© 2016 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. As a youngster, I had hopes for when
I grew up that technology would help America become a better place to live. It
was standard dinner table conversation to talk about the advances of
technology. Why, we even had a telephone. That was something that my
grandparents never had on the ranch.
When I was seven we were at my grandparent’s
ranch and witnessed the first object sent into space, the Soviet Launched Sputnik
as it flew West to East. My uncle said to me, “Remember this moment for the
rest of your life because with that up there our world is changing.”
We didn’t have pavement at the ranch
south of Carrizozo so it was a long dirt road to go to Alamogordo. When we were
just North of Tularosa there was an overpass which was paved and then the road
was paved the rest of the way into town. We would all say at once, “Ah” and
revel in how smooth the road was when paved.
When I was eleven we even got a television
set, black and white of course. And then the world was at our call by getting a
kid to turn the channel changer or deal with the volume or smack the side when
the picture would roll.
I was one of the side smackers when
the horizontal oscillator would go out and the picture would roll. My brother
and I would jump up and smack the roll out of the television until it stopped
rolling. Occasionally, the television would just go dark. Go figure.
We were a community with good and
bad people, with saints and sinners side by side. But there was an overarching rule
that people had to act decent within the community or would be cast out. The
reason I am thinking fondly of a kinder gentler time is because I am up to my
neck in rude people.
When technology gave us a connection
to most of the seven billion people on Earth I never thought that I would
regret that technology. But I do since it seems to have brought out the very
worst in our citizens. In the older days including when I lived as a young man
in several small communities there was a price to pay for being rude to
someone.
Often it was a punch in the snout.
And since everyone saw everyone at the Post Office and the local café if you
were snarky to someone there would be an immediate consequence from that person
and likely several of the town elders who didn’t like that kind of behavior.
But we have a society that screams
rudeness because even if you do not like the way you are treated it is next to
impossible to find the culprit and administer the thrashing that the skunk
deserves. So many citizens just write something snarky back and the circle
continues.
Worse, in politics it is required
for people to lose whatever tiny bit of genteelness and be as rude and disgusting
as their vocabulary allows, all in the name of politics. Where will this end?
Who knows?
Kids learn potty words from watching
movies and are incredibly inappropriate with each other and adults. Yes, I
understand that there is free speech, but that just means someone can say that
your mother is a big pile of dog snot legally. And often illegally you will
punch them in the snout. But not if they are online and there is no way to bring
them to a moment of atonement.
The worse thing about this rudeness
in politics is we Americans who inherited a mighty fine nation from our parents
and grandparents are not being good shepherds of that trust. Rather, we ignore
the incredible debt being place around the heads of our children and
grandchildren while we complain that we haven’t gotten enough political plunder
for our votes.
All I do now is shun those rude
people when I notice them on Facebook or at a meeting. I have reached a time
and station in life where punching people in the snout is not an option. Maybe
I should design an app called the Snout Puncher.
Posts
