Reply #4: I blame it on parents no longer bothering to enforce good behavior [View All]

[Lydia Leftcoast]

in their children and treating them as if they're the center of the universe. This has been going on for about thirty years now, and the result is a critical mass of adults who think that they don't have to have consideration for anyone else.

I also blame the climate of "Me-publicanism" created during the Reagan administration. I noticed a marked rise in pointless hostility, crudity, and snarkiness in the early to mid 1980s.

Etiquette is more than a fussy set of rules for the socially snobbish: it's a way of putting everyone on the same page so that society operates smoothly and that people's feelings are considered. All the etiquette experts agree that putting down "the lower classes" or acting imperious toward people in service jobs shows the snob's lack of class.