It is sad how we allow rude people to get away with selfish behavior and make life for difficult for everyone else. Doing so encourages rude people to be even more selfish and we get the kind of behavior you see discussed in the article.
Addressing the issues directly is often challenging. That is my guess on why we allow degenerate behavior to impose costs on others until it reaches epidemic proportions when we finally attempt to address it.
It also encourages people to isolate themselves in enclaves where people that share certain expectations of behavior can shut out others and deal with those that are at least somewhat considerate of whatever behaviors the group cares about.
Allowing the rudest people to abuse society degrades the public square and tears at the benefits that can strengthen the social contract. Sadly it seems to be a pretty dominate trait in our society these last few decades and it seems likely to just keep getting worse. Hopefully I am wrong.
It also encourages people to isolate themselves in
enclaves where people that share certain expectations
of behavior can shut out others and deal with those
that are at least somewhat considerate of whatever
behaviors the group cares about.
This. Yes. Hat tip.
It isn't even the slight bit humorous anymore how much of these kind of exclusionary tactics play out in those "communities" that cry gentrification at the slightest degree of outsider intrusion, into their "districts" where certain unspoken rules of law evasion, creative law-flouting and outright prejudicially illegal behavior are propped up by the ingroup [1] members.
This is precisely why I am not very empathetic to cries of gentrification, in places like SF.
With these communities, it is most often not a debate of economic displacement but one of selective self-imposed seclusion.
Simply put, they don't want you there not because you are economically displacing them and thereby a threat. They don't want you in their cafes, their bars, their parks and stores just because you are not like them.
I resist elaborating for it should resemble a rant.
I'm not so sure that self-imposed cultural isolation is such a bad thing, at least inherently. It seems like a potentially better way for global society to support an extremely wide range of cultural norms than for every set of norms to be distributed evenly and tons of effort spent futilely teaching people to be "tolerant."
A problem with social isolation of groups leads to tension between groups. It is very easy to demonize a group when you have no contact with anyone from that group.
Case in point: Gays in the US. Acceptance of gays an gay marriage has increased DRAMATICALLY over the last decade in the US. Why? It is thought because people are starting to know gay people. Gay people are coming out and becoming visible. When you find out your neighbor or coworker or friend or even child is gay, your views of gays change. Suddenly they aren't the demonized other. In 1993 22% of Americans report having a close friend or family member who is gay. Now? 65%.
I also think social isolation leads to radicalization. When you start feeling its US vs THEM. It also leads to a loss of personal freedoms. One isn't free to integrate into a culture that is hostile to them and they lose that freedom of choice of lifestyle.
Like it or not, the US is a multi ethnic multi racial multi cultural place. I think even the majorty of countries have minority populations.
I don't think isolation of cultures is a good thing for a society.
> A problem with social isolation of groups leads to tension between groups.
I don't know. It seems like having mutually exclusive social norms together leads to tension between groups. Obviously both happen, and history is filled with examples of both.
I'm not sure I accept that tolerance is too hard to teach, therefore we should allow people to avoid other cultures. I think many small issues is preferable to a few large ones, in this case.
I really don't think it's unreasonable or bad for someone to avoid other cultures. I think it's bad to be ignorant of other cultures, and certainly to be intolerant or bigoted, but I think it's perfectly reasonable to want to live and be around people who largely share your culture.
I don't disagree with that, but cultural isolation is a strong term with strong connotations for me.
I think history shows us that if it's easy for people to remain ignorant of others through cultural isolation, some subset will do so. I'm not against people carving out a cultural niche, but I think that the point we can use the word isolation to describe it, we have a problem. The problem isn't one direction, either. Cultural isolation can keep outsiders from understanding and tolerance as well, which leads to discrimination, which may lead to more isolation and reciprocated feelings towards the outside.
It's difficult to challenge also because it makes it even more difficult for the people who need help, and there will always be some number of rude people that squeak by too.
In the case of ESAs, every fix for this problem will be more work for people with service animals. The most popular fix I've heard of is a nationwide registry, but what kind of signup cost will there be? A service dog is already expensive, what if the additional signup is prohibitively expensive for those that really need it?
Another one I can think of is the disability pass I got the last time I went to a Disney theme park. The pass basically lets you wait like everyone else, just not in line (e.g. 100 minute wait for space mountain - sign up and just come back after 100 minutes to use the Fastpass line). It used to be a direct skip-to-the-Fastpass line, but it _seemed_ like it was abused too much so Disney changed the benefit, but not the way to get it. So the same rude people can still abuse it, but everyone else that needed it got screwed. Bonus points because people like me with no visible disability (wooohoo nerve damage in my legs) look like abusers to the average person.
Then there are the people that get pissed off that I would like to board a plane early because it's totally about me wanting overhead space for....the bag I checked... and it can't possibly be because I would like to minimize pain that drugs can't touch by not waiting in lines.
I don't think this is a particularly new problem. Some people just want all the nice things and have no respect for others.
It's been a while since I've been to Disney, but I don't see how that's any different than a fastpass. Would giving a fastpass be sufficient accommodation?
Agree completely. We saw a similar dynamic with the recent stepped up enforcement of the rules against blocking BART stairways and exits in the Bay Area [1]. When they finally took action against it, they had to use the pretense of safety. No one was willing to say,
"Look, we really don't want to look like a police state here, but there are about a trillion other places just a few steps away where you can sleep or beg, and where we will leave you the heck alone, so if you're unwilling to play well with passersby, we will have to physically move you."
Well when you have a government people telling them they are entitled to this, that, and oh yeah maybe that, its bound to filter into the common mindset. Follow it up with TV programs, internet sites, and the like, which on serve to reinforce the attitude.
You deserve high speed internet, you deserve a phone, you deserve pets, you deserve to take your emotional support llama with you... on and on and on... never do we hear, your rights do not supersede the rights and safety of others.
Like referring to morbid obesity which is getting too prevalent in societies across the world. Far too many of the morbid obese do not see themselves as such or refuse too. It should be treated the same as smoking and dogs crapping on planes; that morbidly obese person is more of a risk for your plane than a crapping dog.
Being a dog owner, having been raised with dogs and other animals, I really don't want to see them in restaurants, grocery stores, or my doctors office. Pet stores, fine. On a plane in a carry on under the seat fine, roaming the isles no. The airplane problem is far too many people lie and declare them service dogs, something that to a point is lawful and airlines are loathe to challenge passengers over fear of suits. There should definitely not be service animals other than dogs. Emotional support animals should not be accorded the same treatment as those serving the blind.
A "risk" how? The airlines update their weight statistics, they know how much they're carrying. Are you worried about the chance of them having a heart attack disrupting your flight? In that case you should be more worried about elderly people.
Well, then allow me to cheer you up, because it isn't.
The biggest burden on healthcare systems in the developed world is end-of-life care for people who are physically healthy but mentally unwell - a dementia patient might survive for ten or twenty years, requiring round-the-clock care.
Obese people, being much more likely to die relatively quickly while they're relatively young, represent much less of a burden on those healthcare systems than more healthy people do.
My personal opinion: I don't have nothing against dogs but I hate to hear them barking. I know that you can't completely control that but way many owners do not teach manners to their dogs and they are barking all the time.
Now before someone says "what's up with this guy expecting manners from dogs" I actually adopted two dogs last year and without prior experience I educated them really well. Now I'm pretty sure that a messy dog is absolutely the fault of the owner's behavior.
And you're right about the social contract. The damage that irresponsible owners are doing to society far extends the trivial situation of "that dog is making a lot of noise"; that thing easily becomes a "I hope the owner gets it back" and those collective feelings fuel a more hostile society in general.
You are right to some extent. But may I ask what is your dogs' breed? Different breeds have different behavior patterns and some specific to barking, some breeds are just more noisy than others no matter how you trained them. For example, terriers were used to rats, rabbits, and foxes [0]. This means they had to work along underground so that barking was actually a good trait otherwise their owners might not be able to find them when they had some dangerous situation underneath. Barking was an old GPS for their owners. Terriers were specifically selected by breeders to bark loud and frequent[1]. Of course that does not necessary mean a barking terrier is acceptable. They have to be trained but may bark more than other breeds.
I don't know what breed they are because I found them on the street but they look a lot like German shepherds. But yeah ok, "maybe it's the breed". Still, I think that a courteous owner goes a long way.
I don't know if shepherds are specifically prone to barking but I can tell you that my dogs were particularly prone to barking when I found them. They pretty much barked at anything, other people, other dogs, just because they were bored, etc... Ever since I got them I continuously chided them when they barked at inappropriate situations; around 2-3 months following this relatively simple treatment (sometimes as trivial as just yelling NO!) and their noise and anxious behavior has been reduced considerably.
I'm not saying they don't bark anymore, because they do, but when I'm in a situation where they start barking at someone at the street (for instance) my reaction is to immediately try to do something to make them stop and sometimes I even excuse myself with the people involved; I've seen many owners dealing with the same situation in a completely different way, even taking a defiant attitude, like in "you can't do anything, its not illegal for my dog to bark", this attitude is what pisses other people off.
It's not the dog barking, it's the owner not giving a shit; it's like seeing someone throwing trash on the street, the world's not going to end because of a can lying there in the sidewalk but a world where many people act in such manner is a world that's up to no good.
Others may view the barking in a different way than you do and that could explain their different reactions. If a dog is barking out of fear scolding it may be a bad option because 1) you proved them right. They thought it was a bad situation, now you're in a bad mood and they're in trouble. Definitely a bad situation. 2) Barking and growling is a great way for dogs to communicate their discomfort before it escalates. A dog that has learned not to growl or bark will resort to other signals that are less likely to be understood by humans, and then bite.
The other owners may not give a shit, some don't, but they may be intentionally acting like it's no big deal as part of a larger strategy of changing how their dog views certain situations.
> I don't know if shepherds are specifically prone to barking
Yes. Shepherds are especially prone to barking. They were trained to be, well, shepherds. This breed is used to guard sheep, not scare them. So they have to be quite and obedient to their owners.
Retrievers are also quite because they were used to retrieve game for a hunter. Those games may be just hurt and barking may scare them away. So the breeders were specifically select quite and obedient dogs to be retrievers.
It's not about "bad dog" or "good dog", it's "your dog doesn't belong in the grocery store sniffing the lettuce I'm trying to buy", or "your dog doesn't belong in the clothing store shedding hair all over the pants I'm trying to buy".
Neither are things that a "good dog" wouldn't do or a "bad dog" would, they're both natural things that the dog can't help... ie. it's not the dog's fault it's shedding.
The problem is the owner that invites the situation.
It's just plain rude for the owner to think everyone else has to put up with their animal. I love animals, always have (since I was a kid I've never not owned a cat or dog, or both, sometimes multiples of both), but I would never think it sane to force my animal upon others, especially at a store.
> Now I'm pretty sure that a messy dog is absolutely the fault of the owner's behavior.
I don't agree. We had a dog who was absolutely hopeless. We took her to several professional dog trainers and spent many thousands on dog therapy to no avail. Just because you had a good experience with your two dogs doesn't mean that applies to all dogs.
As I said in another comment you can argue about anything for an infinite amount of time. You are saying that my statement is not true because ONE dog (out of many that you apparently had) was messier than others, yeah I could also say that maybe you didn't treat that dog the same way you treat the others or just blatantly call you a liar, that's a lie!
You and I could exchange every kind of imaginable counterargument and nothing valuable would come out of it; the important thing is that people should (or learn to) live in a civilized environment and realize that their rights end where another people's start.
I find it remarkable that you don't see anything strange in drawing a conclusion about hundreds of millions of dogs based on a population of two.
No, this is not about agreeing to disagreeing. Regardless if I'm lying or not you cannot use your anecdotal evidence to affirm a universal statement. You can falsify "no dogs can be educated", but that's it.
I actually feel the same way about kids "acting out" in public. The difference is, if the guardians are attempting to control the situation. If they are, then I am much more tolerant to the disruption. If not, well to be honest, I'm not sure if I'm more upset with the child or the parent at this point.
The problem is that misbehaviour is often attention-seeking. You then have three choices.
1 - give in and give them candy or whatever it is they're screaming for. Shuts them up for the moment, but makes the problem much more likely to recur elsewhere.
2 - ignore them, or rather, pretend that they're not screaming. This is best in the long term, but obviously sucks for the short term. The worst is the sanctimonious looks you get from everybody because you're letting your children scream it out.
3 - punish them. This is just a variation on #1. They wanted attention, and now you're giving it to them. The difference is that it's much less likely to actually stop the screaming.
Of course, the worst of both worlds is starting out with #2 and then giving in to the sanctimonious looks and the screaming and doing #1 or #3.
While applying 1, 2, or 3 you should also work to find and ameliorate the root cause. Are they tired, hungry, bored or over-stimulated? The last two are particularly hard to tell apart. For instance in an airport it could be either (or both!) -- they're bored because they haven't been able to do anything "fun" but over-stimulated because they're shoved into an overwhelming new environment.
That's why shoving a tablet in their face is so effective -- it gives them something to do while simultaneously shutting out the outside world.
Once I had children, my breaking point for getting annoyed with other people's children skyrocketed. Now, I mostly feel bad for the parent.
You're right in that you can usually tell by the parents reaction the type of person they are. My emotions adjust accordingly to that, but I do still hear from people how annoyed they are when a child acts out, regardless of the parents reaction.
You still need to do stuff in life and with children, doing stuff becomes substantially harder. I'd bet a lot of parents with kids who act out don't want to go to the store with them, but simply have to because they don't have better options.
Not just that, but it trains dogs not to bark or growl when they are antagonized or upset by certain behaviour. Normally a bark or growl would function as a warning, but now he has no other way to go than bite without warning.
Now this animal, who was shocked into never using its vocal cords and antagonized until he bit a human or other animal out of desperation, gets put down because he is a danger to society. Job well done lads!
I've seen these used on rescue dogs that frankly have such complex psychological problems that they cannot be untrained to bark. The only other choice is euthanasia. They aren't so strong that the dog can't growl.
The dog also learns that aggressive responses are not so fantastic.
My own dog doesn't have one of these, mainly because we try to be very careful to manage how we respond to his barking. But if we couldn't keep up the late-night bark management, or if we lose control of the barking, I won't think twice about buying one of these. I've seen them used on other dogs and frankly they work just fine and are humane.
No. Shock collars are exactly how dogs get such complex psychological problems that they're abandoned in the first place.
They're not humane, if you force a shock collar on another human it's legally considered a torture device. If the legal system used them it would be cruel and unusual punishment.
Causing unnecessary pain and suffering is not compatible with being humane. It's as simple as that. There are better solutions with fewer side effects for every use case of a shock collar. If not every single use case, the overwhelming majority of them. (edit: I didn't realize you were the one advocating using shock collars on a rescue dog that barks too much. A shock collar isn't even in the right ballpark in that case.)
Dominance and pain based training methods are outdated and based on debunked theories, in the past three decades almost the entire field of animal behavior has moved on.
Ughmmmm no. Try to be getting up 6 times a night to find your dog barking at a hedgehog because one wondered into your garden(and a dog won't stop, if needed it will stand in front of a hedgehog for 12 hours and bark at it). The only other option was to tie the dog down each night,but in my opinion that's more barbaric. After a few nights of getting shocked each time he got even close to the hedgehog, barking at them stopped and the collar has not been used again. It's just a tool,and I have nothing against them.
I don't know why I got downvoted for stating that I would use that product... anyway...
I agree with you and the thing about "now they will bite without warning" is total bs. They somehow fail to see that if an owner cares enough to prevent his dog from barking they will, to a much greater degree, care that its dog will not harm to other people; quite the contrary, the type of guy that says "they're dogs, it's natural for them to bark" is the type of guy that later turns into a "they're dogs, it's natural for them to bite".
After being zapped by one of these myself, I had to tone down my disapproval of them. It was uncomfortable but not particularly painful, similar to a 'handbuzzer' gag gift.
My bigger problem was that it was not very effective at stopping barking.
What each person considers selfish is, unfortunately?, subjective.
Is crossing the street against the light selfish? Yes, you're taking someone else's turn. No, you're just crossing the street.
Is peeing on a toilet seat selfish? Yes, you're ruining for everyone else. No, you don't want to touch that gross seat so you're not lifting it.
The media / culture in the west or at least USA relishes "break the rules" but that is often interpreted by some in ways that some would argue are selfish. Graffiti (is it street art or ruining someone else's property). Trespassing (is it just being harmlessly curious or invading someone's space or privacy). Returning things you used, as in buying a dress, wearing it to a party and returning it for a full refund. (Is it just being frugal or selfish?)
Yeah you can get lost in the details for as much time as you want and you can also justify pretty much every kind of behavior imaginable by artificially constructing a scenario that favors whatever point of view you are trying to defend.
Everything is subjective, I agree, but I think everyone could be mature enough to discern the line between "I can't avoid doing this" and "I'm just being an ass". If most people were honest enough to just think "this is wrong, I'll refrain from doing it" we wouldn't even need laws in the first place.
The problem is not how subjective are the issues at hand, the problem is the attitude some people take when confronted with those issues. You can make extremely detailed laws that are designed to take into account every possible situation that may arise and still have someone study them well enough to discover a flaw and use that as a shield for, well, being an asshole. "Yeah the law says that I can't pee on toilets but I didn't pee on it, I just threw the pee there later from a bag. Gotcha!"
There are much better examples of subjective cultural norms than greggman provided. The notion of personal space, for example, varies significantly between cultures, and there is no significant objective reasons one norm is better than other.
Even among one culture (whatever it means) there are countless of better examples of things that cannot be sorted out in the jerk / non jerk category.
Usually people that work at night, how much noise they can make when they came back home early in the morning? What about people practicing music instruments? Can students party at night if they have neighbors, just once in a year? once in a month? Is it ok to bring a stroller in crowded areas? etc.
I don't think it's possible to give an answer to any of these questions that will get more than 60% agreement in any sufficiently diverse community, even given the full details of the situation.
In the general sense the the USA as a whole tends to value individual freedoms over the collective. It is a individualistic culture. Sometimes I wish that we were a more collective culture. Not much more, but I think there are pros to being more collective than we are because as humans we are social animals.
I don't know if it is just me but I think perhaps we have gotten more individualistic in the past few decades and those questions would illicit different responses 40 years ago. Hitchhiking used to be common but now we are afraid strangers are going to kill us, even though the world is actually safer today. I even admit I am absolutely terrified of random stranger violence, irrationally. I know that if I were to become a victim of violence it would be far more likely to be someone I know who did it and not a random stranger on the street. Most people are not killers or serial rapists or muggers. Yet, I still can't shake the fear.
But you are right, those answers would very much vary between countries.
Those are my thoughts on the matter anyways, for what it is worth. (Probably not much :))
Addressing the issues directly is often challenging. That is my guess on why we allow degenerate behavior to impose costs on others until it reaches epidemic proportions when we finally attempt to address it.
It also encourages people to isolate themselves in enclaves where people that share certain expectations of behavior can shut out others and deal with those that are at least somewhat considerate of whatever behaviors the group cares about.
Allowing the rudest people to abuse society degrades the public square and tears at the benefits that can strengthen the social contract. Sadly it seems to be a pretty dominate trait in our society these last few decades and it seems likely to just keep getting worse. Hopefully I am wrong.