Chivalry. A simple code that in today’s society is almost obsolete. However, society would greatly benefit from chivalrous acts. Our nation has forgotten the meaning of this code that symbolizes honor, bravery, and courtesy. In this constantly changing world, people could use a moral system to live by. If everyone could all agree on a certain way of treating others, the world would be a much bet Humans lack a common understanding on how to treat others on a daily basis. People are disrespectful to others without even realizing it and they behave poorly in all aspects.
They don’t take the time to listen to others opinions before making their own and interrupting to share what they think. In fact, only 55 percent of a person’s time each day is solely devoted to listening to others (Lake). But even in a listening situation, not everyone is getting the message. The ordinary person listens with only 25 percent efficiency (Williams). If everyone would take more time to listen, and listen with complete attention, perhaps they could learn to get along better. One other reason that people have become so disrespectful is because the people they look up to are poor role models.
The politicians who run this country are unable to make sophisticated choices about what they say and do. For example, Donald Trump mocked a disable reporter on national television at one of his speeches (Hanson). How does this help us have a better understanding and tolerance for disabled people? Furthermore, according to Angie Drobnic Holan of the New York Times, out of more than 70 statements made by Trump, 76 percent of them were false. People in today’s constantly changing and difficult world no longer have the desire to work hard for what they want.
When the amount of jobs are limited and people have families to support they need to be doing exactly the opposite. People need to work even harder than before to be noticed and receive high paying jobs. For example though, people abuse welfare every day instead of getting those jobs available to them. In just one fiscal year 60,634 cases of welfare fraud were reported (Rhode). However, only 425 people were actually convicted of welfare fraud (Rhode). People need to stop taking away from others who actually need welfare to support their families.
On the other hand, workers plead for higher minimum wages for simple jobs rather than searching to find higher paying jobs for special skills. Higher minimum wages make it too expensive for firms to keep employees. These businesses will have to fire employees and raise prices for the goods and services that they provide. Only 11. 3 percent of the workers who would benefit from higher wages belong to poor households (Hassett). Perhaps those people should make more of an effort to apply for higher paying jobs that are meant for people who have families rather than trying to survive off of working at McDonald’s for the rest of their lives.
As if there aren’t enough problems already, people nowadays aren’t honest. Children lie to their parents and their parents lie back to them. In fact, 86 percent of parents lie to their children regularly(Benjamin). It doesn’t take the kids long to figure it out. The average child will begin lying at age 2 or 3 (Gaille). This only sets people up to continue lying in the future. Perhaps that is why so many people lie about who they are to others. 33 percent of people lie on their resumes (Gaille). No wonder they end up working at McDonald’s for $8. 25 an hour.
A resume is supposed to show who you truly are so that employers have a better idea of who to hire. More than that, over 15 million Americans are victims of identity fraud annually (Gaille). Identity fraud can ruin a person’s entire life because what they worked so hard for is taken from them. People pretend to be someone else on the computer. As the amount of online dating sites are going up, so it the amount of “catfishing”, or pretending to be someone else and tricking people into believing it really is that person. They start communicating with people online and have a fake relationship.
Some people even keep the game going for years, making other people think they met “the love of their life” even though its all a lie. If people can’t be honest with each other, how can they live together peacefully? Still don’t think that chivalry is important? Well, think again. Chivalry is a concept that desperately needs to be retaught in today’s world. Humans need to learn to fix their problems and pass down what they have learned to future generations. If people can look past others flaws and give chivalry a try, maybe someday they can learn to live in harmony and have tolerance for everyone.
