There is no margin of error, there is no room to be merely capable and willing. Either you are the best or you are not. Either you win or else you lose. Business leaders boast that American companies have never been leaner, meaner, stronger. And yet the clear result of all this is that there are angry, frustrated, vastly disenchanted people tramping through life at all levels.
Civility is gone proclaims major newspapers across the land.
Folks are often taken aback when someone is polite. At certain levels we have all grown immune to this behavior if only because we feel powerless to do otherwise. Americans today are disinclined to give reprimands or pass judgment on others committing even the most boorish behavior lest they are physically attacked or, perhaps worse, sued and put at risk of losing everything in courts of justice that more and more have become courts of frivolity, conveyors of lottery-style wealth to the winner. I m not being entirely clear, I fear that we are coming apart at the seams. No doubt many will argue that American society is routinely in jeopardy of doing just that, only to be followed by a swing of the pendulum benignly the other way.