Civilization?

Overheard:

"You know, I've been thinking that while I don't know what civilization is supposed to be that I'm pretty sure that we're not as civilized as folks were a hundred or so years ago. In fact, I'd say we, meaning us folk in North America, aren't as civilized as people were two thousand years ago."

"What do you mean by that Clovis? Look at all the advances we've made in medicine and science and technology, look at electricity and the internet."

"Now that's just what I mean Cletus, the electricity and internet part especially. One of the headlines I read when the storm hit was, "Everything good is gone". The fella that said that was referring to Twitter and Netflix both being down. That's a sad state of affairs when Netflix and Twitter constitute everything good."

"Now that you say that Clovis I'm reminded of the family of a coworker of mine. Last fall when Hurricane Irene knocked out power to his neighborhood the kids had to play outside for a few days. He said it was pretty neat seeing teenagers and younger children outside, riding bikes and playing ball. Then one day the electricity came back on and one of the kids ran outside and yelled, "The power is back on!" With that the kids all ran into their respective homes to charge their smart phones and turn their computers on."

"Just consider this Cletus, last Monday a storm knocked out power to some folks in the Richmond area; then this past Friday another storm knocked out power to millions of people in a number of states, and then Saturday some more people got hit with another storm - more power knocked out. While there are some folks who try to do the best they can when the power is out, others get right mean, I mean MEAN, downright ugly - and the longer the power is out the meaner they get...and the meanness seems to infect others and spread like a fever; people get delirious with meanness.

"Now what would happen if the electricity stayed out three weeks, four weeks, five weeks? I'll tell you what would happen, we'd have anarchy fueled by meanness. And so I ask you Cletus, would people in 1850 have gone over the edge if electricity had gone out? Would people two thousand years ago have gone mean and crazy if the refrigerator stopped working because there wasn't electricity?"

"Clovis, you know good and well there weren't no electrical power back in them days."

"Yes sir, I know that; but I also know that people wouldn't have gone crazy and mean over a few severe storms. If those people could act somewhat civilized, realizing that I'm not entirely sure what the word civilized means, without electricity, why can't we act halfway decent without electricity?

"Cletus, the more I ponder it the more I'm convinced that the only thing that separates us from a rabid coon or fox is a functioning power line...and I'm just not sure that's what I'd call civilization."