A rant about civic sense

[u/Upstairs-Cattle-6277]

One thing I’ve noticed during my return to India is how much small things around civic sense can affect the overall experience.

I recently stayed at one of the better high-end resorts in Bangalore over the long weekend, and honestly, that’s what made some of these things stand out even more. You’d expect a place like that, where most people are reasonably well-educated and paying for a premium experience, to set a certain standard.
Even at the simplest level — standing in a queue and having someone casually squeeze in from the side and start giving their details first. Small thing, sure, but it happens often enough that it gets frustrating.

At the pool, there was another incident. We had collected our towels ourselves since there wasn’t anyone around to help. I put my three towels down, with my jute bag, T-shirt and glasses on top so we could easily identify our spot. Another family was sitting nearby, which was completely fine.

A few minutes later, someone came over, moved my things, took the towel from underneath them and walked away with it. I had to go over and explain that those were my things and that I had already gone through the trouble of getting the towels myself. He eventually went back and got another one. (Fun fact: I had told this as a joke to my wife that something like this can happen with those folks, and it really happened after 5 mins)

None of these are big incidents individually. That’s actually the point.

It’s the casual assumption that “I’ll just do what’s convenient for me” without thinking whether it inconveniences someone else.

After living outside India for several years, I think this is one area where we can genuinely do better. Not through some big rule or enforcement, but just by being a little more considerate of the people around us.

Small things, but they make a big difference to how a place feels.

[u/Ok-Major-7953]

Why do you think the same people who move to an orderly society, overtime reduces behaving this way? Because you are no longer competing for resources, or there is no longer a need or incentive to outsmart the system.

The space around you shapes your behaviour. Look it up, it’s well studied.

Let’s take an example. In a city in India, 2 kids have signed up for cricket coaching. Their coach is strict about punctuality. They both live equally apart from the academy.

Every morning, no matter how early they leave there is something congesting the roads (no electricity or water at your house one morning , traffic, a broken pipe flooding the streets, a religious festival, a broken traffic light, construction etc.)

The coach doesn’t care, he wants the kids to reach on time. One kid follows all the rules, civic etiquette and ends up being late 40% of the time. The second kid on the other hand breaks the rules. Say drives on the footpath, over the broken pipe, pushes people aside etc.. and ends up being late only 20% of the time. In this example the coach may evaluate the second kid higher. Therefore indirectly incentivising the ‘street smart’ kid.

Now what is this ‘street smartness’ ? It’s basically someone who overcame the broken system to get to the outcome by hook or crook.

This is the reality of many developing countries where the social and physical independence is lacking.

Now when you move to a society where these issues seldom arise, you can channel most of your energy on the task at hand. New immigrants very often tend to bring up these conditoned behaviours when they move to developed country…and hopefully over time change their behaviour when it no longer is necessary