[Buddha-l] decline in politeness

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

  Op 22-8-2010 12:59, David Living schreef:
>
> Richard wrote:
>
>> The general decline in politesse that seems to be sweeping
>> the nation has not found its way to the southwestern states,
>> and probably won't for another twenty-five years or so.
> Politeness went out with the end of rationing after the Second
> World War in this country (Southend Council Estate UK).
>
> It used to be if you were in trouble and you wanted help or generous
> support the poor would be your most reliable resource - so my
> grand-dad used to say. Nowadays we're all so comfortably off we've
> lost touch with real life. Locked in our one bedroom flats in front
> of the TV or the computer terminal we think we can just tell the
> world to f*** off. Apparantly hardly anyone knows their next door
> neighbour in this country...though maybe that's our world famous
> English reserve. Of course I'm an exception to that - my next door
> neighbour comes in and drinks my coffee ....well actually its his
> coffee..every day. At least he's not too impolite.
>
Did it happy already that long ago? I guess your grandpa must have been 
a sharp observer.
What pisses me off is the new commercial politeness. Recently I tried to 
get money from an ATM in  Kunming China and for some reason it didn't go 
well, so after three times I gave up. After that my creditcard appeared 
to be invalid, so I rang the bank in the Netherlands. It wasn't enough 
just to tell the guy at the other end of the phone that nothing was 
wrong. He insisted on going through all my transactions of the last 
couple of weeks. After more than twenty minutes he was done and he 
politely asked me if he could be otherwise of any service and wished me 
a good day. Off course he didn't mean it and he had been trained to do 
so, but in my situation I found it quite hilarious.

erik