that, when exposed to their wisdom on life, young fools are provided with proper guidance. The reality is that we live in a culture where each age group lives in its own silo, and rarely do they mix. Young people try to avoid old folks because they are not sexually attractive and very uncool. When ancestor wisdom works, it works well; peer wisdom works even better.

For the lost cause, those who have no empathy, I can only offer sympathy to them and those who work on rehabilitation.

I don’t know if there ever was a golden age of manners. But, in times past, people might have been more wary of being impolite else they were beaten up or run through.

Is the claim that the poor are statistically more likely to be impolite than the rich?

There seem to be impolite people in all walks of life. On the bus it is rare that passengers won’t be subjected to tinny music coming from a youth’s mobile phone. At Lords a stranger commented to me that he had never seen so many well-off, well dressed, yet so rude people (MCC members), gathered in one place, after one of them shoved his way past us – a nearby steward nodded his agreement.

Do not do to others what you would not like to be done to you.

Evening folks,

Sorry for the non-entry into this thread; it’s just been a busy day. I’ll come back & address some of the comments tomorrow.

(1) the UK population has grown substantially, especially in London, so there are more of us to get in each others’ way

(2) the ways and means of being uncivil have grown – there are far more cars, and mobile phones, ipods etc did not exist 30 years ago

(3) there is no question that standards of discipline in school and at home have fallen (across all classes)

(4) people complain / intervene far less often

No doubt “Thatcherism” can be blamed for some things, no doubt “trendy lefties” for others…

Ukliberty @14:

in times past, people might have been more wary of being impolite else they were beaten up or run through.

Cjcjc @16:

(4) people complain / intervene far less often

This, I think, is crucially important. One of the first things I was told by my house master when I got to England was “If someone screams in an alley at night, cross the road and walk away. Around here, the bad guys carry bats and knives”. I ignored his advice and ended up in custody for GBH (I wasn’t charged).

The culture in Britain is “You don’t know the story, don’t intervene”. Unfortunately, this has been extended to: “This racist twat has a right to spout his foul garbage on this bus so I should not hit him”. Racism cannot be legislated away; all laws can do is offer redress to victims. It has to be confronted until no-one believes it is acceptable. Every time someone passes a comment on a crowded bus and no-one hits them, they get the impression that “the silent majority” (on the bus) agree with them.

This same is true of bad manners; playing music on phones without headphones; pushing over the woman with the baby carriage who’s trying to get off the train because you’re rushing to get on; standing in large gossiping groups right in the middle of entryways in stations and museums, and so on. Note: I observed all of these behaviours (well, not the museums clause, specifically), yesterday

The one loss from dueling culture is that people cared what other people thought of them. Really cared. We see the same phenomenon on the internet; most of the really offensive people would quit trolling pretty fucking fast if they got punched in the face as much as they would spouting that drivel in person.

I was thinking more of politely asking people to switch their music/phone off or take their feet off the seats rather than doing much punching…

*heh* Personal recent experience. I occasionally have to deal with very offensive drunk people. They’ve been known to get violent when confronted about their behaviour.

Fortunately, the place I run at the moment has this problem very rarely but I did have an incident recently. Bias admitted.

Doesn’t ‘villain’ share a common root with ‘village’?

“Villain” directly derives from vilein, one of the three classes of unfree peasant in feudal times. Both “villain” and “village” ultimately derive from the Latin villa, but it’s indirect (“village” via vil, meaning a manorial estate).

It may be that due to the decline of deference we will never be able to restore the sort of social norms that once existed but we can at least try.

The thing about deference is that it cuts both ways. Deference it what lets respected members of society (policemen, teachers, religious leaders, etc) get away with abusing less respected members of society (women, children, the disable, etc). As Mark Steel once put it:

It was a time without hoodies or political correctness, when children were taught respect and the bobby on the beat was not afraid to give young scallywags a clip round the ear and ignore their allegations of mass abuse … Maybe in Jersey the old politicians say: “We need to get back to the values of the 1960s, when you could go out all night, leave your door open and know that no one would come in and rescue the child you were keeping hostage.”

Right, I think I have more wits about me than I did last night, so let’s begin.

The comment Chris Baldwin makes that ‘civility is lovely, but it’s not a political issue’ is absolutely correct; it’s a social issue. There are aspects of civility which a government can do things about, like reducing crime, but it can’t make us all much nicer to each other. What I think’s problematic with rhetoric about the supposed decline of decency – just aside from the fact we can’t measure it – is that it ends up conflating those things we can reduce with those things we can’t, and it all ends up in one mush of social gloom. So whilst we can lament that people can be rude to one another, when compared to the importance of reducing crime & fostering stronger communities, it’s a little bit of a luxury.

But I think John Q. Publican also makes an important point that the prevalence of things like crime can also feed into our own behaviours. A couple of years back, a woman in Sheffield was sent to jail after scamming hapless good samaritans. To feed her heroin habit, she’d pose as a stranded, tearful middle class tourist who’d lost her purse and needed money to get back to some anonymous town in Derbyshire. Now, I suspect that the people who fell for this scam thinking they were helping someone in distress are going to be much less inclined to show the same kindness to someone else. And so our ability to trust, which is pretty important in any society, corrodes.

(1) the UK population has grown substantially, especially in London, so there are more of us to get in each others’ way

?! – the population of inner London halved between 1911 and 1981, barely rose to 1991, and is still 1.5 million below its 1911 peak (and half a million below 1951 levels). Outer London has had the same population since 1951.

(3) there is no question that standards of discipline in school and at home have fallen (across all classes)

I question this. Do you have evidence, or just fogeyish rants?

Maybe in Jersey the old politicians say: “We need to get back to the values of the 1960s, when you could go out all night, leave your door open and know that no one would come in and rescue the child you were keeping hostage.”

Haha, Mark Steel wins.

To feed her heroin habit, she’d pose as a stranded, tearful middle class tourist who’d lost her purse and needed money to get back to some anonymous town in Derbyshire.

Well it’s a change from the traditional form of the scam, where the conman claims to be a soldier trying to get back to base after a short leave, which I’m pretty sure goes back to at least WWII. I’ve been approached by someone claiming that myself…

(3) there is no question that standards of discipline in school and at home have fallen (across all classes)

Just ask any teacher.

Civility and Respect are essential foundations for community. Promoting these qualities in relationships at work and across the community requires a serious commitment to these values. It also requires diligent action. People do not become more civil simply because they intend to do so. Improving relationships requires ongoing effort with effective guidance.

And I think it is a political issue in that judgments of fairness and justice reflect how people evaluate the way authorities treat them.

Incivility among colleagues not only reduces productivity and chases away excellent professionals, it puts companies into legal jeopardy. Employers really must address this sort of thing.

We helped hospitals improve their working relationships through CREW:
Civility, Respect, and Engagement at Work

Learn about it:
http://www.workengagement.com/crew

All the best,
Michael

“(3) there is no question that standards of discipline in school and at home have fallen (across all classes)

I question this. Do you have evidence, or just fogeyish rants?”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6320011.stm

The police have admitted that they were called to violent incidents at least 7,000 times in English schools last year. If you want to question whether or not this is a new phenomenon, just ask anyone who attended school before around 1965 whether it was commonplace for teachers to be attacked or sworn at in schools. Try and ask as many as you can from different backgrounds. Then come to your own conclusions as to whether these are just “fogeyish rants”.

22. john b . Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

When the recent earthquake induced tidal wave hit Indonesia inhabitants of an island in the Indian Ocean were found to be safe. Their folk lore told them of the signs of a tidal wave and they took to the high ground and were saved. These island inhabitants did not have quanititative evidence but it saved lives.

There are plenty of people who use judgement based on experience – climbers, mountain rescue, farmers , RNLI, fishermen etc, etc, as part of their work. I doubt whether many of these people offer statiscally valid quantitive evidence but lives often depend upon their judgement.

Consequently, the comments of teachers over a 40 year period may not provide quantitative evidence but it may be qualitative and their judgement correct.

John B @22:

What? I appreciate that the pre-1961 definition of ‘central London’ was remarkably small, but if you count the people living in London (i.e. what is now Greater London) in 1911 and 2009 I think you’ll find there’s a shitload more of them now. I don’t recall London having a population of between 8 and 10 million (depending on whether you count the homeless etc.) in the 1960s; but I could indeed be wrong. Got a cite?