RANT

Adults Have Totally Lost the Ability to Know How to Behave in Society.

We are living in a world where adults act like children. Or has it always been this way, and now that I am an adult, I see everything with different eyes?

Honestly, don’t people, in general, annoy you? I swear I try to be social; I really do. But I end up having to be a social introvert, someone who really enjoys talking to people but who just finds most people completely boring and uninteresting.

Let’s see; today is Sunday; I got up and walked to the pastry shop near my apartment to try to have a quiet breakfast. Of course, if I had a farm with a garden, I would never have to resort to a public terrace because we already know what all this implies:

Meeting other humans and putting up with the shit they may do.

I went there intending to read a book while drinking my morning coffee and with an idyllic image in mind: catching the morning breeze while the coffee was smoking in my hands and I was eating my simple bread roll with cheese, or if this were not the typical Portuguese breakfast.

I sat down at the same time to dwell on a subject I want to write about: the fact that adults have long ceased to be an example to young people and have turned them into beings that need to be re-educated. And with this theme, I immediately connect it with people's lack of values and ethics.

Let’s look at a straightforward case: During the pandemic, rules had to be made because people will not on their own do what is right, just, and correct. Since people do not follow righteousness, a greater force has to impose rules so society can govern itself.

In the same line of thought about what is right to do, I learned about the Chinese social credit system last week. For those who don’t know, China is living in a totally dystopian society where people are congratulated with social points for doing good deeds and are humiliated and undermined for the opposite.

Soon an obvious question arose for me: the lack of morality in the intention of this rule. That is, people will do good deeds not because they think it is the right thing to do but because they will get some sort of reward. There went all the philosophical lessons about the importance of intention, clearly, something not often thought of in society.

It is the same logic that I saw as a child when other children were rewarded for helping their parents with household chores or for getting good grades at school. Fortunately, the education I had — and by this, I mean at home, what my parents taught me how to be righteous — made me see that this behavior was inconceivable. It was nothing but my obligation to help my parents and be a good student. I helped and studied because it was the right thing to do, not because I expected any reward.

Later in life, I realized that there are values that are greater than anything. Ethics, fairness, being a good person, being virtuous, and honesty are values that surpass anything else. With this in mind, it didn’t matter what level of schooling I or anybody else had. More than all that, what mattered the most in a person was if he/she had in himself/herself a set of qualities that made in being a decent human.

And in Portugal, where someone with higher education is so flattered, this question of the intention and the level of schooling makes even more and more sense. You may not know, but it’s part of the Portuguese culture to see people with the title “doctor” to have special praise that is sickening since it creates a distance between people and a relationship of obedience/submission, placing people with the title in a pedestal and the other ones in a lower level…

And those who think that the new generations are different are mistaken. In fact, I see exactly the opposite happening, more and more praise for supposedly more intellectual people who use words to immediately discriminate against other supposedly “inferior” people.

To me, anyone who thinks this way is someone I don’t intend to talk to at all. I can’t, it makes me sick to my stomach, and it’s one of the characteristics I hate most in my culture, this supposed crude elitism that immediately places someone superior to another because of their supposed school education.

When did we stop valuing upright and fair-minded people and start valuing these people?

School education is not synonymous with righteousness or good manners, nor is knowing how to behave well in society. Of course, there are exceptions, but there are exceptions in all sectors of society. Not all people with a poor school education behave badly, nor is the reverse the case.

Now, back to my story about the pastry and the terrace where I sat. I open one of the books I brought while the lady behind me with her annoying cell phone starts watching videos on TikTok. Do you think she realizes that listening to music or watching videos at extremely high volumes in public is silly behavior? I am not talking about those annoying teenagers who get on the subway with speakers and start playing annoying music.

I am talking about a woman who could almost be my mother.

My open book right on the next table doesn’t tell her anything, but I understand that it doesn’t have to because I’m on a public terrace and I have to put up with everything that comes from this. Screaming children, cars passing insistently in a tiny village where everyone could walk, but they don’t, and of course, adults with their cell phones glaring at a screen watching videos with screaming music.

No, nobody taught or teaches them that this is not right; I wasn’t taught either, but you don’t need to have a college degree to realize that this is even remotely disturbing to others.

In fact, the world doesn’t need more intelligent people, but rather people who are minimally educated, upright, have moral values and learn that being right and doing what is right is far greater than any other kind of value. I would even say that this is one of the many reasons why the subject of Philosophy is so important in people’s education here.

But the humanities are continually relegated to the last place, and then man follows the most rotten path.

This is what we see most everywhere, injustice, immorality, and corruption being boasted about to the detriment of what is everything opposite and by which humans should be governed. There is talk— a lot here on Medium —and free publicity of toxic corrupt men who I will not give a second’s fame even if it means tearing them down. Even though the intentions are good — goodness, another philosophical lesson here — we are giving them continued value to people who don’t deserve it.

As for the lady and the terrace, I swear I felt an enormous urge to stand up and call her attention. I imagined a whole scenario where I would try to keep my composure and say to her:

“Look, lady, don’t you think it’s a little out of place to be listening to your music while I’m next door trying to read?”

I had seen it all in my mind. But controlling myself as the adult I must be, I know well what the result of my action would be: I would be reprimanded, possibly bullied, and seen as a jerk who doesn’t know how to get along in society.

My reprimand would have a reverse effect, and the ostracized one would be me. We can’t do that. We apparently have to shut up and put up with all the other people’s shit. Imagine this: sitting down, I open the book, and then rather than reading it silently, I would start reading it aloud. If people can do that with their f***ing cell phones, why can’t I do it with my book?

Well, maybe that would be the best way to confront all this, even if it would disturb the other passers-by.

Perhaps here’s an idea for another time.

Hello, I’m Araci, a female writer from Portugal. I like to write about my country, Portugal. But I also enjoy pop culture, American culture, and cultural differences. I hope you’ve enjoyed this article!

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