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July 14, 2003 |

I guess I’m back to quoting Robert Heinlein, from his book, “Friday (1982).”

“I want to mention one of the obvious symptoms [of a sick culture]: Violence. Muggings. Sniping. Arson. Bombing. Terrorism of any sort. Riots of course–but I suspect that little incidents of violence, pecking away at people day after day, damage a culture even more than riots that flare up and then die down. I guess that’s all for now. Oh, conscription and slavery and arbitrary compulsion of all sorts and imprisonment without bail and without speedy trial–but those things are obvious; all the histories list them.” “Friday, I think you have missed the most alarming symptom of all.” “I have? Are you going to tell me? Or am I going to have to grope around in the dark for it?” “Mmm. This once I shall tell you. But go back and search for it. Examine it. Sick cultures show a complex of symptoms such as you have named… 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.”

Any resemblance to the current world we live in is scary and not coincidental.

“About 200 protesters stormed a polling firm after it released a survey that found only a minority of Palestinians who lost their homes in the war that accompanied Israel’s birth would seek to return if allowed” (Jerusalem Post, Today).

Riots, a ridiculously unjust legal system, corruption, conscription, terrorism - these are things we Israelis have become accustomed to on a daily basis. And believe me, they have absolutely been pecking away at the culture. I think what Heinlein would have noticed was not that the lack of social graces was another sign of a corrupt and dying culture, but that it is the direct result of being exposed to those “little incidents of violence” and lack of justice.

There is a twisted tendency in this place to refuse to admit that one has made a mistake. No acceptance of fallibilty. Not even on the most incidental and trivial incident. A repairman calls you and yells at you for not being home in the morning because he has been waiting for fifteen minutes and ringing your door. You respond that he told you that he would come in the afternoon. He responds that it is ten thirty already. You ask him when that became “afternoon.” He continues to rant that you are not there. You ask him where he is since you have not heard the doorbell ring. He says he is outside your building, number seventeen. You respond, “I live at number fifteen.” He says, “So when will you be home?”

This is not an isolated incident. This is an example of a way of life that people in this country take for granted. It sickens me.

I used to think that this was the sign of an immature culture, one that hasn’t had a chance to really develop. But now I am beginning to think, like Heinlein, that this is the beginning of the end for a sick culture that doesn’t deserve the opportunity to get worse.

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