Only recently have I found the words for what has for some time nagged me about this country. It is not a simple problem. The problem is deep. It manifests itself in an attitude and a way of being.
Our society is suffering from a grave problem. We do not respect our fellow citizens. ‘We’ includes politicians, businesses, and ordinary citizens like myself. Our society is becoming increasingly insular as we find new ways to avoid interacting with each other. The best way to explain the problem is to look at it from different angles.
Politics
Politicians are the people who are tasked with representing their constituents (us). It is my belief that the majority of politicians were at one time honest, good people who got into politics to make a real difference. What they found when they entered the field must have shocked them. Their first experience with the responsibilities of representing their largest campaign contributers, and the lobbies that paid them well must have been disheartening. The problem is that in politics money is more important than faithfully executing your job. There is unfortunately little recourse for the honest politician. Things have been this way for a long time, and the institution will do whatever it can to protect itself.
What does this have to do with respect? The politicians are showing little respect for their constituents. When it is time for them to vote on important issues, they side with their monetary supporters and not with the constituents who have elected them. The constituents might decide to vote for someone else at the next election, but they know in the back of their minds that the same thing will happen. It is difficult for a person to feel like their vote matters when the institution does not respect them. Frustrated, we still do our civic duty and vote. Not voting would be a far worse option.
Corporate America
I have been told that in times past companies paid a lot of attention to customer service. Unfortunately I was not around to see this with my own eyes. What has stuck in my mind is the lack of respect when a company blatantly lies directly to a customer, or to a community in which it wishes to establish itself. Take, for example, Walmart.
Walmart is positioning itself as a benevolent company. They are constantly running television advertisements about how they are helping the communities they are in. Walmart has even taken upon itself to establish a literarcy hotline to help the illiterate to read. The literarcy hotline is a good thing, the reason behind it is not. It is disrespectful to come into a community, demand tax breaks, and then establish a program that costs much less than your tax breaks as some sort of justification.
Walmart may say that they will bring tons of jobs to your community; however, will fail to mention that the average salary of their workers is around $10 an hour. They also fail to mention that their employees will not be given health insurance, thus costing the state more money.
This kind of treatment is extremely disrespectful. I do not mean to only single out Walmart. They were simply the best example of this type of disrespect that I could think of.
The majority of web users now employ some sort of pop-up blocker. They use these blockers to keep obnoxious advertisements from ruining their internet experience. Recently, a company found a way to use the flash plugin to bypass the popup blockers in many web browsers. The company viewed their potential audience with a sense of contempt. It is unreasonable to think that those who are purposely combating these types of ads would ever click on them.
The business community needs to treat the American people with more respect. Respect will likely not help their bottom-lines; however, it is their civic duty to us. The idea that consumers need to be fooled and pushed into buying products is absurd and is hurting the fabric of our society. These tactics are helping to shape a new generation of cynics. Many now do all they can to skip being bombarded by any form of advertisement. If the industry would simply wise up, we would no longer be in this sort of adversarial position.
The American People
The problem has trickled down to the American people themselves. People are less apt to be polite, or to have any common courtesy. People do not turn off their cell phones in movie theaters. Drivers cut each other off at every turn instead of waiting 2 seconds to find that the car on their left was the only one for miles. We do not think outside of ourselves anymore. The feelings of those around us are no longer even considered. They can fend for themselves, right?
Our thinking is now backwards. Instead of thinking that we can make a difference, we now feel that we must be selfish. Instead of giving, we must now horde things. The most important thing is to collect all the amenities that we can, build a big house, and stuff them in there. That way we can at least escape the condescending atitude that we ourselves have been so instrumental in shaping.