HAS CIVILISATION IMPROVED?
Sir,-Listening-in to the 2ZB Citizens’ Forum on a recent Sunday evening I wondered how the speakers defined "civilisation." If by civilisation we mean "improvement in the refinements of life and living" (i.e., behaviour); then the answer must be an emphatic "No." In an age where children push and hustle, scream and yell in buses and trains; where girls and young women swear, smoke and drink, claiming equality with men (until it comes to standing in a tramcar or carrying a parcel); where young men loll and lounge, allowing elderly women to stand in tram, train and bus, can we honestly claim an improvement? The drawing-room of the past generation has disappeared, giving place to the lqunge, and with it has gone the gentle, courteous behaviour, the graciousness of the past and we have the "lounge" manners, the too free and easy behaviour of to-day. The Citizens’ Forum and the Brains Trust sessions give me good lessons in "How to’ talk ROUND a question" and how to talk with my tongue in my cheek. + :
H.
HARMAN
(Pinehaven).
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 470, 25 June 1948, Page 5
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179HAS CIVILISATION IMPROVED? New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 470, 25 June 1948, Page 5
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