The new moral zeitgeist.

[Zaik]

Courtesy is pointless verbal fluff with no purpose.

You say the words over and over so much they lose all meaning and become noises.

If anything, I like that people are moving away from pointless social rituals that waste everyone's time.

 

[Gaderael]

I guess it's where you're from. Around here, while you do get your rude assholes, most people say please and thank you, and actually mean it. We'll hold open doors for one another, and all the other polite stuff.

 

[llafnwod]

Courtesy is pointless verbal fluff with no purpose.

You say the words over and over so much they lose all meaning and become noises.

If anything, I like that people are moving away from pointless social rituals that waste everyone's time.

What the hell? Acknowledging a kind action with a verbal response is a "pointless social ritual"? Presumably if someone shoves you to the floor, you won't (at the very least) tell him to fuck off?

 

[rabidmidget]

I'm just gonna write this off as a "toast, butter side down" situation.

Besides, the general politeness of a population of one specific geographical area does not apply to all of society, the culture and behaviour of people can change greatly depending on where you live.

 

[Goldenkitten01]

I guess it's where you're from. Around here, while you do get your rude assholes, most people say please and thank you, and actually mean it. We'll hold open doors for one another, and all the other polite stuff.

This as well. I travel a lot (around America at least) and down in most southern states not only is it common with almost everyone using manners, but in most cases they seem to be genuine. The further north you get the less common this is, to the point where people actually gave me mean looks for using manners in New York. Whether that's telling of the people themselves or simply cultural progression is up in the air.

 

[mechanixis]

Morality?

Hardly. Sounds like you're nitpicking about courtesy.

This.

If Morality even existed, but it's instinct how people act and how the current memes are acted upon. The current view of people is not to care about anyone but themselves, even schools teach this in the background. Well they do but it's hard to see it through all their pro-American lectures.

Chewing with your mouth open = propagating immoral American imperialism.

Hellooo Insane Troll Logic.

 

[Woodsey]

What?

Morality doesn't equate to manners, bloody hell. At least I can show all the internet drama queens that we really do live in the best point of history, if people can make posts like yours and think its a real issue of the day.

 

[FllippinIDIOT]

The Great Old Ones love and care about you and always will, you might not love them back but take note that when they return you will be rejoicing in the holocaust of esctacy and freedom that will follow.Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.

 

[Zaik]

Courtesy is pointless verbal fluff with no purpose.

You say the words over and over so much they lose all meaning and become noises.

If anything, I like that people are moving away from pointless social rituals that waste everyone's time.

What the hell? Acknowledging a kind action with a verbal response is a "pointless social ritual"? Presumably if someone shoves you to the floor, you won't (at the very least) tell him to fuck off?

Saying fuck off? Yeah, that's pretty pointless. People should have grown out of that in late middle school or so. You ought to think up a better example.

 

[MaxwellEdison]

I'd say that from what I observe, our society does tend to teach us to be self-absorbed.
I don't think this is new, I don't think this is a question of morality, and I would question the use of the term zeitgeist in this context.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Zeitgeist.....how i loathe the modern use of that word.

I didn't even know that was a word.

OT: No, I hadn't noticed.

 

[llafnwod]

Courtesy is pointless verbal fluff with no purpose.

You say the words over and over so much they lose all meaning and become noises.

If anything, I like that people are moving away from pointless social rituals that waste everyone's time.

What the hell? Acknowledging a kind action with a verbal response is a "pointless social ritual"? Presumably if someone shoves you to the floor, you won't (at the very least) tell him to fuck off?

Saying fuck off? Yeah, that's pretty pointless. People should have grown out of that in late middle school or so. You ought to think up a better example.

Yeah, yeah, not a great analogy. My point is, providing even a token acknowledgment of another person's actions is going to influence their actions when added over the long term. If there's no reaction, the mind tells us there's no reason for an action. If the general culture becomes one of not thanking someone for a courteous action, courteous actions will start to disappear. If you're OK with that, that's fine, but the OP's point was that it makes you a bit of a douche.

 

[Slick Samurai]

You know, I bet at one point or another a bunch of farmers wondered to their fellow tribesmen why they don't go hunting much anymore. "We used to go hunt those sabretooths all the time, but lately all we do is farm! Whats wrong with people these days? I hardly even hear anyone talking about making their own spears anymore! Just plant this, plant that."

Times change, people change the society, the society changes people, it's a never ending cycle and no one is to "blame". Maybe one day someone will ask why everyone says thank you, and I hope someone will tell them this exact same thing.

 

[McPulse]

Who says people ever cared for each other, any more than they do today at least?

Well, there was a forced courtesy in ye olde dayes. I seem to recall that you had to have a lot of money to compensate for a lack of manners (a la Mr Darcy)

 

[Wait...What]

Who says people ever cared for each other, any more than they do today at least?

...GO ON THE TOWN (no real interest in this thread was just having a browse and love your avatar )

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

I may be just talking into empty space by now about this but does anyone else see a problem with people in their daily life's?

It's probably mostly just you.

This is just from me, people now hardly ever say thank you or when some do no one says you're welcome.

In what contexts? The contexts where "thank you" and "you're welcome" are appropriate are changing (just as they changed to become what you grew more used to in the past).

I see people who look upset and i ask them what's wrong, half or more of them just get pissy to me.

Upset people acting upset? Not everyone wants to talk about their problems. Also, you seem to be insinuating that you're talking to strangers, in which case this probably has less to do with courtesy and more to do with the cultural prohibitions against addressing strangers with personal question.

I see that could be something was wrong but at least they could say they don't want to talk about it.

They're already upset (which is why you're talking to them), so expecting them to act as though they aren't and humour you (potentially a complete stranger) seems unreasonable to me.

People don't care about each other anymore and it's starting to lure me to a conclusion why should I care, but it's in my nature to care.

You'll have to forgive my skepticism - people have been claiming that society in general is growing less polite and more callous every generation through most of recorded history.

Is anyone else making these observations or am i alone?

Surely others will agree, but realistically this is mostly just bias (you didn't notice the number of people not doing these things until you started thinking about it and now each time you notice it, you weigh that more heavily than all of the times you don't notice it) and simple social change. Interpreting social change as social degredation is incredibly common.

For god sakes people can't even take the time to eat with their mouth closed or go a day without a phone.

See, these right here suggest strongly to me that you're just noticing that society changes. It's not as though there's something inherently, morally wrong about eating without closing one's mouth, there just happens to be a cultural taboo against it. Many cultures have taboos against showing the inside of one's mouth, Japan being probably the most prototypical example, but many also lack that. The cultures that lack it are only "disrespectful" if you happen to be from a culture that has such a taboo. You're just facing the fact that the culture you came from is different from the current one.

As for the phone thing, I don't know what that's supposed to have to do with any of the rest of it. It sounds as though you just threw it in to drive home the point that change is bad. Would I somehow be a better person if I weren't carrying a phone with me?

 

[zehydra]

OP, you can't assume that because things are like that over where you're from, that it is true for anybody else on here. There are people from all around the English-speaking world on this forum