Politeness died yesterday. Some would say it had been wasting away for years, coughing weakly in a mask on a park bench, ignored by strangers on their phones. Others insist it was assassinated long ago, perhaps in the ladies’ room of an airport. Someone who had been raised in a house, presumably by human beings, left behind a grudge against humanity in the sink, on the floor, on the toilet seat.

Bellum omnium contra omnes. Everyone is at war with everyone else.

Thomas Hobbes, whom nobody likes to read but wants to quote, neatly argued that man without authority becomes a wolf. He said life was “nasty, brutish and short”, but this might equally apply to the lifespan of civility in our times. In the airline cabin, we encounter the Hobbesian wolf—in all gender representations—in full voice. They are on their third beer before the seatbelt sign has gone off. They watch devotional videos on their mobile phones and try to proselytise, using just nonchalance. They declaim with great energy when anyone interrupts this holy business by dialling their number. But gods help the person who requests them to use........

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