OK, maybe I'm an old fart.
Going to church means wearing a suit and tie. Even when I was eight years old, I had to wear a suit and tie.
Going to a job interview meant wearing a suit and tie. My first "official" job at age 16 (1966) was for a dishwasher job at a local greasey spoon. I wore a three-piece suit for the interview for a 95-cent an hour job.
My grandfather wore a suit and tie and fedora just about every day of his life. In fact, we have a newspaper photo of him wearing suit, tie and hat while fishing from a rowboat.
When I see the likes of Michael Moore on television, I feel like I'm being offended. Not just because of his politics, but because he thinks so little of the people he's speaking to that he dresses and looks like a bum.
Stand_watie, there is a correlation between what happened in the 1960's in terms of dress codes and what's happening now.
But it goes further than that, because each aspect of civilized behavior relies to at least some degree upon another.
I was raised and taught to say "please" and "thank you," to open doors for women and the elderly, to not curse in polite company, and to respect every other societal norm common at the time.
Bear in mind, I was a drugged-up punk, but I still knew the rules.
Coarse behavior has become so common that elderly women go out of their way to thank me for holding the door for them. They say they can't remember the last time that happened.
My mother-in-law, who sent all of her five children to Catholic schools, now uses the "F" word freely. Frankly, I find that not just disappointing, but shocking.
At 55 years old, I've heard all the arguments that each generation complains that the next is somehow becoming more decadent.
I don't think that's entirely true.
Manners are not a cause of the degradation or escalation of societal norms, they're a reflection of the current norms.
I distinctly recall having some guy walk into my studio, unshaven and wearing a dirty sweatshirt, and ask, "hey, you got any jobs?"
He was either a complete idiot, or didn't want to get a job. Or perhaps both.