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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 4, 2024

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Of course we shouldn't, but expecting everyone to be courteous all the time is ridiculous. I also shouldn't have to lock my car, or remove valuables from plain sight, or any number of other things that I do because they are unfortunately necessary. The question here is one of remedy, the implication being that receiving justice is so involved that it's often not worth it for relatively minor inconveniences. Which can be true, since this isn't one of those cases. It's a shame that she has to call the property management company to get somebody to do something about it, but it's a phone call. The initial concern wasn't that the thing was happening but that it was too minor for the police to get involved.

The old Hobbesian/Trad-Right take would be that the sort of people who believe that "expecting everyone to be courteous all the time is ridiculous" create the environment where you need to remove valuables from plain sight because how you approach the little things informs how you approach the big things.

expecting everyone to be courteous all the time is ridiculous

Why? I was born in a house without running water, and my mother taught me not to eat in the streets as that was common and bad manners. Then something changed in society, we dumped all the old rules, and today this is what we've got: 'please don't park in my space' engenders a guy trying to kick your door down.

And all the assumptions that he must be a working-class/underclass thug? Not warranted. Middle-class people can be mannerless sons of bitches too. Don't put it all on the poor, the college boys and girls who grew up to make the new rules are the ones who brought this situation about.

If we lower our expectations to "of course asking people to behave with common courtesy in public all the time is ridiculous", then this is what we get.

I think we might be talking past each other here. I don't mean ridiculous in the sense that it's unreasonable on an individual level, I mean ridiculous in the sense that, on a societal level, expecting a world where there are no assholes is hopelessly naive. It's like the whole defund the police thing; I personally don't like the idea that it's necessary to dedicate so many of my tax dollars to funding an apparatus to protect society from the very worst possible sort of person. But I don't think that defunding the police is a reasonable position on the basis that it's not ridiculous to expect people to behave all the time. Or like the idea during MeToo that instead of teaching women basic precautions we should just teach men no to rape. A nice sentiment, but easier said than done. As a practical matter, it isn't realistic for me to live my life with the expectation that everyone will always be acting courteous and in good faith, because no matter what we try to do, there are always going to be assholes out there.

I certainly don't expect a society with no assholes, but right now I think we've slid all the way into "how dare you accuse me of being an asshole, I'm a minority/a victim/rules are for suckers/other stupid reason for why I shouldn't have to abide by social norms" acceptance of bad behaviour.