Verified by 
Don't you get fed up with people some times? Their bad manners, stupidity, selfishness, thoughtlessness? Of course you do. You hate their road rage, line-up jumping, loud talking on their cell phones in elevators, on trains and busses, their inability to realize that they actually do have to pay at the grocery check-out counter. They wake up with a start when presented with the bill and start the fumble for handbag, purse, exact change, in pennies, which they never have. The guys and gals in packs who force you off the sidewalk, the drivers who cut you off and who are going too fast or too slow instead of, like us, the correct speed?
I could go on - actually I will. The smokers who blow smoke out of the side of their mouths, straight into your face as you walk by (well, they would have to be smokers to do that wouldn't they?). The hardware store assistants who see you coming and sprint away, and the shop assistants who pester you, the spitters, the litterers, the people who dpn't pick up after their dogs, the people who are cruel to animals, and especially the predators and criminals abounding, and so on. (Full disclosure: I lined up to pay at the grocery the other day, and realized that I had forgotten my wallet. Dumb!). (OK. It's not quite full disclosure, but it will have to suffice).
We label ourselves Homo sapiens, which was really rather sweet of Linnaeus, but that does seem optimistic, utopian, even delusional does it not? Hopeful, though, and hope is in the air these days.
The Greeks started this, as usual, in the "polis," the city-state, from which we derive 21/2 millennia later the power : politics, the management : politicians, and the required behavior : politeness. The Romans followed, as Romans did, with the "civis" : city. Hence, the civilians and civility. But politeness and civility are now it seems rare commodities. Two useful books discuss all this in depth: Benet Davetian's "Civility" and P.M. Forni's "Choosing Civility : 25 Rules of Considerate Conduct." That's 25! There are only 10 Commandments and 8 Beatitudes and 7 Cardinal Virtues, and I can generally remember only 3 items on a shopping list, and then I forget one. Plus there are all the etiquette books. "Manners maketh man," it is said, or it was said, in the past.
Bad manners seem to be most vexing when one is in a bad mood, if one ever is - like we somehow generate them in others, which we might; and when the weather is bad, and walking and driving are more tedious, and we are cold and wet; and they seem to be more common in large cities where we are all anonymous, stressed and from a myriad of cultures with various customs and norms. We bump along together but occasionally collide and scratch each other, often unintentionally.
It is hard to cope with oneself, others, the weather and culture clashes simultaneously. One of Sartre's characters famously opined that: "Hell is other people." Fair enough. Often exes. But so is heaven - which is what exes once were too.
We know that there are three types of people: those on their cells, in constant communication with their circles; those on their i-pods, excluding all others and totally self-involved ; and those (perhaps of a certain age) on neither. Other-oriented, self-oriented and both (or simply out of date). I suspect that civility is not much of an issue with the first two types - they are out of it anyway.
On the other hand, after I drafted this, I went out for a coffee along our main street, rue St Catherine. Three yards away a young woman was crossing the street and was hit by a car cornering much too fast, and lay prone in the middle of the street. Everyone jumped to help. One woman collected her purse and shopping, a doctor-type guy held her head and talked to her, a man directed traffic, others grabbed their cells to call an ambulance and the police, and both were there within minutes. This was H. sapiens et civilis in action.
And people do thank their bus drivers, hold doors open for others, (and sometimes are thanked with a radiant smile or with words), pick up dropped things and fallen people, return lost wallets, help lost strangers, apologize if they tread on your toes, drive with civility...and more. We cannot be too misanthropic.
So what do we do? The Greeks dealt with that too. Among the Presocratics, Heraclitus was known as the weeping philosopher: he thought about human follies and wept. Democritus was known as the laughing philosopher: he regarded the same follies and laughed. Pick one. Crying is cathartic, they say, but as a lifestyle choice I recommend laughing, since we can then laugh at ourselves rather than crying over spilt milk, or forgotten wallets. It is probably healthier too: conserves moisture. But we can also follow Linnaeus and, with our mouths open in joy and wonder, admire each other : the admiring (or open-mouthed) philosophers.
