Civility: Formal politeness and courtesy in behavior or speech. Something it seems we have lost. People have declined in demonstrating civility and manners, and evidence of this decline is spreading like a wildfire. Are people actually this oblivious? Why do we not have respect for others? Why don’t we allow people to think what they want and have their own opinions and morals? It seems that we are going to be the generation that ends all civility in this world. That most definitely isn’t a good thing, and I can honestly say I’m scared.

            Politics is probably the biggest contributor to this decline today, and especially since the 2016 election, this incivility became even worse. Political parties have been attacking each other. This isn’t how it should be. Right when we thought these actions would stop, President Trump won the election, and the rudeness got worse. Why can’t we as a country just accept the fact that he is our president? Why can’t opponents respect that? Why do the opponents have to go after people, causing a big ruckus and calling people names for having their own opinion? Come on; people are entitled to have their own beliefs, and you can’t and won’t change that.

            This lack of civility then begins to spreads to our younger generations. Kids and early teens start seeing and hearing these disrespectful things and think such behavior is okay. They think it is appropriate to disrespect others’ opinions. They think it is okay to not let others have a voice. And they are lacking so much common sense. In school this uncivil behavior is increasing perhaps the worst out of all. Many students don’t listen to the people who try and teach them. They call the teachers names, they curse, they do what they want. Today, it is very difficult to be a teacher. Don’t get me wrong: there are kids who want to learn and want to be their best. But some of their peers make that very hard for them; they then can get caught in the mixture of things, or they end up not being able to focus. Instead of learning at school, they spend significant time watching teachers and students dealing with disruptions. 

            Do parents just not want to teach their kids common courtesy and manners anymore? Is that the problem? Somewhere along the line, parents stopped teaching their kids to respect each other, and then those kids had kids and now they don’t get taught these things, and the behavior just keeps going. Parents don’t seem to teach their kids to say please or thank you, or to do as little as avoid looking at their cell phones while others talk and have a conversation with them.

            People seem to be turning into robots, assuming that we all have to think the same thing and do the same thing to get respect from one another. You can’t have a civilized conversation anymore; can’t just hear each other's thoughts out and agree to disagree. We think we have to convince the other person that we are right when, really, we should let people have their freedom in what they think. We need to teach our kids and people to have common courtesy and manners, to teach them in school how to be in the real world. We need to teach them that disrespectful behavior is not okay in school or in the real world. We need to start punishing people more for what they do, not just have them say “sorry” because the rude behavior just keep reoccurring.

If we don’t change things soon, people will just keep turning on each other, and our society will only get worse from there.

Images from public domain images:  people.howstuffworks.com and hackernoon.com