A Rude Awakening

It doesn’t take a blue-nosed prude to be dismayed by the rising tide of incivility polluting modern life.

Forget leaving your calling card in the parlor; just page your beloved at the mall. Why learn table manners when meals are wolfed in the car? Political discourse devolves into smear campaigns. Trash talk oozes from the gutter into prime time.

Where to begin to turn things around?

We politely applaud the city of Ventura’s recreation department for offering an etiquette workshop designed to teach 7- to 12-year-olds about manners and courtesy. On the agenda: Making introductions, shaking hands correctly, improving conversational skills and learning to set and navigate a formal dinner table.

Unfortunately, the city got a rude awakening when its registration deadline rolled around: Only two students signed up.

Maybe it was the cost. We can sympathize with parents who might have balked at the $75 tuition for the pair of two-hour classes, muttering, “I’ll just teach them all that stuff at home.”

We hope they will.

Life these days is grinding enough with so little of the lubricating oil of courtesy and civilized manners to smooth the social friction. We have become so hurried, so armored, so suspicious that even good intentions catch us off guard. One Ventura 12-year-old we know enjoys opening doors for other people--and almost never gets a thank you in return.

Teaching the little refinements that help young people feel confident and comfortable in any social situation is an important part of their education. It’s appropriate for schools and churches to include such lessons and for city programs to offer them. Most importantly, parents must find a way amid the crazy swirl of fast-food, multimedia, nonstop modern life to pass along these skills.

We owe it to our kids--and to each other--to help put a little grace back into the mix.