Full Frontal Rudity

Thank you very much for following me here from the front page; I am sure that you will enjoy our discussion. Well, let's get to it, shall we? Here are some of the survey's highlights:

88% of those surveyed said they "often or sometimes come across people who are rude or disrespectful"
62% said that rude and disrespectful behavior "bothers them a lot"
41% said they they have "done something similar themselves"

As I suggested in the introduction, this is not a particularly surprising set of statistics. Americans have always expressed concern about their collective manners. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, newspapers would routinely carry op-ed pieces with titles such as "Are Americans Mannerless?" This despite the fact that the worst example of bad manners in those days was leaving your house with your hat tilted at the wrong angle, or calling a young man "Master" instead of "Mister." Some of the things that contemporary Americans consider to be "bad manners" would have shocked the Americans of a century ago!

The one solid conclusion that we can take away from all of these surveys and public opinion polls about manners is that as a general rule, Americans are gradually getting ruder as a function of time. Conceptually, this means that you could read through a book of U.S. history, written by all those people who lived it, and the text would get ruder and ruder as you read, in order to match the norms of the societies in which the authors lived.

I do question the relevance of these results, however. Is this really something that we should be worrying about, given the current framework of events? Call me an idiot, but in my humble opinion the war on terrorism is a far more important thing to focus on than the ramblings of a bunch of uptight Emily Post wannabes. Don't we have more important domestic issues to deal with? I think the problem of rampant youth violence is worthy of our attention. I think we need to address the rapid spread of filth and pornography. There's a whole list of things that need to be wiped clean from our society; rudeness might be on that list, but it's pretty goddamn close to the bottom of it.

So a bunch of researchers with too much time on their hands and a shitpot of money call up God knows how many people on the telephone, and after spending months doing all sorts of statistical sampling and analytical "data mining", they come to the conclusion that (hold on to your hats, folks) Americans are gradually getting ruder. Holy Christ. How in the world can this whole study be considered anything other than a colossal waste of time?

Let me ask a more important question: Is there anything fundamentally wrong with being rude? If you live in a world where you're surrounded by complete assholes, shouldn't you be able to be a complete asshole in return? Let's face it. We live in a competitive society. Such is to be expected in a country that is based on the principles of unfettered capitalism. We prize our ability to keep up with the latest fashion trends. We make sure our children have the latest toys. We religiously watch professional sports. We litter our homes with lots of expensive modern art. In short, we live in a dog-eat-dog, consumer-driven culture.

What the fuck is wrong with that, you pretentious assholes?

I'll tell you what's wrong with it. Nothing is wrong with it. It's no freak accident that the United States is the greatest country in the world. Our obsession with materialism and our focus on bizarre things is oft-maligned, but there can be no disputing the simple fact that our system works. Sure, maybe we spend too much time concentrating on piddly shit and not enough time focusing on our families. And yes, maybe we are a bit rude. But at the end of the day, we're the country that can rain holy fucking hell down on any nation in this world by simply pressing a button, and we didn't get to this point by bowing and curtsying and saying "yes, ma'am" and all of the rest of that pansy-ass fucking Victorian bull-fucking-shit that the assholes 200 years ago did. And what the fuck good did it do them? They're all dead.

No, as far as I'm concerned, there is valor in rudeness and value to rudeness. The no-talent hacks at Public Agenda that put together this piece-of-shit survey would doubtless disagree with me, but as far as I'm concerned, they can all go fuck themselves with splintered broom handles. For that matter, so can all of you. I've got to get to the Mercedes dealership, and God help the poor bastard that cuts me off on the fucking freeway on the way there.

	To make a long story short (5.00 / 1) (#2)
	by Anonymous Reader on Thu Apr 4th, 2002 at 02:46:45 AM PST

	Everyone of us is surrounded by complete assholes. More: it is a right, and may be even a duty, of every Good American to be a complete asshole. So be it.

	Not bad, but... (1.75 / 4) (#3)
	by budlite on Thu Apr 4th, 2002 at 05:10:58 AM PST

	...simply being able to "rain holy fucking hell down on any nation in this world" is no justification for arrogance. In fact, arrogance is one of the least desirable characteristics I've encountered in the US people on this site.

	Don't forget everyone else!! (none / 0) (#7)
	by BCFH on Thu Apr 4th, 2002 at 11:37:15 AM PST

	Please don't forget: The UK, Russia, China and many other countries are also capable of raining "pure fucking hell". It's just that everyone else seems to forget this. Espicially Americans. It appears that being top dog for so long has given America and her citizens a self-inflated sense of importance, and many believe that this mean that they can say whatever they like to whomever the like. This may have been true in previous decades, but it certainly isn't now. I propose that we, all countriesthat are not america, turn our backs on her, then when she does try to make contact, we act as rudly to her as she has to us. And continue to do so until we get treated as equals. Else we might wish to remind her that we also, should we wish to, "rain pure fucking hell on her."

	Turning our backs on America .... (none / 0) (#8)
	by Anonymous Reader on Thu Apr 4th, 2002 at 12:44:27 PM PST

	...is the best way to be fucked up.

	If you're that dependent on a foreign country... (none / 0) (#9)
	by tkatchev on Thu Apr 4th, 2002 at 12:52:14 PM PST

	...you already are. -- Peace and much love...

	...whilst (none / 0) (#14)
	by BCFH on Fri Apr 5th, 2002 at 02:00:42 AM PST

	keeping our independence, way of life, culture, religion, monarchy (God bless the Queen Mum!!), economy in reasonable performance... sorry, please excuse me while i go psyco with the ways we hve adopted american strategies and how their fucking up our country.

	Damned! In response to the two .... (none / 0) (#15)
	by Anonymous Reader on Fri Apr 5th, 2002 at 02:56:01 AM PST

	When I wrote the parent, I never thought it would be interpreted that way. What I wanted to say was that if you turn your back on somebody, soon you don't know what he is doing (it's more difficult to keep an eye on your friend, or ennemy, while turning your back on him), and you are in the best position to be fucked up. I hope I made myself clear

	Certainly (none / 0) (#21)
	by BCFH on Sun Apr 7th, 2002 at 01:51:38 AM PST

	It just didn't sound like that. So i'm gonna agree with you.

	"pure fucking hell" (none / 0) (#17)
	by The dev0 on Fri Apr 5th, 2002 at 04:57:03 AM PST

	I'd love to, but, as an <i> Australian</i>, I'm an American.<p> Bugger.<p> Never fight naked, unless you're in prison...

	I agree, Americans should develope a sense of (5.00 / 1) (#11)
	by Adam Rightmann on Thu Apr 4th, 2002 at 01:57:54 PM PST

	noblesse oblige, for it's by the grace of God that our great nation has fulfilled it's Manifest Destiny to become the master of the world. Exuberantly striding across the globe, fighting our enemies with the flaming sword of Capitalism and stirving to bring the blessing of truth, justice and the American Way to every mean hamlet and hovel, we tend to forget that the lesser privileged sorts tend to have an illogical attachment to their old strange ways. We Americans should be a little less ostentation, a little more sensitive as we drag the rest of the world into the 21st century. A. Rightmann

	You will all become USA (tm) franchises! (3.00 / 2) (#19)
	by Anonymous Reader on Fri Apr 5th, 2002 at 09:17:42 AM PST

	OK, so a couple of has-been nations like China (4,000 years of history? What have you done lately? All your recent innovations seem to center around suppression of dissidents and filtering the internet for commie approval) and Russia (selling nukes to terrorists so they can buy liquor) have nukes. Let's not even talk about India and Pakistan, who cancel each other out. Boom!...Boom! Hope the wind doesn't blow our way! We are number one, woo-hoo! We may be in debt up to our eyeballs, causing lots of us to work ridiculous hours at soul-killing jobs, but when the chips are down, we can turn any one of your has-been or never-was motherlands into a smooth, glass-like surface! We rule! And now, under W's watch, with our never-ending 'War On Terrorism', nobody can stop us! People who are so otherwise powerless and disenfranchised they think strapping explosives to themselves and blowing up the food court is a good idea won't even have that option anymore! Lay back and enjoy it! USA! USA! We rule! Might makes right! We are rude for the same reason a dog licks his balls - because we can!

	Jesus H Bullshit (none / 0) (#4)
	by Anonymous Reader on Thu Apr 4th, 2002 at 08:19:23 AM PST

	I am tired and sick and TIRED of the constant fuckholes I have to talk to each and every day. If it wasn't my concern for society and it's well being, I would hack up each and every one of my co-workers as they lay in bed each night.

	where's the love, man? (none / 0) (#18)
	by Anonymous Reader on Fri Apr 5th, 2002 at 05:50:46 AM PST

	What do comments like this say about our society? That our culture is degrading, if America ever had a culture to begin with. This capitalist pop media driven culture promotes individualism to an extreme. Coupled with constant news reports of terrorism, bombing, death, and alerts, its amazing more people haven't just flipped out. But then again its true that we've always been rude and angry people. Perhaps we're really stable enough to deal with the circumstances.

	Future Greetings (5.00 / 4) (#6)
	by jvance on Thu Apr 4th, 2002 at 10:40:54 AM PST

	"Fuck you!" "And a hale and hearty 'fuck you' to you too, my good man!" -- Adequacy has turned into a cesspool consisting of ... blubbering, superstitious fools arguing with smug, pseudointellectual assholes. -AR

	I blame slashdot (4.00 / 1) (#5)
	by Anonymous Reader on Thu Apr 4th, 2002 at 08:39:53 AM PST

	You don't see this kind of profanity in the UK. Scotsmen are some of the most polite people in the world. Exposure to slashdot can be blamed for a lot of the profanity we see. For example this guy hardly sets a good example to our children, does he ?

	Well fuck telephone polls. (none / 0) (#10)
	by RandomAction on Thu Apr 4th, 2002 at 01:30:46 PM PST

	From the article: A full 79 percent of the 2,013 adults surveyed by telephone.. who are these people calling me while I wanna eat? We're being sold to much more, we dealing with ever more, often meaningless, choices/options. Were always rushing to where ever it is that we're going. So we have less time for necessities. So the fuck what? As to actually getting; ruder how could we know? When was the last time a similar survey was carried out? Not much to compare the 'data' with is there?

	I disagree. (5.00 / 1) (#12)
	by Anonymous Reader on Thu Apr 4th, 2002 at 03:33:21 PM PST

	The one solid conclusion that we can take away from all of these surveys and public opinion polls about manners is that as a general rule, Americans are gradually getting ruder as a function of time. Conceptually, this means that you could read through a book of U.S. history, written by all those people who lived it, and the text would get ruder and ruder as you read, in order to match the norms of the societies in which the authors lived. While the article is apparently made in jest, this point stuck out and I have a different opinion. I believe all societies have their layered levels of crudeness, verbal abuse, and general rudeness...just as each person has levels of cordiality. The key is the ability of the society and the person to express their "true feelings" and for those feelings to be recorded for history. I doubt the longshoremen on the eastern coast during the early 1700's were lilied and laced-up tea-sippers who proclaimed their deepest pardons for social slight. We just don't get much of a chance to hear their story through their mouths. As technology cheapened the access to wider forms of communication, I believe that more and more people found they could take advantage of their 1st Amendment rights. This inevitably meant that "coarser" people could now speak their minds. It's a trend of efficiency. Follow the trend to today. At first, all one could do was stand and yell. Then we could learn how to write and spread our beliefs through reproducible and movible type. Then we could use avian methods of long-range transport. After that, we discovered electronic transmission...and everything's been accelerating since then. We may very well be getting ruder on a per-capita basis. One must only take a drive through an afternoon downtown traffic jam to gather all the data you need on American rudeness. But the idea that we've been getting ruder on an absolute scale since the inception of our country I don't agree with. Namely, I think we've always been churlish, frumpy, uncivilized, and vulgar. I just think the signal-to-noise ratio has been biased against the common person for a very long time, muffling his/her chance to speak and it has been only recently (the Internet) that we've been exposed on a large scale to the utter crud some people spew forth from their lips and fingertips.

	Internet Licenses would be a big help here (none / 0) (#13)
	by dmg on Thu Apr 4th, 2002 at 08:18:24 PM PST

	I just think the signal-to-noise ratio has been biased against the common person for a very long time, muffling his/her chance to speak and it has been only recently (the Internet) that we've been exposed on a large scale to the utter crud some people spew forth from their lips and fingertips. I touched on this effect in my earlier controversial article on Internet Licenses, I still maintain that we need to discourage uneducated people from publishing their thoughts on the Internet, as it tends to give them a fake air of authority - You know, it must be true, I read it on a website... Readers may find this Time magazine article interesting further reading on the subject of the coarsening of America. time to give a Newtonian demonstration - of a bullet, its mass and its acceleration. -- MC Hawking

	Bad attitude... (none / 0) (#16)
	by The dev0 on Fri Apr 5th, 2002 at 04:51:25 AM PST

	Look at the fallout just because somebody stated the obvious. As Katchev would agree, I'm sure, Americans are known for being filthy pigs. Even to each other. At least on this glorious site we treat each other with dignity. Nation of the free, indeed! Never fight naked, unless you're in prison...

	HAHAHAHAH (none / 0) (#20)
	by JoePain on Fri Apr 5th, 2002 at 12:55:28 PM PST

	Your jealousy seeps through. It's ok though, it's not your fault you live in the third world.

	By the rude bridge that arched the flood (none / 0) (#22)
	by Anonymous Coward on Mon Apr 8th, 2002 at 06:32:04 PM PST

	Rudeness in the form of spam or telemarketing pays off. And in a country based on individualism, anything that makes us shun each other furthers. And if you on top, you can hire a team of ass-kissers to create a circle of gentility around you while others with less disposable income shove each other to get to the bargain bin. So, whether there's more or less rudeness, it's now distributed like the country's wealth with the topmost 3% getting the pleases and thank yous while the rest get the fuck yous. -- Support the home page homeless.

	Woweee! (none / 0) (#23)
	by Anonymous Reader on Mon Apr 15th, 2002 at 11:27:41 AM PST

	this is the first sensible article i have read on this site so far... maybe it was the fact that it was dripping with profanity that helped me understand it, but it made sense... good job, you fucking whackjob!