The Unnatural Selection of Manners

There have been times I have used the space afforded to me by this illustrious publication to bemoan the fact that civility is careening down the same path previously traveled by the ill-fated Dodo bird and the, less celebrated, more fabulously named, but just as dead, Big-Eared Hopping Mouse. I know I sound like everybody’s curmudgeonly Uncle Charlie ranting about how the world is going to Hades in a handcart and when he was young people knew what manners were, chivalry was not dead and it was not nearly so difficult to find a really good hamburger with French fries that weren’t too crispy and also weren’t so limp they couldn’t even support a healthy dollop of ketchup from the plate to your mouth without dropping its tomato-y load on your favorite tie with all the pictures of tiny golf clubs. Really, is that too much to ask? Sorry, I sort of jumped the rails there.

Anyway, I genuinely fear that civility is endangered and will soon be extinct in the wild. We will only be able to experience it under contrived circumstances. Like people can only see the Wyoming Toad in zoos (or in pictures of the Vice President of the United States between 2001 and 2009 – that is an arcane and impolite joke, sorry) we will only be able to see manners in movies starring Cary Grant. I am going to continue the analogy comparing human behavior to animal species because I think there is one chief contributing factor in the demise of both: effectiveness.
Some animals became extinct because the skills and physical attributes they possessed were no longer effective at keeping them alive and procreating. (The Big-Eared Hopping Mouse was no match for the Gigantic-Incisored Sprinting Cat.) That is the problem with civility. Practitioners are not given the kind of evolutionary leg up those who practice greedy selfishness and rudeness receive.

Clinical Study Number One: (Okay, it is not a real study and it was not done in a clinic and it would not stand up to any sort of scrutiny by honest-to-goodness scientists but it is what I believe…so there.) The younger males of the human species go out into the jungle, in this case high school, in search of females of the species. One subset was raised in households in which kindness and courtesy were valued attributes. The other subset gives significance to roughness and disdain for the feelings of others (as well as a disdain for words like disdain which gives you a big hint which subset I belonged to). The first male subset listened empathetically to the feelings, hopes and dreams of the females of the species and couldn’t get to first base. The second male subset forced the females of the species to come running out to their Trans Ams when they honked their horns which were barely audible above the AC/DC blaring from their car stereos possessing enough wattage to power Poughkeepsie and, shall we say, the third base coach was pretty much continuously windmilling his right arm indicating it wouldn’t even be necessary to slide. (By now there are no doubts which subset I belonged to.)

Clinical Study Number One proves the evolutionary advantage of being selfish and if you need more evidence proving the advantages of the me-first-and-everyone-else-can-eat-me-dust attitude simply look at the legislative body of your choice. (We can kill medical coverage for anyone born post 1957 but we are guaranteed free medical services for life because we are members of congress.)

Clinical Study Number Two: (see parenthetical from Clinical Study Number One.) This study shows another aspect of how rude is more effective. Scientists monitored polite soft-spoken people dealing with insurance companies, any sort of phone sales, and guys who just cut in front on line at Dillons. They were as successful in getting their way as the control group of life-sized cardboard representations of Mister Rogers.

I have to say Clinical Study Number Two makes total sense to me. I am often calm, polite and ignored. However, if I become a mash up of Howard Beale and Sam Kinison the outcome is more likely to go my way. I want to go on record saying I do not allow my inner screamer to come out very often at all, unless I am dealing with a certain cell phone company. Suffice it to say they could sure as heck hear me now.