As IF Times

link News from The Associated Press.

There is an iconic German expression,  author unknown,  which goes, ” stadluft macht frei”, which means “city air makes you free”.  In the day when this was first coined, it meant that to live in the city away from the constraints and prying eyes of a rural community gave one the freedom of anonymity and therefore freedom to do as you wished.   In the city of course, there were many, many people and no one really cared what anyone else was up to.   In theory, this is a fertile environment for novel intellectual thought and so living in the city was supposed to foster intelligent discourse and a civilized society.

In the crucible of a great metropolis like New York, we can observe if this notion still has validity.  According to articles like the one in the link, being free these days means to be willfully indifferent to your social surroundings.  The article cites instances of people carrying on in the subways with all kinds of activity as if they were in their own living rooms, things such as eating, picking noses and inexplicably, clipping toenails.  Not being a resident of New York, I can’t comment on whether or not clipping toenails on the subway is common and acceptable behaviour.  If we see clippers for sale at the kiosks, then we’ll have our answer.  In addition, it’s difficult to imagine enjoying a twirl of spaghetti in the close confines of a subway car filled with the bodily gases of dozens of people. 

It appears that the ‘freedom’ so offered by city air has morphed more into outright anarchy as people’s behaviour has deteriorated to reflect only personal conveniences to the exclusion of the consideration of others.  Presently, in our society, the lines separating what is considered to be individualistic, eccentric and crazy are faint to non-existent.  So much so, that even the most outrageous behaviour rarely raises any eyebrows these days.  So many things are being done for publicity and shock value, that most everything appears routine.   When few things have any shock value, people as a whole become cynical, aloof and disengaged from the rest of their society.  Perhaps it’s no coincidence that we observe so many ‘celebrities’ engage in self indulgent and anti social behaviour.  They are living in a time when virtually anything they do has positive consequences, at least as far as publicity is concerned, which is really what celebrities crave.  It can’t be that hard to find any number of people on any given day in the New York subways that are real life Charlie Sheens. 

If unfettered behaviour is the hallmark of a civilized society, it may be time to be a bit less civilized.  It wouldn’t hurt to put up a few signs in the subway restricting activity that you would otherwise see in the Bronx Zoo.  I’m all for distinguishing  primate species.  At the very least, use deodorant.

link Casey Heynes | Bully Video | SportsGrid.

Anyone who has ever successfully trained a dog will appreciate that in order to shape behaviour, it is important to associate reward or punishment immediately after the response.  There is no point in smacking the dog with a rolled up newspaper two days after he has bitten someone or pooped on the oriental rug.  People who don’t immediately reward or punish their dog after an incident will continue to be puzzled as to why their dog doesn’t behave properly.

This dynamic is now accepted and encouraged  in our modern civilized society.  We have been conditioned to let the “authorities” mete out the appropriate punishment rather than responding directly to the transgressions ourselves.  Often, the punishment, if any, is inadequate and the time gap from the original crime is lengthy.   Is this the hallmark of a civilized society?  That’s certainly debatable.  If you asked the aggrieved party, they may say no.  If you are an academic living in a theoretical world, maybe.   If you extrapolate the direction in which ‘civilized’ society is being steered, it doesn’t bode well for those who generally follow society’s basic codes of behaviour.  It means that they will generally suffer at the hands of those goons unwilling to follow society’s rules, written and unwritten.  Pretty soon, we’ll be overrun by bullies and jerks as if they were weeds on a lawn.  With the perverse bloat of the legal system, all manner of anti-social behaviour are excused by specious claims and rulings.  This emboldens even more undesirable behaviour which encourages more goofy rulings and the cycle continues.

In fact, not immediately applying retributive action to miscreants is contrary to the rules of nature.  In the natural animal world, boundaries are clearly established by virtue of the fact that  dire consequences will result  if they are breached.  In the best case, the intruding animal may get into a fight, in the worst case it gets eaten.  It’s a rare sight to see Wildebeest frolicking among lions for example.  There are no written laws of conduct in the natural world.  Be stupid and become exhibit A in Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection.  In the case of the punk harassing Casey Heynes in the video, the kid is clearly in the Wildebeest mode.  He’s lucky he didn’t have his head cracked open.  That this little darling got smacked will go a lot further than  any ‘strong scolding’ by the authorities after the fact.  Just ask Cesar Milan, The Dog Whisperer.  His standard technique for dog discipline and training is to associate positive rewards for good behavior and immediate negative consequences for unwanted behaviour.  But the key theme in his training is the behavior of the humans.  His premise is that how humans respond to their dogs’ behaviour will determine if they respond acceptably or not.  Control rests with the humans.  Maybe Casey should have eaten the little punk.  That’ll learn him.