Has it become more socially acceptable to be rude to others?
Over the past couple of decades, I’ve written columns about treating other people with respect, even when we disagree. It's hard not to notice how much coarser public discourse has become.
In May, for example, a Washington Post analysis by Cleve R. Wootson Jr., Clara Ence Morse, Lydia Sidhom, and Eric Lau found that roughly 93% of President Donald Trump’s speeches during his second term contained at least one vulgar term, compared with about 40% during the first year and a half of his first term. The number of his vulgar or insulting social media posts had roughly tripled.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll in April found that only 26% of U.S. adults considered Trump to be “even-tempered.” Does his combative style strike some as a virtue rather than a flaw? The poll doesn’t tell us whether Americans have become more accepting of rudeness. But it does make me wonder what we’re willing to overlook in people we admire.
Sometimes we feel the need to say things other people don’t want to hear. But being candid doesn’t require being cruel. I’m not convinced that speaking without a filter makes someone more honest. Insulting another person doesn’t strike me as a sign of strength.
I’ve written about variations of this issue before. In September 2007, I wrote about the responsibility we have when we see someone behaving badly in the workplace. In June 2008, I wrote about a dinner-party guest whose verbal attack on the host turned bad manners into an ethical question. Neither column suggested we must agree with everyone or avoid difficult conversations. We don’t. But how we treat people, even when they annoy us, matters.
In “Is Your Authentic Self a Jerk?” I asked whether being “authentic” was a good excuse for being dismissive or unpleasant. And in “When Should We Correct Someone?” I considered the importance of listening rather than always trying to get the last word.
We sometimes confuse being direct with being mean. It’s OK to praise people for being direct. But when directness becomes a way to hurl an insult or humiliate someone, praise seems less warranted. We’re too quick to excuse this behavior when it comes from someone we like or agree with. We can challenge bad behavior without making a personal attack.
It can be too tempting to follow the behavior of high-profile figures we admire. But in spite of admiring someone, we should be able to recognize and call out when someone has crossed a line in their behavior, even if we agree with a point they are trying to make.
We can't control how public figures speak. But we can decide how we treat one another. The next time we’re tempted to put someone down, we can ask ourselves: Am I trying to make a point, or am I just trying to make that person feel small?
When rudeness is mistaken for strength, remembering that distinction may be the right thing to do.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.
Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.
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