Regardless of how badly designed roads in America are and have been for decades, what I have noticed during the pandemic is that antisocial selfishness has become a valid way to behave, so people no longer attempt to suppress their antisocial selfish tendencies.
I believe this was already in motion under Trump. He himself exemplifies antisocial selfish behavior. It's his entire gimmick. His election and his words/actions as president affirmed the validity of those feelings in people. The pandemic just accelerated the phenomenon.
I think people might even see antisocial selfishness as a kind of individual affirmation of freedom, a personal protest against the perceived tyrannies of modern life. And I don't think it's limited to specific political or cultural groups, because there are antisocial selfish people everywhere.
And so this manifests in people being rude to servers, blowing traffic lights, etc.
I think it's the same reason people buy SUVs that aren't specifically work vehicles for rugged terrain. It's a conspicuous and continuous self-aggrandizing affirmation of one's individual greatness and strength.
Not to be too dramatic, but it seems a bit like we are regressing as a society to animal kingdom behavior. Politeness is dead!
Yes, and I think some of the media directly drove the "outrage economy" and profited from it. You get a little blip of adrenaline getting angry about something for a second and you get accustomed to it. Then you get accustomed to getting it from being angry.
Maybe aggressive driving is part of that elevated adrenaline addiction: as you go about your day you need little doses from other places like the gas pedal.
> it seems a bit like we are regressing as a society to animal kingdom behavior
Hey, on behalf of my animal brethren, I resent that! ;-)
Seriously, while nature can seem cruel --- red in tooth and claw --- there also exists in nature a definite "politeness", i.e. the context for aggression is well defined (for example, predator-prey, maintenance and challenge of group hierarchy, defense of territory) and outside of that context violence is generally avoided. Humans, both primitive and civilized, are among the more aggressive of animals and in particular display aggressive behavior with less reason or provocation than most species. To some extend civilization actually makes this worse; it's easier to act aggressively when the aggression is less likely (because of existence of laws and police) to turn into deadly violence, and violence is less likely to be deadly because of hospitals and antibiotics.
Otherwise I agree completely with you. In particular, I also suspect that Trumpism has done more harm to polite civilization than Covid.
I didn't say anything about primates... I was talking about nature in general. And I didn't say that humans are more aggressive than all other animals, only that we are among the most aggressive. And yes, chimpanzees and some other primates are pretty similar to humans in aggression. But very few other animals are; aggression is usually confined to fighting over mating rights or territory, and the former is often quite ritualistic.
I believe this was already in motion under Trump. He himself exemplifies antisocial selfish behavior. It's his entire gimmick. His election and his words/actions as president affirmed the validity of those feelings in people. The pandemic just accelerated the phenomenon.
I think people might even see antisocial selfishness as a kind of individual affirmation of freedom, a personal protest against the perceived tyrannies of modern life. And I don't think it's limited to specific political or cultural groups, because there are antisocial selfish people everywhere.
And so this manifests in people being rude to servers, blowing traffic lights, etc.
I think it's the same reason people buy SUVs that aren't specifically work vehicles for rugged terrain. It's a conspicuous and continuous self-aggrandizing affirmation of one's individual greatness and strength.
Not to be too dramatic, but it seems a bit like we are regressing as a society to animal kingdom behavior. Politeness is dead!