Down With Uncivil Liberties

Sitting in a West Los Angeles restaurant the other night, a place where, to all appearances, people of good tastes with good manners hang out, I watched an angry little social drama being acted out, the kind that happens so often these days, it has become a commonplace public occurrence.

A man at a table near me lit up a cigarette, and smoke quickly scudded to an adjoining table where two women were chatting over wine and salads. The woman facing the smoker screwed up her face in disgust and glared at him. He acknowledged her glare by returning one equally as belligerent--and went on smoking.

You didn’t have to hear the silent dialogue to know its content.

“What right do you have to smoke and spoil my pleasure?” she obviously was thinking.

“What makes you think you have the right to deprive me of my right to smoke?” he obviously was thinking.

It struck me then, as it has on so many occasions recently, that we have become so obsessed with the aggressive assertion of our “rights” that we have all but forgotten--or refuse to remember--those attributes of gentlemanly and ladylike deference and consideration.

Being a lady or gentleman meant thinking about how what you were about to do might make someone else feel, and not doing it if it would make that other person uncomfortable.

But even suggesting such behavior in today’s coarse, me-first climate, is to brand oneself as an anachronistic fuddy-duddy, or worse, a wimp.

The proper, even admirable, way to behave in today’s world of uncivil liberties is to automatically and unvaryingly assert that you have a “right” to take any advantage you can, and that you’re a fool or a weakling if you don’t.

Take driving, for example. Until recently, this country was, as far as I am aware, the politest and least chaotic in the world behind the wheel. Now it’s rare to hit the streets or freeways without being assaulted by aggressive moves, angry horn bursts or obscene gestures.

The same thing is true for waiting lines. My wife and I went to a movie the other night, where we waited half an hour in a line that stretched around the block. Just as we got to the entrance, about a dozen people who had not been waiting in line--young and mostly male--pushed their way ahead of us. A man and woman behind us politely told them they’d have to go to the rear of the line. Some of the line-jumpers ignored this request. The others retreated--but without the slightest trace of chagrin or embarrassment.

Another area where there’s been a complete collapse of manners is at the dining table. Certainly no one would argue that a person has a “right” to eat any way he wants to. In an earlier time, you simply out of consideration didn’t do things at the table others might find distasteful or offensive. Yet today you can see former breaches of good manners and good taste exhibited as “rights” in the allegedly most elegant restaurants and homes.

Pushing and shoving to get ahead of others in elevators. Elbowing aside old people on the streets. Yelling at children in public. Forcing your way in front of others to get at merchandise. Littering. Talking loudly in movies, plays and concerts. Being unpleasant or abusive to service people who can’t fight back.

What has happened to bring on this apparently widespread feeling that if you have a “right” to do something, then it’s OK to do it, and to hell with everybody else?

For one thing, apparently, many parents simply aren’t teaching “manners” to their children anymore. Families have disintegrated in staggering numbers, and where there is still a mother and a father, both tend to be off at work, consciously or unconsciously relegating the teaching of good manners to schools, day-care centers, baby-sitters or, as a final resort, the police. Living among strangers in neighborhoods that are not neighborhoods in the traditional sense, children are not inhibited or checked by the possible disapproval of the community around them.

Another reason for this epidemic decline in civility is that we now have about three generations of people brought up on television shows where most problems are solved by aggressive masochism and violence. Adding to this has been the general political climate, where the conciliatory tone of the Carter years has been replaced by the kick-ass-take-names-later tone of the Reagan years.

Yet another contributing factor to the level of brute aggressiveness is the big change in the attitude of many women toward men and vice versa. The desirable male role model of the ‘70s and early ‘80s was sensitive and “vulnerable,” a man who could shed tears and admit fears. A lot of today’s women seem to be derisive of that model, preferring again the tough guy--Rambo, or Conan the Barbarian.

In sum, aggressive, assertive, even belligerent behavior is seen as strong in today’s marketplace of manners. Conciliatory, deferential, yielding behavior is seen as weak. It’s that simple.

It is an unbrave new world out there, one in which people don’t have the courage to say “you first,” a world in which people are so frightened at the thought of being seen as weak and uncompetitive that they don’t have the strength to yield their so-called “rights.” So everybody’s asserting his “rights” all over the place. The trouble is, I think deep down we don’t truly feel any the better for it. Not really. As seems to be developing with greed, I think we’re getting a little sick of ourselves and the unceasing assaultive assertion of our “rights” in all those areas where generosity and gentleness used to prevail. In any case, I assert the right to hope so.