Archive for August 8th, 2010

How many times have you witnessed heated arguements between normally reasonable people but due to a political, religious or moral view – the discussion digressed into name calling? Whatever the point that started the discussion was lost as soon as they stopped listening to the opposing point of view. How about people treating others disrespectfully leading to undignified actions?

Does this apparent lack of civility, dignity and respect contribute to the apparent willingness of people to commit crimes? I mean if people have no apparent ethics or morals that enforce a code of reasonable behavior, how far behind is raping, plundering and murder?

People are a mixed bag. There are no all good people or all bad people. We all have our demons to wrestle – come to terms with if you will so we can get along well in life. Sometimes good people are tested by the loss of a loved one, loss of a job, growing up in a bad part of town,  or growing up with no real ethical standards. Some think music, video games, movies, and such contribute to this but I do not. What I think does contribute to how a person will react to situations are their own personal strength and their examples around them.

So in this post I am going to try and make the argument that good behaviour starts from within and is contagious. If we all try to work towards civility, dignity and respect of everyone around us – others around us will be more apt to see how this positive behaviour can help them communicate more effectively with those around them. I also think that people will be less apt to do bad things if they work on common civility and we will all have a better community. Here is what one city is trying to do. 

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