Then it was “Father Knows Best.” Now it’s “The Simpsons.”
Then it was Ozzie and Harriet. Now it’s Beavis and Butt-head.
America has gone from “please” to “in your face,” from “thank you” to “back off.”
“Rudeness is rampant,” says etiquette consultant Ann Marie Sabath.
Like it or not, civility is out of fashion.
What is happening is nothing less than a dramatic change in society, says pollster Al Tuchfarber, director of the University of Cincinnati’s Institute for Policy Research.
“Society in the 1990s is much less civil than it was in the 1950s,” Tuchfarber says. “The Baby Boom generation is primarily responsible.
“It was a generation committed to upsetting the apple cart, a generation that reveled in hedonism and narcissism. It became acceptable to be totally self-centered and not worry about personal responsibilities to people around you. In the process, civility broke down.
“But this incivility is just a symptom of a larger problem-the lack of taking personal responsibility for our own actions.”
Incivility is dramatically demonstrated by blunt language.
“Words not said in polite conversation years ago are now ordinary conversational words,” notes Judith Trent, a communications professor at the University of Cincinnati. “The language is not nearly as nice as it once was.”
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But advertising executive Jerry Galvin disagrees with all those saying people are ruder today than in the past.
“We really don’t change that much from generation to generation,” Galvin says.
“I thought my kids were rude. But my parents thought I was rude. It’s the same thing over and over. Nothing to worry about. The big wheel just keeps on turning.”