The death of politeness: An obituary for civil behaviour
Politeness and empathy are declining, replaced by a self-centered culture that disregards dignity and humanity, reflecting a broader ethical crisis.
Politeness died yesterday. Some would say it had been wasting away for years, coughing weakly in a mask on a park bench, ignored by strangers on their phones. Others insist it was assassinated long ago, perhaps in the ladies’ room of an airport. Someone who had been raised in a house, presumably by human beings, left behind a grudge against humanity in the sink, on the floor, on the toilet seat.
Bellum omnium contra omnes. Everyone is at war with everyone else.
Thomas Hobbes, whom nobody likes to read but wants to quote, neatly argued that man without authority becomes a wolf. He said life was “nasty, brutish and short”, but this might equally apply to the lifespan of civility in our times. In the airline cabin, we encounter the Hobbesian wolf—in all gender representations—in full voice. They are on their third beer before the seatbelt sign has gone off. They watch devotional videos on their mobile phones and try to proselytise, using just nonchalance. They declaim with great energy when anyone interrupts this holy business by dialling their number. But gods help the person who requests them to use earphones!
This wolf is a devotee of Niccolò Machiavelli, without even knowing it yet. Machiavelli, the patron saint of cunning, believed appearances matter more than sincerity; rule requires guile. What counts is not kindness but performance. The loud talker is convinced that he is more important than the quiet reader. The person who leaves the loo filthy is assured they will never be caught, and therefore never shamed. In such a world, etiquette is not merely forgotten; it is actively despised. To be considerate is to be weak, and weakness, as Machiavelli told his prince, is a sin in the economy of power.
The erosion of empathy is everywhere visible. It is also often a self-defeating phenomenon. When the lights dim and the magic begins in a theatre, the blast of a tasteless ringtone or a ping accompanying a screen glowing like a miniature sun makes the neighbours go tut-tutting—or if you are like my film critic friend, screaming at the offenders. The offender’s experience of the magic is also disrupted. But they rarely apologise, either to others or themselves. Apologies in public spaces are relics from the past, like fountain pens and long courtships, pleasant but past their utility.
“Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself,” said Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic emperor, to himself. The inverted indulgence of the self, coupled with intolerance toward others, defines us today. The surge of entitlement in public space—whether in traffic, theatre, or marketplace—suggests not a collapse of knowledge of virtue, but its willful abandonment in favour of convenience.
Contemporary discourtesy produces suffering gratuitously: the loud ringtone, the impatient shove, the public rant on social media. Each is a refusal of mindfulness, a failure of what the Buddhist tradition names karuṇā (compassion). All failures of the Tagorean ideal of a shared song of humanity. But it’s not just about the philosophical or the spiritual. Ambedkar conceptualised democracy not only as a political system but “a mode of associated living,” mandating recognition of the dignity of others.
Paradoxically, we have never spoken more about empathy, mindfulness, or civility and embodied them less. The blast of aphorisms by Aurelius on social media, Buddha statues in gardens, driveways, and loos, Gandhi on currency notes, and empathy dead. This is not a call to arms to foist forks and knives on the world or teach everyone that Pinot Grigio can only be drunk before 5 pm. It’s the opposite. The basic recognition that other people feel the way we do has been buried.
The death of empathy and politeness is not an incidental cultural decline but a philosophical problem. In our refusal to be considerate towards others, we deny them dignity and even humanity. What the well-meaning among us have replaced empathy and politeness with is performance. We use words of endearment without meaning them. We don’t RSVP to invitations. We only pay for dinner to impress and network. We adopt the affectation of soft spokenness. We wax eloquent about the lack of coffee etiquette in others when we acquire the latter through mimicry. It’s like replacing the act of reading with the Hodakova dress, boasting of a hemline of books showcased at this Parish Fashion Week.
The death of politeness is not a failure of etiquette or style but of ethics.
Nishtha Gautam is an author and academician. The views expressed are personal
