This Thanksgiving, let’s strive for more civility

At this time of year, I like to highlight all the things I am thankful for. This year, I couldn’t even begin to account for miraculous blessings too numerous to name.

However, something sinister has been bugging me for months, and it was brought to a boiling point over the weekend. I can’t ignore it, especially during a week when we will need common courtesy and decency most. It will be extremely difficult for most of us to avoid human contact during Turkey Week, but I think too many of us have forgotten our grandmother’s guidelines to “play nice.”

So, I am deeply troubled by the messages conveyed about our culture when grown people stampede, scuffle, shoot and steal in the name of a video game, as well as the degenerate lengths that greedy marketers will go to make a buck. Dare I mention that fool O.J. Simpson? The coast-to-coast PlayStation stampedes represented a glaring loss of the respect we once showed one another. O.J.’s attempts to publish a how-to-commit-murder manual represent a selfish immorality that words cannot describe.

The painful trial of O.J. Simpson — who was criminally acquitted in those infamous killings of his ex-wife, Nicole, and her friend Ron Goldman — tore this nation apart. Only the more painful events of September 11 allowed for a reunification and healing in America. About the last thing this country needed after Hurricane Katrina, the war in Iraq and the polarizing midterm elections was to revisit the divisive racial issues O.J.’s trial wrought.

Wise that O.J. and his money-grubbing publisher, Rupert Murdoch, came to their senses yesterday and heeded Americans’ scorn by canceling this outrageous book and a TV interview. They demonstrated an abominable lack of self-respect by hustling the confessional diatribe, “If I Did It,” and they pushed the envelope too far and, in the process, thumbed their noses at the American people’s sense of decency and at the American justice system itself.

Worse, they would have done a serious disservice and dishonor to all those people, mainly poor and black, who blindly supported the fallen football star.

At the time, O.J.’s protestations and performance — or rather those of his attorney, Johnnie Cochran, who died last year — brought to bear important questions about the inequities in the U.S. criminal justice system. We confused the mission with the man.

The lesson here is that the power of the people can be greater than the power of the press. Only the lowest of the low would further denigrate himself by profiting from the senseless loss of two lives. Saying that proceeds from this project were earmarked for his children also is disingenuous and despicable for its avarice and inherent abuse.

We used to scoff at the “Me Generation.” Who thought this trend toward self-centered greed and immorality could get worse? We even hear the prosperity gospel of Me-ism preached today in megachurches, where the Sunday sermon is not about the Golden Rule or helping others but about helping ourselves attain the riches we desire — luxury cars, showcase houses and the latest techno-toys — by any means necessary.

My son, a 37-year-old who owns an older game model, characterized those who most exhibit the ill-mannered impatient actions and attitudes as the “Now People.”

“Ma, we are Now People; we want it now, right now, and we can’t wait for anything,” he said during a passionate discussion over Sunday brunch.

Yet, we are still baffled by people who obviously have nothing constructive or better to do than spend days in a line and then run over one another to buy a PlayStation 3. And, who in their right mind will pay more than $2,500 for the violent $600 gadget on EBay? (I could think of a thousand ways to put that money to better use for the greater good.)

Only the curious need for instant gratification can explain why someone would miss work or school to stand, sit or sleep in a folding chair, a tent or a blow-up bed in the chilly rain, only to be trampled by a frenzied mob, everyone trying to be the first to spend a week’s pay on an updated model of a gadget used to spend mindless hours playing violent video games. In all likelihood, that same game box will be sitting on the shelves in a month.

We’ve come to a pathetic place in our human development where folks can be so easily distracted and passionate about meaningless, inanimate objects, while more important things such as pressing societal problems are begging for their attention.

Still, mainly I wonder what is happening to plain old politeness and public decorum. I seem to encounter more and more people who I imagine are really horses wearing blinders.

The idea here is not to ask you to run out and commit random acts of kindness as you shop, travel or try to get to work in one piece, besieged by self-centered people all trying to meet their needs first and often at your expense, or even your life.

But I am tempted to substitute the “Just Do It” slogan with my own simple campaign to “Be Nice.” But I’m actually fighting my inner cynic, who is beginning to think that civility is a lost commodity. Too many seem to have forgotten the “giving” half of the communal sharing of Thanksgiving.