Gas I am pretty sure it has always been that way especially in regards to the how do you do point. It's just a courtesy and always has been. We keep things to ourselves because it is not always important to splatter the world with every personal opinion. "Getting along" to the point where you can't say anything is not good and "speaking your mind" to the point where you are a blathering asshole is not good either. There has to be happy medium.
You think we are more courteous and withdrawn opinionwise today and I say it is exactly the opposite. People say whatever the hell they want to on Facebook, on Twitter, on the street and they don't feel any responsibility to the rest of the society because they have this warped sense of what Freedom of Speech means. Just because you can say something doesn't mean you should.
To a point I can see where you're coming from - and I definitely agree that social media is an e-cancer that enables people to make each other miserable in far lesser an amount of time. Civility, professionalism, all that and whatnot. I'm not talking about people who want to get in people's faces and act rudely obstreperous "just because."
What I am talking about is the man who has an unpopular (or even commonly repugnant) point of view, expressing it within the calm framework of civil discourse. Now, granted the guy in this case probably should have chosen a better medium than an all-hands e-mail. That was probably not the best of decisions (especially if it was from his university e-mail address, where people receiving it could erroneously believe it to be work or class related) - a web column or something to that effect probably would have been more appropriate.
I disagree completely and fundamentally with what he said. I think he
is an asshole. If his university were to choose to let him go, I could understand why - but I am also not outraged if they do not. That's between them and how much they are willing to let applications/donations suffer for it. After all, if I were looking for an institute of higher learning, this particular one would probably now be a lot lower on my list.
But the stepford smiles of every shop clerk I run into grate on me after a while. You're not happy to see me, your boss makes you pretend to be happy to see me. You tell me "have a nice day," it doesn't mean you genuinely wish the rest of my day well, it's just noises you've been programmed to mean "this is the end of our communication." Same for "how are you?" It's just a meaningless ritual noise we make, garbage in the carrier handshake while establishing a signal. When every interaction has a forced pseudoglee to it, how do we know when the other person is actually happy we're here? They have to go above and beyond even that - they have to get manic, which can get just as annoying even faster.
