Posted by Bud on September 15, 2009 at 09:48:55:
This one is a little off-topic, but contains some good quotes from Dick Kay & Mancow. From Mark Caro in today's Chicago Tribune:
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Kanye West, Serena Williams, Joe Wilson: What ever happened to good manners?
Is rudeness 'the new norm' in public discourse?
By Mark Caro
TRIBUNE REPORTER
September 15, 2009
After watching South Carolina Republican Rep. Joe Wilson heckle the president during a joint session of Congress, Serena Williams cuss out a line judge at the U.S. Open and Kanye West snatch the microphone from a 19-year-old newcomer, to champion a much-honored megastar, on the MTV Video Music Awards, you may have had the following thought:
What the (bleep) is wrong with people these days?
Those three incidents during the past week represent the latest trifecta of public incivility in a year in which town-hall health-care discussions routinely have devolved into shouting matches, President Barack Obama has been compared to and depicted as Adolf Hitler and figures across the political spectrum have flung epithets unprintable in a family newspaper.
The incidents, notable as much for their breaches of decorum as for their content, follow a general pattern: incident, outrage, hundreds of thousands of YouTube hits, apology and, maybe, punishment. What's unclear is whether such outbursts are signs of shifting times or just a news cluster that gives us an excuse to wring our hands and look back at polite ol' days that may never have existed.
Christine Porath, co-author of the recent book "The Cost of Bad Behavior" (Portfolio), contends that something actually has changed.
"I think the norms have shifted dramatically over the years, and it is something where people think it's not a big deal, and even if they behave this way, it'll blow over quickly, and there are not important consequences for their behavior," said Porath, assistant professor of management and organization at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business. "We watch people get away with rude and outrageous demands in public settings so frequently that it becomes the new norm."
Dick Kay, talk radio host on progressive station WCPT-AM 820 and former political editor of WMAQ-Ch. 5, blames the current discourse level on "the entire new media," singling out talk radio and blogs as encouraging a lack of restraint.
"When you can get on the air and say you hope the president fails, or that the president is a racist, as [Rush] Limbaugh said, as [Glenn] Beck said, when you can pipe that kind of vitriol out to millions of people, it's bound to have some kind of effect," Kay said.
Erich "Mancow" Muller, who offers a more conservative brand of talk on his WLS-AM 890 morning show, agreed there's a problem. "Listen, I've got two daughters, twin girls, 4 years old, and I hope I haven't added to the coarsening of dialogue in this country," he said. "It just seems like a lot of yelling but not a lot of listening."
A USA Today/Gallup poll released Monday said that 68 percent of respondents disapproved of Wilson's shouting, "You lie!" at Obama at his address to Congress Wednesday, yet the political news Web site Politico reported over the weekend that Wilson's fundraising since the incident has surpassed $1 million, topping that amassed by the Democratic challenger for his seat.
Wilson apologized to the president but has refused to do the same on the congressional floor, sparking talk of an official rebuke.
Williams, who eventually apologized for her tirade against the line judge who called a foot fault at the end of Saturday's finals match against Kim Clijsters, forfeited match point and was fined the maximum $10,000 for unsportsmanlike conduct.
In what was far from his first awards-show eruption but may have been his most bullying, West leapt onstage Sunday night, grabbed the microphone from best female video winner Taylor Swift and proclaimed the superiority of Beyonce's entry in the same category amid boos.
The native Chicagoan's interruption, about which he posted two separate apologies on his blog, came a day before he appeared on Monday's debut of NBC's "The Jay Leno Show." West told Leno he planned to take time off in the aftermath to figure out "how I'm going to make it through the rest of this life."
Before he made those comments, the Los Angeles Times Gold Derby blog asked: "Do you think Kanye West's tantrum at the MTV Video Music Awards was a publicity stunt to create attention for his appearance on Jay Leno's first show?"
With almost 5,000 votes tallied in the unscientific poll, 24 percent said, "Of course, and Kanye's loving the buzz"; 19 percent said, "Yes, but now his MTV rant has backfired and he regrets what he did"; and 57 percent said, "Nope. He was just being typical Kanye at the MTV VMAs."
As with Williams and Wilson, West's outburst overshadowed the event itself.
The climate of disrespect may feel particularly pronounced right now, but Peter Knobel, senior rabbi at Beth Emet the Free Synagogue in Evanston, theorized that it can be traced to the Vietnam War protests. "I remember how people were shouted down in that era and how it led to a real kind of incivility," he said. "I certainly see a parallel there."
Northwestern University sociology professor Gary Fine was reluctant to draw big conclusions, noting that Williams follows a long line of athletes -- among them tennis players Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe -- who have berated umpires, that presidents have been heckled in some form at least since Lyndon Johnson and that the British Parliament shows far less respect toward its head of government.
What the current controversies really indicate, Fine said, is what kind of news most people prefer.
"People like to pretend that they care about policy, but they really care about people and stories," Fine said, noting that the Wilson outburst "provided a story about what is otherwise a complicated, confusing and, dare I say, boring debate about the details of health care."
Tribune critics Howard Reich and Steve Johnson contributed to this report.