A polite public

September 21, 2010 - 10:46 PM by Jessica

Dry Bones from January 31, 1973; nothing really changes...

We’re just past the high holidays and the Yom Kippur thoughts about who we are, who we want to be and how we are vis a vis others. But I only just read about Israel’s ‘first’ national survey of politeness, carried out by the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies (JIMS).

(This kinda corresponds to my last post about cellphone etiquette, now that I think of it.) In any case, it seems there is a correlation between a person’s level of politeness and the level of their income, but not level of education and level of politeness.

Surveying 992 adult Jewish Israelis, the questions included, natch, talking on cellular phones in public, driving, attitudes to the elderly and the disabled, use of foul language and much, much more.

What they’d find? Seems that it is irrelevant whether a person is married or has children, but the more polite a person, the higher their income. I liked this part: The survey found that men are less polite than women, immigrants are more polite than native born Israelis, haredi (ultra Orthodox) Israelis are more polite than their religious, traditional and secular compatriots, and older people are more polite than young people.

What else? 78% of Israelis always or frequently encountered people talking loudly in public on their cellular phone; 71% always or frequently found people driving aggressively or without caution, and 53% frequently heard crude language in public places.

Sounds familiar. The question is, do we or can we fix it?

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