Thoug the article below is about Americans, I think it is
relevant to Singaporeans too:
Americans
Are they getting ruder?
Yes, with rising road rage, cell phone talk; good question in
Singapore, too. TheBostonChannel,
Oct 15, 2005
Washington - Americans' fast-paced, high-tech existence has taken a
toll on the civil in society.
From road rage in the morning commute to high decibel cell-phone
conversations that ruin dinner out, men and women behaving badly
has become the hallmark of a hurry-up world.
An increasing informality - flip-flops at the White House, even -
combined with self-absorbed communication gadgets and a demand for
instant gratification have strained common courtesies to the
breaking point.
"All of these things lead to a world with more stress, more chances
for people to be rude to each other," said Peter Post, a descendent
of etiquette expert Emily Post and an instructor on business
manners through the Emily Post Institute in Burlington, Vt.
In some cases, the harried single parent has replaced the
traditional nuclear family and there's little time to teach the
basics of polite living, let alone how to hold a knife and fork,
according to Post.
A slippage in manners is obvious to many Americans. Nearly 70
percent questioned in an Associated Press-Ipsos poll said people
are ruder than they were 20 or 30 years ago.
The trend is noticed in large and small places alike, although more
urban people report bad manners, 74 percent, then do people in
rural areas, 67 percent.
Peggy Newfield, founder and president of Personal Best, said the
generation that came of age in the times-a-changin' 1960s and 1970s
are now parents who don't stress the importance of manners, such as
opening a door for a female.
So it was no surprise to Newfield that those children wouldn't
understand how impolite it was to wear flip-flops to a White House
meeting with the president - as some members of the Northwestern
women's lacrosse team did in the summer.
A whopping 93 percent in the AP-Ipsos poll faulted parents for
failing to teach their children well.
"Parents are very much to blame," said Newfield, whose
Atlanta-based company started teaching etiquette to young people
and now focuses on corporate employees. "And the media."
Sulking athletes and boorish celebrities grab the headlines while
television and Hollywood often glorify crude behavior.
"It's not like the old shows 'Father Knows Best,"' said Norm
Demers, 47, of Sutton, Mass. "People just copy it. How do you
change it?" Demers would like to see more family friendly
television but isn't holding his breath.
Nearly everyone has a story of the rude or the crude, but fewer are
willing to fess up to boorish behaviour themselves.
Only 13 percent in the poll would admit to making an obscene
gesture while driving; only 8 percent said they had used their cell
phones in a loud or annoying manner around others. But 37 percent
in the survey of 1,001 adults questioned Aug 22-23 said they had
used a swear word in public.
Yvette Sienkiewicz, 41, a claims adjustor from Wilmington, Del,
recalled in frustration how a bigger boy cut in front of her
8-year-old son as he waited in line to play a game at the local
Chuck E. Cheese.
"It wasn't my thing to say something to the little boy," said
Sienkiewicz, who remembered that the adult accompanying the child
never acknowledged what he had done. In the AP-Ipsos poll, 38
percent said they have asked someone to stop behaving rudely.
More and more, manners are taught less and less.
Carole Krohn, 71, a retired school bus driver in Deer Park, Wash,
said she has seen children's behavior deteriorate over the years,
including one time when a boy tossed a snowball at the back of
another driver's head. In this litigious society, she argued, a
grown-up risks trouble correcting someone else's kid.
One solution for bad behavior "is to put a kid off in the middle of
the road. Nowadays all people want to do is sue, to say you're to
blame, get you fired," Krohn said.
Krohn, who often greeted students by name and with a hearty "good
morning," once was asked by a child if she got tired of offering
pleasantries.
Sienkiewicz, whose job requires hours in a car, said she tries to
avoid rush-hour traffic because of drivers with a me-first
attitude.
The most common complaint about rudeness in the poll was aggressive
or reckless driving, with 91 percent citing it as the most frequent
discourtesy.
Margaret Hahn-Dupont, a 39-year-old law professor from Oradell, NJ,
noticed that some of her students showed little respect for
authority and felt free to express their discontent and demand
better grades.
Close on the heels of the baby boomers are the affluent teens and
young adults who have known nothing but the conveniences of
computers and cell phones, devices that take them away from
face-to-face encounters and can be downright annoying in a
crowd.
"They got a lot of things and feel entitled to get a lot of
things," said Hahn-Dupont.
Bernard F. Scanlon, 79, of Sayville, NY, would like to see one
railroad car set aside for cell phone users to ensure peace and
quiet for the rest. Amtrak has taken a stab at that by banning cell
phones and other loud devices in one car of some trains, especially
on chatty Northeast and West Coast routes.
But if those trains are sold out, the Quiet Car service is
suspended and anything goes. How rude.
