The news was on as we pulled into the parking lot. The lot was packed. During the week before Christmas, hordes circle parking areas in a musical-chairs exercise in patience and (or) frustration.
Instead of musical accompaniment, my friend and I listened to reports from Syria, of an assassinated Russian ambassador, of terrorism in Germany, of possible Russian hacking of the U.S. election and of more fentanyl overdoses in B.C.
Then, suddenly, an empty spot appeared. And four spaces farther along, a car pulled out of another spot. The pickup truck ahead of us stopped and signalled. My friend stopped, signalled and pulled into the nearest spot.
My friend was still rummaging around, and I was just getting out when a thump and shudder startled us. A man thrust his face at the driver-side window.
“YOU TOOK MY SPOT!” he screamed at my friend.
I hit the auto-lock button.
“YOU TOOK MY SPOT!”
My friend started to apologize through the closed window.
I popped my head out of the passenger door, and said over the car top: “There’s an empty spot right in front of your truck.”
He continued swearing at my friend.
I repeated: “There’s an empty spot right there!”
He didn’t hear me.
“Sir! There’s a spot IN FRONT OF YOUR TRUCK!”
He looked up at me gesturing past him.
“I was signalling, and that [BLEEP] took my spot!”
“It looked like you were meaning to pull into that OTHER SPOT RIGHT THERE. Look — RIGHT THERE.”
He continued.
“Sir! If you don’t hurry and park RIGHT NOW, somebody’s going to take THAT EMPTY SPOT RIGHT THERE.”
He finally looked where I was pointing.
“That driver is heading right for it. Go! Now!”
He hesitated, turned toward my friend and punched the car again, then hurried off to his truck.
I got back into the car, and closed the door. “Let’s just sit for a bit.”
My friend turned the radio on, and jabbed the console’s buttons. A Christmas carol started playing — the one with lyrics by 19th-century American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
“I heard the bells on Christmas Day/Their old familiar carols play/And mild and sweet their songs repeat/Of peace on earth, good will to men.”
Longfellow wrote the poem on Christmas Day, 1863. The U.S. Civil War had been grinding on for more than two years. Hundreds of thousands of men had died or been mutilated in the fighting, with weather and disease adding to the toll. Longfellow spent that day, and many others, nursing his son, who had been injured and possibly paralyzed in the war.
“And in despair I bowed my head/There is no peace on earth I said/For hate is strong and mocks the song/Of peace on earth, good will to men.”
“Sometimes I feel like the world is going mad,” my friend said.
It wasn’t just the man’s violence or the evening news. Consider the racism, misogyny, lying and mob-disrespect during the U.S. election campaign, and its dissonant echoes in Canada and elsewhere. Consider the slander and bullying online, the violence directed at women politicians, and B.C.’s gang-related shootings and incomprehensible road rage during the past year.
A 2014 study by Insights West indicates many British Columbians think we’re getting ruder.
It feels as if civility is being drowned out in one long, ugly shriek.
The word civility derives from the Latin, meaning “of a citizen.” For democracy to operate in a healthy manner, citizens (civilians) must conduct themselves in an ethical way and respect each other. Without civility, anarchy happens. Incivility in society might, in fact, link directly to incidence of violent behaviour, online bullying, discrimination, harassment, intimidation and threats.
Many everyday occurrences of rudeness and thoughtlessness are perpetrated by normal, regular people. They are stressed, hurried and overtired — conditions that dampen the human capacity for empathy.
These are people like you, me and everyone around us.
This means that you, I and everyone around us are responsible for stopping it — one small gesture at a time.
“’Til, ringing singing, on its way/The world revolved from night to day/A voice, a chime, a chant sublime/Of peace on earth, good will to men!”
Here’s wishing us all a peaceful holiday and a civil 2017.
