What Ever Happened to Civility?

There are hundreds upon hundreds of etiquette rules. Many are very important to know, but one is the most important of all: civility. Civility is at the root of etiquette, and even at the root of elegance. By definition, it is “formal politeness and courtesy in behavior or speech.” This should not be too hard to follow, right? Well, not so.

There are many of you who are incredibly polite and friendly, practicing civility in every interaction you have. However, there is a big part of the population that has completely disregarded the mere idea of civility and in turn, our culture has become hostile and cold.

There is a multitude of reasons for our society’s (the U.S. in general) lack of civility, but today I’m going to start with the effects of COVID. Trust me, I too don’t want to pry into the pandemic, but I must do so in order to try to understand a facet of the problem at hand.

For those of us who were lucky enough to actually be able to quarantine instead of having to subject ourselves to COVID like the courageous essential workers, we lost many of the common interactions we used to experience in public, such as checking out at the grocery store or conversing with coworkers or peers. Unfortunately, this lack of interaction has diminished much of our society’s already fading graces, and as such, people forgot how to act around other people. This can be applied to the smallest of interactions, from neglecting to say “thank you” when someone holds the door for you to being chilly and boorish to someone you are working with.

Thus, our society has gotten comfortable with being uncomfortable and making people feel uncomfortable. Personally, I sometimes find myself disappointed when I have interactions with people. This is not to say that I am a saint, but I really do try to always be warm and enthusiastic, even when I am not feeling so. I would also like to mention that there are many, many interactions I have that are absolutely incredible. I have been very lucky to meet and interact with dynamic, gracious people, and I don’t want any of them to get thrown into this mix. If anything, I am going to use them as an example.

Therefore, in order to reattain civility, we need to start small. First, simply get into the habit of asking yourself “do I treat other people as I like to be treated?” While this saying is a bit of a cliche, it is a powerful one. It allows you to really think about not just how you treat others, but how your interactions with others make you feel. For example, when you meet someone and they look you in the eye and ask how you are and are warm and kind, that is a good interaction because you have been treated well. On the flip side, when you meet someone new and they neglect to make eye contact and don’t ask how you are or anything about you, this is a bad interaction because they have been disrespectful to you.

While it may seem silly to spell out these simple interactions, they matter. These are the interactions that affect not just our moods, but our society, which is right now built off of an abundance of bad interactions. However, if we start to practice simple acts of kindness more often, the behavioral makeup of our society can start to change for the better.