The psychology of civic pride...
As I walked by the BP service station on Horn Lane late this afternoon, I witnessed what may seem like a small but, arguably, highly indicative, act. A man in his early forties - relatively well-off, judging by his groomed appearance - stopped his dark-blue '08-plate full-size Range Rover at the exit, to check the traffic before turning out on to Horn Lane. Just before pulling out, however, he remembered there was something else he needed to do. He reached across to the passenger side of the car, grabbed something important, then tossed it directly out of his open window, right into the middle of the exit road of the service station. An empty can of Orange Tango. As it clanged to the ground - even from the other side of a busy Horn Lane, the sound was like a gong - I stopped in sheer amazement. Before I could h’ironically holler ‘hey! you dropped something!’ he was gone…away, like a Cardigan of the Light Brigade, left down Horn Lane and out towards the wide blue splendour of the HIgh Street. I stood for a moment or three, lost in wonder. I may well have looked like a person-proper-possessed for at least a couple of those moments. A bus did go by, and I’m sure someone on board looked at me with some degree of strangeness. It was the sheer...deliberateness…of the act that made it so shocking. ‘Deliberateness’ is the only word that, for me, truly describes the particular combination of thoughtful thoughtlessness that rendered it so automatic an action, one motivated entirely by normalcy. One which came with a strangely wilful lack of a duty of care - no sense whatsoever of civic pride or responsibility towards whatever area he may live in, hail from, or be passing through. I did fleetingly wonder how he might react if I’d done the same thing on his driveway. I imagined, in that moment, that it was pristine, like his hair, I don’t know why. Quite simply, the can was empty. He didn't need it anymore. Didn't want it in his car any longer. So the right thing to do - in his mind - was to simply discard it in the street. If there’d been a child in the car with him I wonder, now, whether or not s/he would have questioned his ethics. Despite nurture or parental intent, children often do.The interesting thing is that it’s quite rare to witness the dropping or discarding of litter. It’s a furtive act, performed under disguise - not falsely-moustachioed and be-wiggened - just that, because people know intrinsically that it’s wrong, they cover it up. Which is another reason why it was so shocking to see it done so openly. So...obviously - so *normally*. What’s wrong with us? Why don’t we understand the importance of civilisation? Y'know, that thing we all have that we so often take for granted? I mean, would Tango Can-Man even be able to *invent* a Range Rover, let alone build it, fuel and maintain it, as well as clear routes through the forest for it to pass along? Even a Range Rover can’t actually drive through actual trees, can it? They're stronger than the people at Land Rover can make them. So what is it, then, that makes it okay to simply drop things in the street? I realise that It can't be a majority of people that do it, otherwise (judging by the sheer quantity of stuff we throw away) we'd be wading through Everestial amounts of waste every day. BUT, so many pieces of trash find themselves hanging out in our gutters, on our pavements, wrapped around our trees - bin bags, napkins, wet wipes, many fag ends, drinks cans, bottles, takeaway boxes, plastic toys, odd socks, broken pens, used diapers, cardboard boxes, bits of metal, empty lighters, banana skins and orange peel, parking tickets, human poo and a couple of old receipts. Just a few of the things I picked up from a walk around my street with a litter-picker this very morning. Why? Why is this ok? Two main reasons - please tell me if you think there are more (the smaller reasons we can 'discurse' over in the comments):[1] People just don't care. [2] People are unhappy. It’s amazing what even just a tiny bit of civic pride can do for people - it can lift the spirits, boost endorphins, make us feel part of something (the old ‘C’ word - community).Here’s the killer question - have we now gone so far down that we’re really living in a ‘post-community’ world?I know when I've been Tango'd.
Glynne Steele ● 3453d23 Comments ● 3449d