Sunday Conversation

The combination of love, respect, morality and all the good qualities of human beings is virtue. Let's expand on this a little bit. Our literacy rate has increased, as has the rate of higher education. Our national income has risen, we earn more money, we live in bigger cities and houses. We drive luxury cars and go on vacations to faraway places. The cell phones we use cost several minimum wages. And we can't just call it a phone! They can speak and write several languages. I could write and multiply the number of things we can do and have with such devices, but the discourses on manners, decency and virtue that almost everyone talks about have increased so much that I couldn't not write about it.

Internet sources define manners as "the rules of behavior that have existed in a society for a long time and require respect and tact, all the rules that control human behavior; the knowledge of behavior in society and the phenomenon that a person encounters in a way that will increase his intuition and knowledge, the knowledge and experience that has a positive effect on his personality and that he obtains through experience".

Despite the increase in our living conditions and quality of life, how to explain the decrease in virtue, which is the combination of tact, courtesy, respect, understanding, equanimity and elegance, is our problem, this is what I have chosen this particular topic! Especially in large settlements, the fact that it has hit the bottom even more is unexplainable. Virtueless and poor quality human derivatives seem to be the problem not only of our country but of all countries. The best thing is for me to take a photo of my own country on this issue for you.

People crush each other in Metrobus and bus queues, everyone snorts at the slightest mistake in traffic. In big business centers, greetings in the elevator are a joke. Now, old and young people, with phones worth how many liras in their hands, are running around in the virtual world. Basic discourses such as "to thank, to apologize, to ask", which are reflections of human grace and delicacy, are close to being forgotten. Luxury and expensive nightclubs, bars, cafes and restaurants have replaced country cafes and social clubs. The library, the love of books, the curiosity to learn are unfortunately a thing of the past. 

Streets are no longer playgrounds; they are full of concrete piles. If you are lucky and have money, you can take your child to a sports club, but you don't know what will happen! Instead of raising athletes from the infrastructure, our clubs have made it a priority policy to invest in foreign recruits. 

Art is in decline. Philosophy, logic, sociology and science are dead. The love and tolerance of the elders and the respect of the little ones for their elders, which we once boasted of, can only be seen in old Turkish movie frames. Even the concepts of brother and sister have been emptied.

Neighborhood culture has given way to housing estate culture. Those who throw garbage on the street from their luxury jeeps, those who drink in children's gardens and throw their bottles there, those who make small toilets in plastic water containers and throw them on the streets and roads, those who are too lazy to pick up the feces of the animals they feed that they leave in public places during their walks or those who leave their pets on the street when they get bored are really people who lack manners. 

We do not deserve to live like this. Along with wealth and growth, our quality of life must also increase so that we can become a civilized country and nation. The way to become a civilized country is to first become a civilized and developed nation, that is, a nation with some manners.

We have to care and emphasize these in schools as much as in the family. Education should bring manners to our children in the family and then in school. 

I wish you a Sunday full of courtesy, kindness and respect.