You Came From Dirt, So Go Ahead and Treat Each Other Like Dirt

In the news last week:

      Heckling Fiona Apple in concert
      A “fan” throwing a full beer can at Azealia Banks while she was in concert
      Heckling at a performance of a play, “The Laramie Project” at Ole Miss
      Bullying in schools
      Bikers attacking a family in an SUV in NYC
      Congress… well, you know (the economy was going too well, something had to be [not] done)

Yes, there was some nice, heart-warming stuff in the news too, but why is this trend toward a lack of civility happening?  Yes, the person who threw the full can of beer onstage may have emptied a few beer cans into him- or herself prior to that, but why is this trend happening, even among the sober?

It wasn’t just last week.  It seems like every week there are reports of parents at their elementary-age kids’ sporting events physically attacking, punching coaches and referees.  On the internet every week the comments at the bottom of an article become a combative, profanity-filled exchange in nothing flat.  And it’s not just the internet or other sources of news and information.  The profanity, the violent language is more pervasive than ever.

I don’t know if they realize it, but these people are setting an example.  “This is how we act, this is how we interact.”  That example will shape other interactions, between spouses, parents and children, people at PTA meetings, citizens at town hall meetings.  It becomes accepted, even normative.  “This is the way we treat one another.  This is the way we talk to, er… yell at, er… scream in the face of one another.”  Anger, impatience, disrespect, and a disregard for life are being passed along and passed down.  This view of everybody else as “stupid people who keep getting in my way” is going mainstream.

All of that brings me to say, my greatest concern isn’t that more and more people are deviating from the standard of civil human behavior.   My greatest concern is that more and more people don’t know the standard from which they’re deviating.  As a theater department official at Ole Miss said of the apology given later by the students who were heckling, “I don’t think they knew what they were apologizing for.”

So, where’s the hope?  Perhaps there’ll be a pendulum swing and things like concern for the community and mutual respect will get the popular nod again.  But I’m afraid that fix would only be a temporary one because that pendulum does tend to keep swinging.  The greater, more substantial and lasting hope is the Kingdom of God.  You know, that Divine intervention we pray for in the Lord’s prayer, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done.”  As you know, the title of this piece, “You came from dirt, so go ahead and treat each other like dirt,” isn’t in the Bible.  What is in the Bible is this Kingdom way of life, where we don’t have to earn one another’s respect.  We respect one another simply because we are, simply because we have life, and ultimately because the life in every one of us came from God.  As such, every life is sacred.