Slipping culture

"Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much." Unfortunately this article (see this if the first doesn't work) reporting on John Trinkaus's study of the decline of small honesties and small courtesies agrees with my own anecdotal observations over the years. Little things: do you clean up your shopping cart or toss the trash in someone else's; do you chip in to help pay for votive candles; and so on. Trinkaus watched and counted over the years, and finds that people are less courteous in measurable little things, like using the express checkout lane with more than the 10 allowed items or putting the shopping cart in the corral.

And yet the sense of community and social responsibility is founded on the innumerable little things of life. If we're all in this together, we don't shuffle off simple problems onto the next sucker, but try to do our part. And it seems we don't do that as much anymore.