Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Manners and a dying culture

Panic ensues in rush for cheap laptops.
People threw themselves forward, screaming and pushing each other. A little girl's stroller was crushed in the stampede. Witnesses said an elderly man was thrown to the pavement, and someone in a car tried to drive his way through the crowd.

Jesse Sandler said he was one of the people pushing forward, using a folding chair he had brought with him to beat back people who tried to cut in front of him.

"I took my chair here and I threw it over my shoulder and I went, 'Bam,"' the 20-year-old said nonchalantly, his eyes glued to the screen of his new iBook, as he tapped away on the keyboard at a testing station.

"They were getting in front of me and I was there a lot earlier than them, so I thought that it was just," he said.

Well it's just a riot - things get out of hand. I'm sure that is all that it is, nothing to see here . . .
"Sick cultures show a complex of symptoms . . . but a dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot . . . . This symptom is especially serious in that an individual displaying it never thinks of it as a sign of ill health but as proof of his/her strength."
R.A. Heinlein 'Friday'
blog comments powered by Disqus