DENNIS MYERS Against the Grain Advertisement

In his autobiography, Steve Allen writes of how he once went to see the movie "If I Had a Million," a 1932 anthology film that foreshadowed the 1950s TV series "The Millionaire."

The movie told the stories of eight people who were chosen at random from the phone book by a dying millionaire to each receive a million dollars, a theme that probably had great escapist appeal during the Depression. Anyway, one of the movie's eight segments deals with an elderly woman in an old women's home. The woman -- played by May Robson -- and her fellow residents live lonely and despondent lives.

"All during the picture," Allen wrote, "I had been disturbed and had tried to shush the raucous chatter of a group of teen-age toughs seated behind me. At this moment on the screen a particularly ancient woman, suffering from an ailment that gave her withered hands a noticeable tremor, rose from her bed and shuffled toward Miss Robson. As I was attempting to stifle the tears that this pathetic spectacle aroused in me I suddenly heard one of the boors behind me say clearly, 'Shake it, baby!' The next thing I knew I was on my feet, trembling with fury, and shouting 'Shut your God-damned mouth!'."

Allen said he was hit with a wave of shame, though other folks in the movie audience applauded.

That he had the grace to be ashamed speaks volumes. That he was driven to such a point of fury also speaks loud and clear. The kind of provocation to which he reacted was rate during the time period -- the 1950s -- he described. Today it has escalated to the point that it is common, and the reactions have similarly escalated -- theatres must flash screen messages asking theatergoers to silence their cell phones (and are discussing installing phone jammers) and on Christmas day, a Philadelphia man whose family kept talking during "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" was shot after ignoring audience displeasure.

Drivers who drive in the passing lane, people with car stereos that make nearby buildings quiver, surly retail clerks who take telephone calls instead of dealing with customers, customers who abuse retail clerks, people who allow frail or elderly people to stand rather than give up seats, all of these are common experiences. I don't think I'm romanticizing the past, because I see things that at one time I never saw, such as parents tolerating rudeness in public by their children.

Worse, lack of courtesy is gaining a foothold of legitimacy. Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen writes of how he told a loud cell phone user in an airport lounge crowd, "You're too loud. Go over there," and the fellow walked away from the crowd and other travelers thanked him. But when he did the same thing on a bus, the loudmouth and other bus riders both denounced him for interfering with the noisy use of public space.

"Cell yell," Cohen wrote, is described as "privatizing the public space" by one social scientist. "The caller had, in effect, expropriated the public space for his own use. This is a form of theft -- and you don't have to be a bus rider to be victimized. You are victimized ... when such a car overtakes your own and its music overwhelms whatever sweet air or minuet happens to be emanating from your own speakers. That driver has taken over not only the public space but also the private one you maintain in your car. He has even chosen your music for you."

Other ways discourtesy is made respectable: People join an "I Secretly Want to Punch Slow Walking People in the Back of the Head" Facebook group. Brutal language is excused as "honesty." Rolling Stone publishes a photo of Eminem extending two middle fingers at the reader. Talk show hosts talk over the comments of their guests.

Some firms like Safeway and Colonial Bank force their workers to exhibit artificial courtesy, but that's no remedy. Southwest Airlines, on the other hand, has a process that finds naturally polite workers.

There may be no solution. Perhaps it's just one more way we are becoming a more callous society, along with our political campaigns and our taste in entertainment. But one of the great dangers of legitimacy of discourtesy is that it is likely to provoke overreactions from the other side, such as theatre owners jamming cell phones, which could block urgent incoming or outgoing calls, such as 911 calls. There should be a better way.