The other day I was on my ride sittin’ at a light and their was a gentleman in front of me driving a moving truck. This gentleman was turning right on to the interstate. Between us were two cars driven by two less than gentlemen. The gentleman in the truck hesitated and the other two decided that the appropriate thing to do would be to lay on their horns. Did this do anything other than to irritate me. No – well it probably irritated the gentleman they were honking at.
Horns are safety devices. Drivers are to use them to warn others of impending danger. In some circumstances when one driver needs to get the attention of another, it is appropriate to lightly tap the horn. When a driver lays on their horn it is the same as yelling at someone while standing in line at the ATM. Most people would not yell at another for not moving quickly enough in line, but they don’t hesitate to lay on their horn at a traffic light. Why is this, because it’s easy to act tough when your wrapped in steel and glass.
Now, I’m not a tough guy. The last fight I was in was when I was fifteen, and I got my ass whipped. I can count the number of fights I’ve been in my whole life on my fingers. My father was a tough guy. No, he didn’t yell at people in line or honk at people in traffic. He was a Marine, and I remember what he told me when I was old enough to understand. He told me that he used to enjoy fighting until one day he woke up and realized that the only thing that he ever got from it was sore knuckles.
Since my father told me that, I’ve walked away from several fights. I was actually standing in line with my girlfriend, now my wife, and had a guy yell at me for stepping on his shoe. We were waiting in line for a concert, and were jammed like cattle in a car. Everyone was pushing toward the door and I stepped on the back of this fella’s shoe. He turned around and I apologized. A couple of minutes later the line surged forward and I stepped on his shoe again. This time he turns around yells at me for stepping on his shoe again. Now I’m faced with a decision. I can either follow this guys lead and yell back or I can apologize again. One of these paths devolves in to violence and the other does not. I apologized and I had a good night. If I had taken the other path I guarantee both of us would have had a worse night.
Now, I’ve gone through this story to get to this. Society can not survive incivility. I would like to claim this idea as my own, but I can not. There are rules that exist in healthy socities that keep the peace. When I was younger I scoffed at these rules as ridiculous trappings of an out of date society, but as I moved out of adolesence I realized these rules serve a function. Simple things. Take your hat off when you’re inside. Hold the door for others. Say yes Ma’am and no Ma’am. These trappings of civilized society keep the peace and we would all do better to remember them. Gone are the days of the cotillion and it is to our great detriment.
Talking trash is seen as tough. Gone are the soft spoken, humble, gentlemen soldiers. Those men who defined themselves by how they treated other who were inferior to themselves. Men who could knock another man down if necessary, but wouldn’t hit him once he was down. Men who would extend that man a hand to lift him out of the dust.
We need to return to those days when you never kicked a man when he was down and you always tipped your hat when you passed a lady. So tomorrow, when you’re sitting in traffic or standing in line and you feel impatient, take a minute and think about how your actions affect others. Are the net results positive or negative, and remember you can’t beat sense in to a fool.