Politeness Missing From Society

It looks like Louise Casey, the PM's respect czar (why have we started spelling it that way?) reads come back to what you know! Or at least my previous post was rather well timed.

She agrees that politeness is missing from society, however I'm not so sure about her solutions.

I believe politeness is not something people should have to learn. It is so self evidently better than not being polite that it's simple common sense. If people have to be reminded to be polite then it kind of misses my previous posts point. And if people have to be reminded to be polite, and would otherwise not be, then there is an underlying issue that needs to be dealt with (in my opinion said issue is some peoples stupidity and we can't do much about that!).

Putting up more ugly signs won't help and if people are learning how to act in society from soap operas we may as well just give up right now.

"Ms Casey said a rise in single-parent families and less church-going and neighbourliness were all possible factors in falling levels of politeness."

Ok well this explains things. It also probably explains her support of ASBOs. She's a bit mad. I was brought up in a single parent household. I'm polite. I'll hold on to my rubbish until I find a bin. I'll hold doors open for people. I don't go to church, neither does my mother nor my grandparents. So that isn't the problem. The lack of neighbourliness is a symptom of the lack of politeness in society rather than a cause.

Perhaps we need to stop BLAMING things and starting blaming the people who aren't polite. I hate how no one ever wants to blame the individuals, it's always someone elses fault. "It wasn't the criminals fault that they stole a car, it was all because they'd had a tough life." Am I the only person who thinks that everything is the individuals responsibility?

I blame peoples beliefs in Freudian psychology which seems to blame other people for individuals faults. If you commit a crime it's your fault! If you are stupid it's your fault! People need to grow some balls and take the flack for their actions.

If I have to watch another reformed criminal trying to sell their book on telly, while claiming that their past was all because of such and such factors, I may just head down to the TV studio and bash them up. If you were a criminal and are reformed, brilliant, but it just sounds so dumb when you tell us a sob story about how you fell in with the wrong crowd and blah blah blah. Be a man and just say "I was a bastard, but I'm over that now."

I'd have a little more respect if people did that.