Are we becoming an uncivil society?

Further education cuts? Cause and effect?

I would like to comment on being uncivil society, I have only been with Current for 2 days.
I am very concerned about our children/young people, I have been reading & seeing about all the violence from young people ( about 12 to 30 yrs +/-).
I'm a grandmother that will be homeschooling my 14 yr old grandson,because of bullying.
Where are the parents?! what are they doing to teach their kids about tolerance?? We can not leave this up to teachers, which I'm afraid is what is happening. Parents are too busy trying to provide for their families. So, is this
violence a product of the economy? Maybe.
Is anyone teaching children about violence and what it does to them and their
own families? Of course, not to mention the victims families.
Are our kids desensitized? Yes! I really think this is a vast part of the problem.
We all are desensitized. As it has always been said, we can change channels,
not watch violence. But, we don't. I'm really concerned, this wanton violence. What is going to become of us as humans in the future, more specifically my grand children. Ages 3 & 14, my 14 yr old is ADHD & autistic and has a tenderness about him, as most autistic children do.
So, I'm doing something, albeit very small, by talking, homeschooling to break
this one chain.
So, did i get off the subject? I hope not . be patient I will get better at this.

I think that we are "uncivil". Considering the other blatant problems(I'm Canadian; we're not immune)...I think that incivility is the least of our problems.
I was a staunch c-conservative until 1996, or so. Served 25 years in the military, most of the time when liberal governments ran things.
I thought that they were bad until conservatives took over. What a self-congratulatory bunch of clowns.
Anyway, back to incivility. I was totally knocked over when Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon. Then, when Ford died, the media in lockstep declared that by doing that, 'the country healed' or, 'got closure'. I started screaming internally, "Are you people on drugs?" I was staunchly conservative, yes, but THE TRUTH MUST COME OUT.
I thought I was losing it...but accidently found the Daily Show with Jon Stewart in the late '90s, and Countdown with Keith Olbermann in 2008. Saved my sanity.
I still am very short and want to be VERY uncivil to those who worship FOX News.
I'm very disappointed in President Obama. I want the candidate back.

Well seeing as though this thread is being dominated by Debbie Downers with emotional arguments I had to come back and add my two cents. First off it doesn’t really bode well for the validity of your argument when the thesis is EVERYONE IS EVIL. If that’s really the case then by extension so are you, and so is everything you say.

Next point; give what we do understand about the nature of human beings I do not find it surprising that most people consider humanity to be uncivil. As was explained in the TED video I posted humans place more significance to events or ideas that are easier to recall. Given the nature of the news media, and the various forms of media in general is it any surprise that we have such a horrible perception of one another?

Ask yourself this. How many stories/news articles have you watched/read involving,

Priest that don’t diddle little boys
Drug dealers that don’t shoot innocent people randomly
Religious individuals with a full head of hair that don’t burn people at the stake or run around screaming Allah Akbar
Charitable businessmen
Politicians with no ulterior motive

How many times have you watched a movie or read a news paper article about a perfectly normal, boring and non-violent individual? The truth of the matter is that we don’t hear enough about the good of people because it BORING and compared to the amount of awesome evil stuff we’re subjected to we might as well not. Or at the very least no amount of sleep is lost in the process of slamming you and everyone you’ve ever known.

Really people this whole thing reeks of egalitarian bigotry. So what if you have a perfectly normal fixation on bad stuff, but please don’t sacrifice your ability to reason because by nature its easier to accept a premise then to do the actual homework.

We were never civil to start. think about it all the rich and powerfull companys that only care about one thing money. while children starve to death. not my problem as long as i got what i want this is the thinking of most people to day. ignorance is bliss. we need a new system.
Our current system is not capable of providing a high standard of living for everyone, nor can it ensure the protection of the environment because the major motive is profit. Businesses aren't entirely to blame; they are forced to operate this way in order to retain the competitive edge. Additionally, with the advent of automation, cybernation, and artificial intelligence, there will be an ever-increasing replacement of people by automated systems. As a result, fewer people will be able to purchase goods and services even though our capability to produce an abundance will continue to exist. This is well-documented in Jeremy Rifkin's new book The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-market Era (Putnam, 1995). The Venus Project offers a fresh approach that reverses the negative aspects experienced in our current applications of automation and artificial intelligence. This project eliminates the disastrous consequences that such approaches can have on our society, i.e. the displacement of millions of workers, skilled and unskilled alike.

The aim of this new social design is to encourage an incentive system no longer directed toward the shallow and self-centered goals of wealth, property, and power. These new incentives would encourage people toward self-fulfillment and creativity, both materially and spiritually.

purpose beats profit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpQIrQGHe-o

"Are we BECOMING an uncivil society"? Kinda foolish, don't you think? I think a better title would be "Are we still so un-evolved that we can't break out of our uncivil society"

We use people. We kill people for monetary gain. We're selfish. We don't think things through. We're afraid of authority. We're controlled by media. We're very unintelligent compared to China and many other countries. We're starting to hate our government. We're hating each other. We're hiding the truth about the oil spill. We're not talking about animals dying in masses. We're afraid of 2012. We're afraid of aliens. We're afraid of each other. We're afraid of the dark.

The answer would be "Yes". We're STILL uncivil.

"Seriously" though,....we aren't any worse stock than that riffraff the Brits shipped off to Australia,....some parental empires just prefer to kick their problem children out of the house; we have a society based on a bunch of bright, ruthless,....adaptable,..."Dicken's urchins",.....we got ALL UPPITY "inalienable rights in your face- rebellious" at the world !

p.s. good for us,....right to speech, arms,....the LOT of it ! RAH ! RAH U.S.!

WE BEGAN as an uncivil society. ( Ask the indians n' such )

- at least we aren't the French.

So the person who wrote this article must have grown up in the 90's and was never present in History class.

Becoming???

Like there are five fingers in a palm each one of them of different size and bears different purpose, society is also a mixture of civilised and uncivilised people.

Becoming? lol

There have always been radicals and extremists, it's just nowadays they all have internet access and social media. Plus it's proven in history that we love sensational stories, and it just so happens we zone in on them more than others (because anything else would be boring).

The election of the community organizer in chief who uses race as a playing card in politics has only made things worse.

Bottom Line its Evil against Good. It has always been this way since the beginning of man.

just looking at the kids and teenagers today.... we are fucked

Uncivil compared to when?

They killed a president in the 60's and his brother a senator , shot another one in the 80's.

in the 90's mcveigh leveled a whole building and evil people set fire to 37 black churches in 18 months in the south .

In 2008 a assassination plot on obama was foiled, last year some guy flew a plane into a irs building and a guy at ft hood shot up his army base.

In a nation of almost 300 million people and that has probably 6 or 7 guns for every 10 people that lives in it , its sort of a miracle these things don't happen more often.

What is this "becoming"???
Go back to 1492.....

I think we passed this line several years ago. If any leader says different they are out of touch and isolated from the real world.

sgwhites, very good article! Are we up against the NRA and all the elected political figures and their lobbyist! Are we led to believe that the only way to settle disputes is by gun play? How can we fix a problem that this massive gun lobby has created? All very good questions, we can talk about it, but who is listening? Nobody!

I do not think human nature is different than it ever was before. I think that currently right wing politicians/leaders and Fox News are invoking fear and hatred in their constituents. Nobody can deny that the right wing has been trying to make Obama seem like he is some sort of muslim-terrorist-communist-hitler-antichrist hybrid, and telling them things like Obama wants to kill their grandmas by denying them health care, or that he is a secret foreign muslim who isn't even eligible for the presidency (or any of the other multitude of ridiculous things they've said). Glenn Beck is making people think that our country is being taken over by enemies who are deliberately trying to destroy our country. Meanwhile other politicians are/were telling their right-wing constituents to use their second ammendment rights (guns) and revolution to fix things. There is no denying that our current uncivil discourse is coming from the right. This is fact. I don't care how the right wing wants to spin this. I have my own eyes and ears. Anyone who is paying attention knows I'm right.

Things are uncivil now because right wing politicians are bullshitting their constituents. I really think they are deliberately trying to incite violence. Fear is a huge motivator. Just look at how our rights have been trampled since 9/11. Look at how easily they lied to us to start an illegal war in Iraq! The people are not human beings to Republican politicians. People are merely cattle. Cash cows and cheap labor. That's all we're good for to them.

We are, but that is because we are no long adhering to the phrase "We the people" anymore. As we once thought that we were all equal in the United States as our Declaration of Independence declared, we have evolved into a country where those who are better off financially disregard anyone below their status as "unworthy" of their generosity. This is why we have this growing gap between the rich and the poor. As this gap increases the civil country we once had where our intentions were for the good of everyone, people will become more uncivil as the rich and wealthy try and push the majority into debt and submission. Civility will return again, but once "the people" revolt and overthrow the selfish elite.

Why sure we are.

We have been an uncivil society.

This is just another play from the democratic handbook. Guess we have forgott about the flag burning and all out riots during the Bush administration. How about the G20 summit a couple years ago. This country has always been uncivil. For christ sakes less than 200 years ago. When they had beef with each other they would go out side and shoot each other in a duel instead of bitching at each other from behind a computer.

Bring back the duel 2011!!

QQ

On some levels yes, there is a break down between the political spectrum with no one willing to compromise and both sides getting more radical, although it seems the most volatile of rhetoric is coming from and popular with the right. But its not just politics, we are becoming a very self centered society. there was once a time when if you had a flat tire on the side of the road 4 people would stop before you were even out of the car. Now no one stops. It seems that everyone will think of themselves before they make a decision but fail to think of anyone else.

We have always been uncivil. The big difference now is that you can see incivility 24 hours days without fact checking. The media's magnifying glass is not being used to see the truth, only to start fires on flammable issues for ratings.

Becoming?

No . . .

Ever been to the sixties?

I think that we are swaying away from being civil, at least on a political level. Each person in this nation is always going to have some different political views from the next person, and at the moment a lot of people who are getting attention (and consequently setting the example for how to act) are more interested in having things 100% their way, screw anyone who disagrees. Politically, we used to be better at looking for and arriving at a middle ground that we could agree on. I'm sure we'll get there again, but at this moment it looks like politics in the United States is going a route that has more in common with professional wrestling instead of a force of elected representatives who are supposed to be the voice of the people.

NO, not at all.

I don't think it's a good idea to use someone with serious mental health issues as the cue to set up the question " Are we becoming an uncivil society?" anymore than using an observational visit to a psych ward as inspiration for such a reflection.

Have we ever been civil? Through my short lifetime i have only seen great unrest with society because everyone is looking for a way to make themselves more superior whether it be race,class,religion, political ideology,sexuality, weight,etc. People seem to not accept difference for difference, it always seems to be shed in the false light of a threat and when most people are threatened they do not act civil or rationality.
Yes, we could ask the question of gun control after the events in Tucson, it is a valid conversation to have but i doubt it would solve anything, mainly just get a bunch of gun owners pissed off and hear the same arguments everyone hears when a negative comment about guns are made. We need to be really asking "What drives people to this?", "How/why/where do they find justifications for these actions?", "Why are potentiality dangerous people not addressed BEFORE they do something?" "Why are people not getting the help they require" Lets not hide our heads in the sand like every other tragedy in this nation lets rise up use it as the catalyst for positive progression in our politics and media. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." -Abraham Lincoln