So a few months ago I wrote about my midlife crisis, and how I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up (not that I ever have any expectation, or desire really, of actually being a grown up. How can you be a grown up when you live in a zoo?) Over the last few months I've come up with a few ideas of what I want to be when I'm old and can get away with a lot of shit I'd never be able to get away with now...and no, none of them involve wearing a red hat, mostly because I do wear purple shirts but a red hat would clash with my hair. And I've gotten so used to the every six weeks or so covering up the grays that yeah...no red hats for me.
One of the things I decided I want to do when I am old is wander around telling people exactly what they are. I figured I'd be the little old lady in the grocery store with a stack of post it notes and a felt tip marker (no reason for the felt tip, other than that it will most likely be just as obsolete as I will) sticking shit to your forehead. "You're an asshole who thinks the world owes him something." "You should worry more about what you are screaming at your kids will do to them than whether or not the people of Walmart care that you try to discipline them think." "You're a douchebag who takes advantage of his friends and then just leaves them hanging..." That sort of thing
Just today the stars all converged and I had an epiphany. Because really, we are taught that we should let things go, right? The cashier is rude? Let it go. Someone flips you off in traffic? Let it go. Your co-worker is having a moment? Let it go. Someone, somewhere, anywhere, doubts your sincerity and gets nasty about it? Let it go. But heaven forbid you should do those things to others, right? I mean we all learned the Golden Rule. Right up there with cookies and milk and love your mom and...holy shit. What ever happened to just being nice to each other, whether you want to or not? And why do we have to worry about how nice we are to other people, if they don't give a goodgoddamn about how nice they are to us?
Today the lady at the bank decide that she needed to "school" me in something I already know. And that she needed to do it in a huffy voice, with the eye roll and all. And guess what? She was wrong. Like stunningly wrong. And if she had just finished the transaction before she decided to go all lemme teach you a lesson on me, she probably would have just let it go. But no. She had to come on her little drive thru mike and give me a lesson on how to write a bank deposit. Mind you, she made like four or five erroneous assumptions in deciding to do this, and yeah, pretty much pissed me off. So she clicks the mic off, and goes about doing her real job (which contrary to her opinion does not involve educating me on how to make a bank deposit, or run a business...or anything for that matter.) But she pissed me off. And I sat there stewing. Let it go? She was rude, and wrong. Let it go? Oh hell no. Because I'm damn sick and tired of just shutting up and allowing people to get away with being rude.
Being me, I decided to Google rudeness just to see what I would come up with, and I think I have found an answer. According to that all knowing group think source (Wikipedia, for the uninitiated) rudeness is
"Rudeness (also called impudence or effrontery) is a display of disrespect by not complying with the social "laws" or etiquette of a group or culture. These laws have been established as the essential boundaries of normally accepted behavior. To be unable or unwilling to align one's behavior with these laws known to the general population of what is socially acceptable is to be rude.
Rudeness "constituted by deviation from whatever counts as politic in a given social context, is inherently confrontational and disruptive to social equilibrium" (Kasper, 1990, p. 208). Rudeness, particularly with respect to speech, is necessarily confrontational at its core.
Forms of rudeness: inconsiderate, insensitive, deliberately offensive, impolite, a faux pas, obscenity, profanity, violating taboos, and deviancy. In some cases, an act of rudeness can go so far as to be criminal behavior."
Well hells bells. Normally accepted behavior? In a world where it's ok to go online and post the most vitriolic stuff imaginable and called it protected speech under the guise of anonymity, or post it to your facebook status (can we call degrading presidential candidates, or the freaking POTUS rude, i.e. disrespectful?) I guess you could say reading the wiki article made me realize that today, what is socially acceptable..well let's just say my 1st grade teacher would have taped my mouth shut for the things that people demand the right to do today. Ask me? Apparently rude is the socially accepted norm, and I'm an anachronism waiting to be plopped into a time capsule and called quaint...or to be the little old lady at the grocery store with her post-its and felt tip marker.
You know why rudeness has become socially acceptable? Because we fucking let people get away with it. Sorry, but it's true. How many times have you just let it go when someone was rude to you? How many more times have you just let it go when you watched someone be rude to someone other than you? Not my problem? Of course it's your problem. And my problem. And every one's problem. Because what we allow becomes the expectation. If we permit, as a group, society, whatever, rudeness to be condoned, rudeness becomes the socially accepted norm.
Maybe you are ok with that. But I've complained too much, and heard too many complaints, to believe that we want a society where it's perfectly ok to be rude as a way of life. So, I'm starting today. We already have the grammar police, but I'm becoming the rudeness police. I refuse to let it go, I refuse to tolerate watching rudeness happen, and I believe that you don't even have to be rude back. Just a simple "wow, that was pretty harsh" or "did you really have to be rude?" will work wonders. Because if society refuses to accept it, then the behavior will be considered outside the norm, socially unacceptable, and maybe, just maybe, we will all be better off.
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