The following is an address former Governor General Sir Arthur Foulkes made yesterday at the weekly meeting of the Rotary Club of Southeast Nassau at East Villa.
People of an older generation tend to be hypercritical of the succeeding generation, to see nothing good in the society, and are forever prattling on about the good old days. There is a well-known quote attributed to Socrates who lived 25 centuries ago:
"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."
That lament, or variations of it, has been repeated down through the centuries. So I realized that I had to be careful as I developed the theme that there is a serious decline in our social culture and a growing lack of civility among us. Then I noticed that in newspaper columns and letters, on the electronic media and in conversations, other people, younger people, were saying the same thing. And, of course, whether one is younger or older, there is no mistaking the fact that we have become quite a violent society.
You will forgive me if some of you should recognize in these brief remarks a few things I have said on other occasions, because I see the decline of civility as a grave danger to our society and, concomitantly, the restoration of civility as fundamental to renewing our life in common.
We have been witnessing for some time a dumbing down, a coarsening and a vulgarization in sectors of western society, elements of which are instantaneously transmitted around the world. This includes, by the way, abuse and misuse of the English language, with all manner of errors; but that is a subject for another day.
Incivility and the debasing of social culture and habits, together with structural weaknesses in our own society, threatens us with what I believe is a perfect storm of social disorder in our country. We ignore or underestimate this toxic concoction to our peril and to the extreme disadvantage of future generations.
The causes of violent crime are many and complex, but I believe that the general decline in our social culture is a contributing factor. That decline includes several factors as described by Harvard Professor and Sociologist Orlando Patterson: "Hypermasculinity, the aggressive assertion and defense of respect, extreme individualism, materialism and a reverence for the gun".
We might add to this list the use of violence as a means of addressing conflict. We have inverted or corrupted positive attributes, like a sense of respect, into an end in itself, rather than seeing respect as a matter of and means toward mutuality. We do not preserve respect by responding to actual or perceived disrespect with physical violence, harsh language and reflexive retaliation. None of this restores respect. Instead, it leads to an endless cycle of animosity and retribution.
I believe that a revival and celebration of our traditional social culture will go a long way in turning back the tide of violence. This must include a restoration of the true meaning of respect, instead of how this value is often demeaned and corrupted.
I used to be so proud when I heard visitors to our shores say that sun, sand and sea may have attracted them to our islands, but what made them return again and again was the Bahamian people, our civility, our good manners, our gentleness, our kindness, our respect for others.
Today, that perception and our tourism industry often suffer from a lack of respect by Bahamians toward each other and our visitors. In previous times we took seriously the lessons taught us by our parents and we assimilated the social culture passed on to us by our ancestors.
We observed the important social boundaries between parent and child, between teacher and student, between senior citizen and teenager, between acquaintance and companion. Evidence of the demolition of these boundaries is revealed in many ways these days including the frequently used expression: "You guys!"
Civility is an indispensable element of civilized society. In fact, the word comes from the same Latin root as civilization. Professor Stephen Carter of Yale University who has written a book on civility says that "Civility is based in a recognition of and respect for the dignity of the human person. If we respect - and even love as Christianity says we should - we will behave in a certain way towards them."
And Professor P. M. Forni of Johns Hopkins University Civility Project made the point that "Civility and good manners are not about which fork to choose for the salad. They're about how we treat one another in everyday life; and how we treat one another determines the strength of our society."
To illustrate this point, let me tell you briefly about one of my early experiences politicking in what we then called the Out Islands. My colleagues and I were visiting a rather remote settlement where the people were not well off and had not had the opportunity for further education. But I tell you that never have I encountered people who were more civilized and gracious. The leading lady in the community, decked out in her Sunday-go-to-meeting dress, greeted each of us with a polite bow and a handshake and said: "Pleased to meet you, hope we be no more stranger".
Not exactly the best grammar, but what an elegant greeting! And the same gracious elegance marked the way we were treated in her humble but clean and tidy home with not a salad fork in sight. These people possessed a high degree of civility.
Civility is based in a genuine respect for others and concern for their comfort and well-being. Civility demands good manners and appropriate behavior. Civility engenders a willingness to make sacrifices for others and for the good of society. The codification and ritualization of the rules of society are all about civility.
I referred just now to the coarsening of western society, and Professor Forni bears me out: "People today are so self-absorbed they don't know the value of restraint, and yet you cannot have a healthy society without it... Civility is the lifeblood of a society... We get to the point where incivility escalates and crosses into violence."
By way of the new technology, through television and the Internet we - and especially our more impressionable young people - are daily bombarded with all manner of stuff from the society Professor Forni and others describe.
I think you are aware of the Bahamian propensity to imitate other people. What is distressing is that we tend to imitate the low end of other people's culture. I could hardly believe it when, for instance, so many Bahamian men, and some of them not so young either, started wearing their trousers down around their backsides exposing their underpants.
You can join me, I'm sure, in reciting a litany of assaults on civility in our Bahamas, some of it brazenly open and some cloaked in the anonymity of social media: the abandonment of a sense of shame and a sense of propriety; inconsiderate behavior on the road and in public places; the unabashed use of obscene language; lack of consideration for the comfort and convenience of others; and excessive permissiveness. That is not to say that we have all abandoned civility; far from it. But the danger is that the low end of our social culture, if not checked, can become our mainstream public culture.
We need now to bring the same passion with which we celebrate and defend our artistic culture to bear in an urgent effort to restore our Bahamian social culture. We need a national examination of conscience if we are not to continue down what Pam Burnside recently described as "that deep, dark and dangerous path".
Our social decline is not manifested in young people alone. It crosses the generations. But if we are to arrest the decline in the medium and long-term, we must lead by example and we must heavily invest in developing our young people.
Our investment should be in a holistic approach to education and basic human development: to reinforce and restore what makes us humane and civil; to encourage positive values and social mores, respect for all of humanity, community service and good manners, in short, civility.
I remember some years ago when we lamented the tendency of some of our musicians to imitate the latest music fad out of America. But then things changed. Many of our younger generation of cultural leaders have rediscovered our cultural roots and have launched a virtual renaissance in Bahamian art, including music. Just as we are celebrating this new birth and reinvigoration of our Bahamian artistic culture, so too we must reinstate the finer elements of our social culture, elements that some of us have traded in for the low end of other cultures.
We must save our identity as a people through both our artistic culture and our social culture with a renewed spirit of service. And here let me thank Rotary for its many years of service to our society and for its commitment to high ethical standards in business and the professions. We must all practice and celebrate again the traditional good manners, kindness, self-respect and respect for others that, for generations past, made us as a people quite as attractive as our natural heritage.
I note a number of positive stories and examples in our society, including the wonderful response of many young people to relief efforts following Hurricane Joaquin, the good work by Rotary and other service clubs, the Governor General's Youth Award, the TARA Project led by Livingstone and Claire Hepburn and by church and youth organizations.
Permit me to end with something I saw on television which moved me greatly and gave me much hope. Candia Dames was interviewing a lady from Crooked Island who had lost everything in the recent catastrophic hurricane. Next to the lady was a little boy of about four or five.
When Miss Dames addressed him, he politely replied, "Yes, ma'am." Then as his mother was recalling her painful experience, the little fellow got closer, wiped a tear from her cheek and kissed her. I believe that he is being brought up to be a Bahamian gentleman with traditional Bahamian civility. All is not lost.
Click here to read more at The Nassau Guardian
