I was reminded recently of a growing concern in our culture: the loss of civility. Not just in politics or the media frenzy that feeds on outrage, but in the way we treat each other—person to person. We’re not very nice.
I heard that the number-one free app on the Apple Store was yet another social media platform. Did we really need more? What made this one appealing?
It turns out it offered anonymous comments. The pitch was “honest feedback”—a way to get the truth without the filter. Someone figured out people were already creating fake profiles to speak freely, so why not bake that into the app?
You don’t need a crystal ball to know where this leads. Anonymity without consequence? That’s catnip for the haters.
I know I won’t participate—not because I’m morally superior, but because I’ve lived long enough to know my own issues. I’m solid on the big ones: I don’t lie, steal, murder, or scheme. But I’ve got my smaller faults.
And those small things matter. Reasonable people know their faults; sometimes we excuse them as minor, sometimes we clutch them with a weird righteousness. We feel what we feel, even if we know better. And we watch others not struggle with the same issue—and we envy that too, quietly.
Take, for example, my car. It is my rolling kingdom. When I’m in it, I rule—with due respect for traffic laws, mostly. There’s an older gentleman in my neighborhood who waves at me, disapprovingly, if I’m driving a bit fast—28 in a 25. I don’t wave back. But I think about him for a few blocks. And not kindly.
I become a different person in my car.
That bubble of glass and metal isolates us. There’s no good way to apologize for cutting someone off. You can’t make eye contact. You can’t explain. And the worst? Sitting side-by-side at the next red light. Suddenly, my neck doesn’t work. I stare forward, paralyzed.
Why haven’t we invented an apology signal—something blue and bright you flash when you’re sorry? Because, truthfully, we don’t want to. We’d rather mutter, speed up, or stew.
It feels contained—this incivility behind the wheel. But then I catch myself in line at the grocery store, counting items in someone else’s cart. Should they be in the express lane? Why don’t they have their card ready? Do they really not know their PIN? Are they paying with change?!
And suddenly, I realize: maybe I did bring something in from the car.
