Engagement

The death of manners in American society has been rather precipitous and jarring for me. In the last two decades, the general public behavior on American urban streets has deteriorated. This has accelerated with the public use of PDAs, iPods, iPhones, netbooks and mobiles. The advent of hip hop culture prior to onslaught of these devices laid a perfect groundwork for isolationism and marginal aggression in the public space.

I understand the seductiveness of earplugs in modern urban America. I travel subways and walk frequently through urban neighborhoods, which are jammed with cars, bicycles and baby strollers. I can see a day when pedestrians may be wearing hi-tech glasses, equipped with GPS and a virtual reality, projected on the inside of the lenses. These, combined with earplugs, would provide the perfect mobile womb.

I happen to believe that staying engaged, despite the annoyances, is an important part of being a practitioner of humanism. So, I venture out unplugged daily. I hold doors open for others. I say thank you to store clerks. I make eye contact and smile at people on the subway and sidewalk. This is an essential part of my humanist practice as I see it. This is my own way of taking responsibility for improving my environment. Retreating into technology, in my opinion, is an irresponsible and antisocial approach to the stresses of urban life. Regular, peaceful engagement in the public space, I believe, is a way of promoting greater peace in society.