STEPHEN IPPOLITO writes from Australia:

Kyle does  excellent work pointing out that those who so loudly and so often shriek their membership in the so-called “resistance” are the people least resistant to all forms of temptation – bodily or spiritual.

I had an experience just a week or so ago that taught me a lesson very much along the same lines.

It occurred, of all places, at the new KFC outlet in my neighborhood.

(Yes, mea culpa! I confess it: I have a weakness for the Colonel’s chicken fillet burgers – and his coleslaw too. Since its opening, it has run some great dinner specials  and that, combined with the unusually comfortable tables and chairs, has caused me to stop off there once or twice a week. In my defense, I can only plead that at least I am not at the local Pizza Hut or Dominos!)

Anyway, I was approached at my table by a lady who introduced herself as the store manager. She was accompanied by a few of the young staff from behind the counter. The manager explained that she had been told by “my kids,” (in the usual way of fast food places the staff are all about 17 or 18), that I was always very polite to them and always treated them courteously. The lady explained that very few customers did that and that “so many” customers were rude to her young staff over even minor things. She appeared a very kind, motherly lady and was protective of her young staff, (as all good mothers and true leaders are). She then presented me with  some lovely corporate freebies as a thank you.

I am of course very grateful for the lady’s kind gesture – but it occurs to me that basic civility should just be the default setting. It should surely always be expected in interpersonal dealings.  Surely  western society has reached its nadir when what used to be called “common courtesy” is now not only uncommon but is so rare that it’s being rewarded with gifts. How and why did this situation come about?

I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately and think that Kyle captured the reason. It is because we have reared a few generations now for whom the self, the ego, and its attendant desires are the sole drivers of thought and action.

For the civilised person, (and by definition for all Christians), civility proceeds from the instinctive knowledge that we and our wants are not at the centre of things; that our fellow human beings have an innate worth as beings created in the image of God. Of course, for  people who deny the existence of God, they themselves inevitably move to the forefront – so why would they even try resist temptation? Anything that feeds the ego and sates their desires is by definition good, no? If a youngster hands you a KFC  pack and you find your chips or your gravy are cold then why be surprised when such a person does not bother to resist the urge to lash out and yell at the server? After all, if it  feels good to you, then do it.

Fashions change over time but human nature never does. History shows that with a peoples’ material progress inevitably comes moral regress. It is as if we humans are programmed to forget after a few generations the very conditions that permitted the accumulation of wealth and a life of safety and ease in the first place: discipline, delayed gratification, self-sacrifice, mutual cooperation, respect for the innate value and rights of others and adherence to rules of civility and of the law.

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