Assignment task:
The following article, "The Decline of Manners," is by Judy Martin and appears in the November 2009 issue of the journal Behavioral Analysis.
According to a recent Associated Press/Ipsos Reid poll, nearly seventy percent of respondents polled said people of today are ruder than they were twenty or thirty years ago. This is obvious to anyone over the age of thirty. Overall, people are more slovenly, less communicative, and generally impolite to one another.
One clear sign of the decline of manners in the workplace is the increasing informality of dress and grooming. While in earlier days, dresses were required for women and suits and ties for men, nowadays it is not uncommon for men to wear casual pants and shirts and for women to wear short skirts or shorts. In schools, the problem is even worse. Thigh- and lower-buttock revealing pants are fashionable, as are tank tops, ball caps, flip-flops, and obscene t-shirts. Young women often dress in provocative outfits that expose cleavage, excess flesh, or tattoos.
A second example of the decline of manners is the increasing lack of communication skills resulting from the ubiquity of electronic, hand-held gadgets. People of today-young and old alike spend the majority of their time transfixed by the glowing screen of a cell phone, an iPod, a Blackberry, or a laptop. In class, students often flagrantly ignore their teachers, choosing instead to text message their friends, often laughing aloud when reading an especially humorous text. Others immerse themselves in laptops, rarely looking up to communicate with an actual person. Many young people never even remove their iPod earbuds from their ears, thus appearing to be perpetually oblivious to what is going on around them. This modern brand of rudeness-ignoring people in the "real world" while absorbing oneself in the virtual world-will gets worse as technology improves.
Finally, a general sense of mean-spiritedness characterizes most human interaction in this day and age. One can look to popular television shows as a prime example of this tendency. A show like American Idol is premised on the idea of making fun of others: Simon Cowell, a surly, untalented judge, rudely criticizes the performers competing for his respect. Reality television shows like The Hills, Survivor, and Hell's Kitchen create situations in which competitive participants fight and squabble with one another. Again, these shows reflect a wider problem in our society: the breakdown of basic human politeness.
One could easily include numerous other examples of poor manners, but the above will have to suffice. Needless to say, ours is a culture in decline. Where we are headed, I do not want to know. But when we cannot even pause our iPods, cell phones, or laptops for long enough to engage in polite conversation with a friend or stranger, or to pay attention in class, something is seriously wrong.
Provide me a 5 paragraph response to the above article with proper hook and thesis statement. Follow the essay format: introduction, body, and conclusion.
Your response should accurately summarize the author's main argument AND critically respond to it.
You may choose to agree with the author's argument, disagree with it, or partially agree/disagree with it.
Your essay should also consider at least one objection a reader might have to your argument. You may respond to this objection in different ways; for example, you may argue against the objection, or you may acknowledge that the objection is a good point and incorporate it into your argument Paragraph.