[Book review] P. Smith, T.L. Phillips and R.D. King Incivility: The Rude Stranger in Everyday Life Cambridge University Press 2010

Millie, Andrew (2011). [Book review] P. Smith, T.L. Phillips and R.D. King Incivility: The Rude Stranger in Everyday Life Cambridge University Press 2010. British Journal of Sociology, 62(4) pp. 753–754.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-4446.2011.01389_10.x

Abstract

A discourse of moral decline has been popular among certain strands of sociological and criminological enquiry; that ‘we are all going to Hell in a handcart’ – for example Wilson and Kelling (Broken Windows: The Police and Neighborhood Safety, 1982) and Putnam (Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, 2000).As Smith, Phillips and King have noted in their new book, the evidence of this is frequently said to be a ‘ “crisis” of civility’ (p. 1). There is an alternative view, that while behavioural and moral norms and expectations may change, it makes little sense to say they are in decline. As the authors observe, ‘there has always been talk of poor public behaviour, of increasingly unruly streets and of the decline and fall of good manners’ (p. 1, emphasis added). It seems talk of decline is a constant through history. In this new book Smith et al. consider the incivility which is said to signify contemporary decline.

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