This article is dedicated to the family exiting the restaurant for whom I held open the door.  I was approaching from the outside, and as I saw a young mom inside getting near the door with your two little daughters following, I stood and patiently waited while you all came out one by one, with some distance between you; and then dad finally came out also.  I watched, attempting to make eye contact, and wondered if there would be at least an acknowledgement of some kind from you, but all of you, including the children, seemed to make it a point to keep your eyes away from me as I waited there, steadily holding on.  In fact, I even waited until all four of you cleared the end of the building, but, alas, nothing—not a “thank you,” a nod, or a glance.  Incredible.

            This article is also dedicated to the bad drivers who seem to like to follow my car at such a close distance that I would not even dare to park to your car.  This applies to those of you who cannot seem to tell the difference between a public freeway and a NASCAR speedway; and to you who cannot distinguish between an automobile and a phone booth.  And it applies to you who seem to think that there is a trophy of some kind at the other end of the street, and you can get it if you can just get there before the rest of us.  Simply put, it is not driving skill that you are displaying.

            This article is also dedicated to the church I visited one Sunday morning at which I was not greeted by anyone on the way in.  At one point during the service, after the pastor called upon the congregation to “all turn around and shake hands with the people around you,” all of you made it a point to go and find those whom you already knew, and I was ignored yet again.  And finally, as I stood by the exit door at the end of service, I wondered if someone, anyone, was willing to make eye contact with a visitor as you all filed out.  Needless to say, the winsome friendliness I had come to expect from my fellow believers was nowhere to be found.

            This article is likewise dedicated to the woman who, upon my second visit to that same church (because I give second chances), approached my wife and myself and began to chat with us.  I was happy to talk with you, mostly because I thought that this might turn out to be a place of actual fellowship after all.  But suddenly you stopped and apologized for speaking to us, saying that you “didn’t mean to freak you both out by talking to you, since I’m a stranger.”  I replied that I was glad that you had spoken to us, mainly because “I was freaking out even more because nobody here would speak to us.”  But judging by the look on your face, I’m still not quite sure you got the point.

            This article is also dedicated to another church that had a greeter outside its front door with a great big smile and a firm handshake to match.  As I was approaching the entrance I noticed you saying to everybody before they entered, “Hi!  How are ya?  Good to see ya!”  So when you came to me, you said exactly that yet again, and I replied that it was good to see you, too, and I told you my first name.  To borrow a phrase from Billy Joel, the smile ran away from your face, and a confused scowl replaced it for about two seconds.  You then let go of my hand, and as the smile returned you looked away from me and said to my wife who was close behind me, “Hi!  How are ya?  Good to see ya!”

            This author knows that I may not be much to look at, but REALLY.  The above described lack of consideration for others and/or basic social skills is unbelievable.  And all of the above incidents took place, and no doubt are still taking place frequently, in a large American city.  In recent discussions with others, I see that I’m not alone in noticing this phenomenon occurring all across the country.

Post-small town shock

            In the past I understood that there were cultural differences within America, but I mostly thought that they were based upon the region in which a person lived.  Basically, I thought that Southerners tend to be friendlier, while northerners tend to be less so.  My thinking in this area was corrected with the discovery that there are in fact very many charming and engaging folks from the New England area, as well as some real pieces of work from many southern cities.  But it was not until I actually moved to a large city in the South that I began to observe that these distinctions appeared instead to be based on something altogether different than mere regional geography.

            It’s easy to be afraid of strangers in an urban environment.  The criminal element is attracted to the idea of having such a large pool of potential victims to rip off, terrorize for kicks, or otherwise take advantage of.  Perhaps we simply don’t want to, or have time to, be annoyed by panhandlers or con artists.  The harassment of the local perverts is not a pleasant thought either.  When there are so many people occupying a relatively small area, we can hardly be expected to know who is all around us—except for those whom we may come to know through business dealings or others with whom we are in regular association.  Regrettably, even then many attempts at niceness to strangers are awkward at best, or else misunderstood by the intended recipient.

            It’s a small wonder that many cities have passed “Good Samaritan” laws which hold a person responsible for their inaction in certain situations.  The tendency to ignore or disdain strangers may be one thing, but out-and-out rudeness is quite another.  When a society reaches a point where a stranger is just in the way and needs to be butted out for our convenience, or he is someone with whom we feel we must compete (and win) for no particular reason, or if we feel we have to “do it to them before they do it to us” (to borrow a phrase from “Hill Street Blues”), we all lose.

            By contrast, in a small town or more rural environment, people tend to know each other with making a fuss about it.  Sure, there may be bad people, perverted people, troubled people, and mean people there—but everybody knows their names, their addresses and their stories, and will usually keep an eye out because they already know who they are dealing with and why.  In these situations, the obligatory gossip most likely has its basis in fact.

            It’s no wonder that persons who move from a small town environment to an urban setting have a difficult time adjusting.  Where they come from, they already had a sense of the grifters they needed to avoid, the churches and the police have taken care of the “bums,” and the neighborhood watches out for any others who are up to no good.  Urbanites tend to read this attitude as “small town naivete” and figure that such folks are destined to be led as sheep to the slaughter.  The thing the city dwellers are not aware of is that they are just as out of place in a small town, but are so full of big city attitude that they don’t even notice.  The small town gossips tend to read this as snobbery, and on some level they are usually right.

            When I first considered doing this article, I intended to categorize it in the political section of the blog.  But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had as many examples of this problem demonstrated to me inside the churches of the cities as outside of them.  The opening examples bear this out, as did my observation that a large number of the bad drivers that I encountered had Christian bumper stickers on their cars (and no doubt were uttering the same type of “highway language”).  Occasionally some people in a church would show some openness, but then in many cases it would soon become apparent that their motive was merely one of getting another “notch on their ministry belt,” or else because it had become merely routine for them to do so.  It is extremely disappointing to me to discover that the one place where I would expect to find an oasis of warm and winsome acceptance was no more receptive or engaging than any other setting within the concrete jungle.

More than a mere handicap

            The term retardation is not a politically correct expression in today’s pluralistic, sensitive society.  Most of the time a substitute word is used which supposedly carries less interpretive baggage, such as held back or handicapped.  But the etymological meaning of retard is to hold back or to slow down progress, perhaps even stopping it altogether.  In context with the above application however, the thing that is being slowed to a halt is the psycho-social and relational development and maturity of persons who display this stereotypical attitude that their response to the urban environment elicits.

            Of course, if you look up the term “urban retard” in the urban dictionary you will get something very different from the meaning I am applying here.  My meaning is much closer to the second definition given under the term social retard, but I have used it in this manner to postulate that it is the urban environment that can create within a person the inability to behave in a socially acceptable manner.  And it does not apply just to the “kids” but to all ages.  Unfortunately, it seems that this problem affects adults even more than it does the younger folk, but in some individuals it occasionally will disappear with the onset of the senior years of life.

            Simply put, the conditioning which takes place when a large number of people are crowded together results in those people learning to disregard others as a sort of defense mechanism.  The impulse to keep one’s distance, no matter how unnatural it really is, seems natural because it is so deeply ingrained.  The gregarious nature of humans, most innocently displayed in children, does not even wait for the expected plethora of bad experiences till it is defeated; this defeat is acquired from parents or caretakers who are trying nobly to prevent a bad experience, but in the process they also erase the potential for good experiences by taking their vigilance too far.

            To be fair, of course not everyone who lives in an urban setting is an urban retard, nor is everyone who lives in a rural or small town setting superior in their social skills.  Nor does it have anything to do with a person moving from one to the other.  It is possible, even easy sometimes, to find people who have always lived in a large city and yet have overcome the propensity for this problem, and vice versa.  This is merely an observed tendency caused by constant exposure to an abrasive environment.

            By itself, the idea of this as social handicap still fits well, but unfortunately the process too often extends itself to a further degree.  The self-absorbed thoughts that fill the vacuum of a mind devoid of healthy social experiences tend to expand until an ultra-competitive mindset is developed, which sets each one against the other.  At that point, a person who for some reason cannot be ignored somehow becomes an opponent, and we must, in our insecurity, somehow surpass this other person in whatever way is at hand.  Here is the point at which social skills are being unlearned rather than learned.  This is the root of rudeness, and the source of the onset of a foul temperament.

No brains required

            Intelligence is not necessary for being rude to others or for acting defensively or in an inconsiderate manner.  In fact, stupidity lends itself quite well to uncivil behavior.  It is normal and necessary for a certain amount of intellectual work to be applied for the successful initiating or maintaining of any type of social relationship; but to assiduously pay no attention to others requires little if any cognizant effort.  Here we see a logical application for the paronymous words ignore and ignorant—to take no notice of others results in having no knowledge of others.  This defines the urban retard.

            Do you still look away quickly when the people across the street attempt a friendly gesture in your direction?  Do you have trouble engaging in small talk unless you use the same tired old pre-planned sentences?  Can you recall in your mind the sound of a neighbor’s voice?  Are they all just pests as far as you are concerned?  Or do you callously think that I should just shut up and get use to it?  The only remedy for this social malady is to consciously work through the awkwardness of kindness-out-of-practice by not only putting into practice the deeds of human civility and consideration but also to learn how to quickly and clearly communicate one’s positive intentions in the process until it is relearned and becomes normal again.  This can begin in small ways, but it must not stagnate there.

            This should be a relatively easy task for Christians to accomplish.  The Holy Spirit of God is well able to overcome the psychological defense mechanisms that distance us from others and prevent us from the true, winsome fellowship that we the Church are meant to have together.  And the re-incorporation of civility into our lives will provide a stark contrast to the self-absorbed society that surrounds us, and too often engulfs us.  In a twisted way, it makes sense that those who do not acknowledge the existence of a God to whom they may someday have to give an account for their actions would show little remorse for their disrespectful treatment of their fellow man; but with God’s people this attitude should never exist.  Sadly, in the absence of the Golden Rule, hearts once upon a time made of gold can be found to have turned into hardened brass.