In response to Bobbie Mantle’s letter (Acorn , Jan. 15) regarding the local lack of social niceties, I think the problem extends well beyond Simi Valley.

While many people are great, Americans overall no longer seem properly socialized.

With the exceptions of major cities where public transportation and walking are still viable and personal interaction is unavoidable, our societies have become more self-focused. We go from our car to our workplace to the store, etc. never really confronting one another.

Our religions don’t offer much help here, either. They can divide us into grand “usses and thems” that misinterpret the words of various prophets and cast us into myopic cliques united by arcane rituals and all too malleable self-serving beliefs.

Our politicians have all but totally convinced citizens on both sides of the aisle that they are either so incompetent, obstructionist or just plain greedy that doing the people’s business is simply no longer on the table.

“United we stand, divided we fall” made sense when it was simply a nationalistic “us versus them.” But now it’s “me versus everyone and everything.”

Perhaps people aren’t smiling back at us because they are essentially unhappy, confused or terminally cynical. But we can and should continue exhibiting cheerfulness and goodwill without concern for the negative responses.

Lenny Bruce had a routine called “Thank You, Masked Man.” In the classic story, the Lone Ranger always leaves before the recipient of his heroism can say thank you.

He doesn’t do it for the thankyou; he does it because it’s right. One day he hears a child say the words, and it changes everything. He no longer practices generosity for its own sake; he does it for the thank-yous. He is thus ruined.

I wish to live in a world where people hold doors, say hello and thank you, and look each other in the eye, so I will continue to create those elements in my world.

I will hold doors, and I will let people into traffic, and I will help people pick up things they drop. If those people don’t feel my overtures merit a response, that’s their loss.

I fervently believe that we, the nice people, can persuade the dead-eyed and the coarse to soften. If more of us can be defiantly cordial it will catch on, because, as Bruce also said, “We’re all the same schmuck.”
Steve Ochs
Simi Valley