Choosing civility
Today on the Midday show, we have the pleasure of Professor P.M. Forni's company again. He's been looking at and talking about civility for years and he's inspired Choose Civility campaigns around the country, including Howard County's. (We could use a "Be Civil" campaign in Baltimore.) Forni's new book is just out: The Civility Solution: What To Do When People Are Rude.
Last year, Forni collaborated with the Jacob France Institute at UB to survey people in the Baltimore area on the rude behavior they consider most offensive. Below is "The Terrible Ten," the survey's list of worst behaviors, according to the respondents, ranked by degree of offensiveness.
1. Discrimination in the workplace
2. Dangerously erratic or aggressive driving
3. Taking credit for someone else's work
4. Treating service providers as inferiors
5. Making jokes or remarks that mock someone's race, gender, age, disability, sexual preference, or religion
6. Aggressive or bullying children
7. Littering
8. Misuse of handicapped privileges
9. Smoking in non-smoking areas or near non-smokers without permission
10. Using cell phones in mid-conversation or during a meeting
Comments
The issue of civility should be brought up in the media more often. Decades ago we gave up Civics for Social Studies in school, and the people the youth look up to today are hardly great role models. If you hit the streets of Baltimore and ask people to define civility, many wouldn't even know what it means.
I think the terrible 10 is mild.
Often times I like to believe the reason we such incredulous things in Baltimore, is because people don't know any better. It is time for people to know better... don't you think?
Posted by: Dunn | June 26, 2008 10:56 AM
Living in HoCo and being able to observe drivers there each and every day, I can attest that the great irony about the Choose Civility campaign is that the drivers who sport those green bumper stickers appear to be among the worst on the road!
When my wife and I see those stickers, we give quite a distance to the other driver, knowing that we're bound to be cut off, or that the other driver will make an illegal u-turn, swerve across 3 lanes of traffic with no turn signal to make an exit and so on and so forth. Those bumper stickers have become a marker for bad drivers, and "Choose Civility" has just become code for "Please don't flip me off after I've nearly run you off the road."
So, Dan, be careful what you ask for in suggesting a Be Civil campaign. "Civil" folks may be avoided at all costs.
Posted by: Columbia | June 26, 2008 11:23 AM