Something is wrong with America. There is a sickness creeping over our country.
There is a coarseness that is pervasive throughout our culture. Being coarse is not a phrase we use a lot nowadays, but it means to be indecent, profane, rude and vulgar, even obscene.
The symptoms have been coming on for several years and I had hoped things would get better, but as we go into this 17th year of the 21st century I am growing more concerned.
We have a bullying problem. And it doesn’t just take place in the schools with our children. It exists in the workplace, and in our shopping centers, out on the roadways where we call it “road rage”, and yes even in the home.
Bullying takes place when someone thinks they are entitled to more rights than someone else, when they find they can use their size, or their money, or their perceived prestige to run down or run over others who they believe are inferior to them. They de-value others based on their skin color, or where they live, or their lifestyle, or even their politics.
There is a coarseness in how people dress in public. Tee shirts designed to shock through the use of four letter words or crude gestures, boys whose pants are dragging so low we are afraid to walk behind them while shopping.
There is a coarseness in how people interact in relationships. From our local newspaper coverage to cable TV networks, we witness fighting and peace disturbances, often aggravated by alcohol or drugs.
Some of you may be saying that I am being too old-fashioned, that some people have always acted that way. And I agree that some people have.
But not to the extent we see it today, and not in the public arena where it all plays out today. And certainly not with so many female members of our society involved. Whether it is adult women or girls in school, they are often as coarse as men and boys.
Teachers are attacked by students in public schools. Parents attack other parents at sports events where their children play. Grown children attack their elderly parents.
There is a coarseness in how people communicate, especially on social media. I don’t use Twitter, but if people tweet the way they post on Facebook, I can imagine how bad it is. It is almost every day that I have to delete someone from my Facebook page who can’t write two sentences without using ten vulgarities. I don’t have room for those words in my mind, and I don’t want to become accustomed to them.
There is a big generation gap between those born in the 1940’s and those
born in the 1980’s. We have lost a generation somewhere along the line, where children were taught certain values in the home, even before they started school. They were taught to share and to work together as a family.. They were taught to respect their parents and other elders. They were taught to recognize the authority of teachers and law enforcement.
We are now witnessing the consequences of children being allowed to grow up without those values being a part of their training and discipline.
Yes, America has a sickness. Whether it will turn out to be terminal is up to us. Using the Ten Commandments as a parenting and teaching guide would be a good start, both in the home and in the schools.
©Joan Rowden Hart from my newspaper column "Coarseness Or Civility", 2017.
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