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September 15, 2009
"Incivility is a consequence of non-punishment." -- Porretto
In a comment on Victor Hanson's The Rise of the Uncouth Francis Porretto notes...Incivility is a consequence of non-punishment. Incivility, after all, has its own pleasures: that of venting one's feelings, and that of seeing despised others quail before one's words and gestures. When the old Gentleman's Code prevailed in common society, such acts and words would be sharply rebuffed, sometimes to the point of blows. Compared to the Americans of yesteryear who enforced that code, we're a milk-and-water bunch indeed.
And of course we have the observations of Thomas de Quincey:If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once begun upon this downward path, you never know where you are to stop. Many a man has dated his ruin from some murder or other that perhaps he thought little of at the time.
Posted by Vanderleun at September 15, 2009 6:54 PM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.