Let’s swap the War on Terror for the War on Bad Behaviour
Manners matter – and in a way bad manners matter almost more than good manners. For this is age of celebrity culture, the ‘me me me’ age of l’Oréal clones, where greed is as much applauded as any other self-indulgent search for self-enrichment, self-development, self-this, self-that and the other.
People feel entitled to everything and responsible for nothing. It used to be that people (rightly or wrongly) looked up to their ‘betters’ and expected these folks to lead upstanding lives and make us follow by their example. These days, for way too many of us the role models are the empty-headed celebs, junkie pop stars, megalomaniac actors – and all those spoilt football players, of course:
Ashley Cole turned his back on a referee who was about to show him a yellow card. Javier Mascherano had to be pulled away from an official who had just given him a red one. At a time when the leaders of English soccer launch a campaign for players at all levels to show respect to those struggling to keep them in order, the big names aren’t listening. Neither, it seems, are the coaches.
Cole’s petulant behavior for Chelsea against Tottenham last week when he was considered lucky to avoid a red card should have been punished by England manager Fabio Capello. The Italian, who is trying to instill better discipline into his squad, should have sent out a message to the highly paid Chelsea left back and others inclined to similar misbehavior by dropping him. Instead, Cole is likely to be lining up for England against France on Wednesday as if nothing happened in last week’s 4-4 draw at White
His behavior, standing defiantly with his back to referee Mike Riley, who was repeatedly asking him to turn around, dragged the name of Premier League soccer back into the mud at a time when Football Association chairman Lord David Triesman is trying to persuade youngsters to show more respect to the officials. If Cole behaves like that and Mascherano chases after referee Steve Bennett over his red card, what’s the point of Triesman preaching a good behavior message to young players who copy the stars?
What’s the point indeed?
Well, as I said, manners matter. Without good manners, without the more or less gracious give and take of social intercourse, there can’t be any kind of real civilisation. Without this glue (and lubricant) societies will be a collection of individuals, locked up together inside a cage. The cage may be luxurious but the rats will turn on each other anyway – sooner rather than later.
So, I was thinking of these spoilt football stars when I came upon the following article:
A man has talked himself into nearly two years in jail after threatening to kill a Shelby County criminal court judge. Joshua Beadle, who was appearing in court on burglary and rape charges, has been held in contempt and sentenced to 10 days per word after a judge ordered him to stop the threatening comments. Judge Lee Coffee stopped counting at 70 words and sentenced Beadle to 700 days in jail.
Beadle was shackled and outfitted in a special hooded spit mask during the hearing Monday after spitting at the judge at a hearing in January. Beadle missed the judge and instead hit a clerk’s computer. Through his nylon-and-mesh spit mask, he apologized to the clerk on Monday and assured her that his intended target was the judge.
Now, when I read that I couldn’t help but think that our societies needed many more judge Lee Coffees.
I would swap the West’s ludicrous War on Terror within seconds for a War on Antisocial Behaviour. And let’s start right from the top: with out freak show celebs, our lying politicians, our corrupt Savings & Loans, Enron, Halliburton managers – and those idiotic football players, of course.
If the people who, for a large part, set the tone for our societies refuse to be good examples, we should at the very least make examples of them.
Though I’m not sure we could teach any of them the kind of good manners this burglar and rapist showed by apologizing to that courtroom clerk.
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