Rude Happens

Over the past week, we saw random acts of rudeness taking place on TV.  First there was the congressman who yelled "You lie!" at the President of the United States.  Next there was the tennis star who threatened to cram her racket into an official because of what she thought was a bad call.  And there was the rap artist who interrupted an award-winner's acceptance speech to tell the audience that another artist's video was better.

Then there's the everyday rudeness of people who commit crimes, yak at the dinner table while others are trying to watch the evening news, cut you off in traffic, use cell phones in public, use foul language in normal conversation, etc.

We deplore rudeness and bad behavior because we like to think of ourselves as a civilized society.  Well, if we actually were a civilized society, things would be pretty boring and repressive.

More often than not, rudeness has changed the course of history.  If civility had been the rule, there would be no United States of America.  Hitler would have conquered the globe.  Slavery would still be in existence.  Native Americans would have been left alone.  John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King would have lived out their lives.  The World Trade Center in New York would still be standing.  The wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan would never have happened.

Civility has also had its place in history.  Social and political movements, peace treaties and calm resolution of crises are part of the reason why the human race still exists.

But rudeness sells, baby.  Without it, rock music wouldn't exist, much less rap.  There would be no reality TV.  No Rush Limbaugh or Fox News Channel.  No movies rated PG-13 or R.  No pro athletes showing  off on ESPN.  No Karl Rove, Lee Atwater or footage of town hall meetings.  And broadcast TV wouldn't be having so many problems trying to compete with cable.  In other words, we'd still be living in the 1950s.

Sure, civility sells, too.  But it doesn't rake in nearly as much publicity as celebrities who give the finger to the paparazzi, telemarketers who call you at dinner (even though they're not supposed to), and people who throw back a home run ball because it was hit by someone on the visiting team.

As Joe Wilson, Serena Williams and Kanye West  have demonstrated:  Civility is what we strive for.  Rudeness and bad behavior is who we actually are.