When considering a response to a blog by a twitter friend, I posed a question to myself...  Why are people so much ruder these days than when I was a kid?  Kids are brattier, people show less consideration for disabled or even simply injured people, and little or none for the elderly.  What has led to this streak of indifference - and even cruelty - that seems to have become a hallmark of western society in the 21st century?

Here's the discussion that went on in my head.

• Is it a generational thing?
• It seems not to be confined to Gen Y or Millennials.  There are plenty of Gen-Xers and Boomers who are oblivious to the needs of others and who seem to take a kind of grim satisfaction in beating others to the punch.
• Okay... so if it's not generational, what other factors could be in play?
• Could it be that other people are all just more oblivious to the wants and needs of others?  There are potentially many reasons why...
• Is there a change in our cultural values towards responsibility for others?  If so, what could be behind this?
• Is this simply a result of a greater sense of personal entitlement?
• So... then I looked at obliviousness. To exhibit the kind of obliviousness that many people show to their common man, there are a number of possible justifications
• Simple misanthropy.  Buy why would so many people dislike each other with so little justification?  Is that perhaps a subliminal "stranger danger" response that has been elicited by the panic-mongering of our politicians over immigration policy and the Global War on Terror (GWOT)?  A xenophobic fear of "otherness"?  But if this is the case, how have our "societies" shrunk to such a small circle that even a stranger in the street now lumped in with the dreaded "other" - even if they might happen to share our own ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds?  So it's probably not quite that.
• Are our own problems now becoming so complex and insurmountable that the issues other people have are now just too much to cope with?  There are people touting statistics stating that we work longer hours for less buying power and have worse work life balance control than our forebears.  Is it possible that these kinds of factors have pushed us into a state of numbness with respect to the needs of others?  This idea seems to fit the facts, but it paints a bleak dystopian view of our civilization.  I can't believe this is all that's going on.  I have just as crappy a time of things as anyone else but I can still see the bigger picture and see beyond my own personal dramas.  I don't see my mind as being so exceptional that I'm the only one who still understands the social contract.
• Is there perhaps a sense of entitlement in play?  It occurs to me that one of the downsides of a Laissez-Faire "User Pays" society is that we are told entirely too much to stick up for our rights, that we have earned the right to do what we want without consequence, and without remorse.  That we as "the little guy" don't have to kow-tow to social convention and that our freedoms matter.  This seems to make more sense to me, as I occasionally find myself wondering why it is that other people won't get out of my way when I need them to.  However, if I can rise above my own sense of personal entitlement when it is appropriate to show some empathy for others, why can't everyone else?

The truth here is that we're probably all guilty of some or all of the above, and the effect tends to be cumulative, not driven exclusively by any one of the influences outlined.  The one thing that I think differentiates those of us who are capable of showing some decency to those around us and those who don't is simply a matter of empathy.  The person who leans on the horn to tell another motorist to go faster may not have considered the possibility that the person in front might be looking for a specific side-street that they might not have been to before.  The teenagers walking six-abreast down a busy city footpath (sidewalk for those of you in the US) and not leaving space for people travelling in the opposite direction are generally not thinking about the possibility that other people might want to use the space they are so aggressively monopolizing.  The person who leaves a shopping trolley blocking an entire aisle while they look at something at an end-of-aisle merchandising display are generally not thinking about the people who they might be holding up by doing so.  These are things that we've all been guilty of one time or another ourselves, yet we all find them hard to forgive others for.

Ultimately I think this boils down to a sense of mindfulness.  We are not reminded enough in our consumption-driven materialistic society that mindfulness is as much a virtue as possession, punctuality or trying to fill the abyssal pit of despair we all feel in a disconnected and seemingly disenfranchised society.

If you're going to take away anything from reading this blog entry, make it this.  Before you leap to anger or impatience, put yourself in the shoes of the people around you before taking aggressive action to empower yourself at the expense of others.  This kind of mindfulness is fundamental to good manners, and to respectful neighbourly behaviour.  Ask yourself why that person is doing what they're doing and whether it's reasonable to expect them to do otherwise.  If the answer is still "No, they're the ones being unmindful" then perhaps a simple statement of this lesson to your tormentors might be more productive than an aggressive or belligerent response.

With that, may you all have a mindful, successful and happy new year.  May 2012 bring us all what we need, not just what we want!  

Hopefully in my case, the good karma I've tried to earn with this blog this will result in winning lottery tickets in Australia's $31m X-lotto this weekend!