> That said, I just don't encounter rude people -- not face-to-face at any
> rate. Is it the South? I know one thing, though. I think it's the
> politeness that accounts for people's inability to figure out what to do
at
> a four-way stop. @@ Rather than simply following 4way stop rules, people
> are polite, waving the other person ahead, even if they don't have the
> right of way. The other one is doing the same. Back and forth, back and
> forth, 'til everyone's grinning or chuckling to themselves and someone
just
> finally decided to go ahead and go. It's like a rilly, rilly bad Aboott &
> Costello routine.
>
Kelley, that is true, people tend to be nice to each other in conventional situations within well defined roles expectations. But if those expectations are not met, people tend to have few social skills to cope and either blow a gasket or worse yet, pull a gun. I can illustrate that with research by Dane Archer (UCSC) in which he asked US and British HS students to write an ending to a story that involved some conflict (e.g. marital infidelity, picket line etc.). The most striking difference between thee responses was that the British usually provided endings involving some form of negotiation and conflict resolution, whereas American responses contained mainly outbursts of emotions and violence.
Or take anther example - not moderated internet lists, posts and chat rooms - by far Americans (especially males) post more offensive, denigrating and aggressive messages than any other English speaking nation with comparable internet access (i.e. Canada, Oz, or even the UK). I am pretty sure, however, that these folks would not dare to say the same things in a conventional setting of face-to-face interaction. However, the conventional rules and expectations governing face to face interaction do not quite pertain to internet - so these folks feel that it is a free shooting zone.
To summarize, civility in the US seems to be thinner than in comparable countries. On the surface, people seem to be polite in a conventional "small-talk" way, yes ma'am, yes sir, please, may I help you? - but as soon as those conventional rules are broken, they do not know what to do and they have little social skill to muddle through unfamiliar social terrain.
As I said before, there are several elements that contribute to it: - the disappearance of the public sphere and retreat to the private sphere, - the increased reliance on passive services and entertainment that fail to develop social-communicative skills, - pervasive marketing that develops a sense of entitlement; and - the history of anti-intellectualism, grounded in manly populism and boorish business culture (unlike US businessmen who were adventurous thugs and fond of their crudeness, European businessmen where thugs with aristocratic ambitions and thus eager to adopt aristocratic manners)
Wojtek