Recently, I visited the website of a well-publicized authority on a certain subject. The subject happened to be the theme of a novel I was finishing, and since she has publicized herself as an authority, I knew she could provide a referential assistance I needed. This person posted her email address on her site and invited the visitor to contact her. I did. No response.

This doesn’t surprise most people, but it still surprises me. People who are younger than I am (that’s “most people”) believe this kind of behavior has always been the norm. No, it hasn’t. I’ve lived seven decades now, and it’s only in the last couple of them that such behavior would be considered unsurprising. Over the years it became increasingly prevalent until—maybe sometime around the end of the eighties?—it crossed the blurred gray line from “occasional” to “usual.”

It’s bad manners. Sounds so trivial, doesn’t it? Sounds like something a crotchety old English teacher might get stirred up about, but not important to anybody else.

It’s not trivial. It is important.

Consideration for other people is the root of virtue. If you don’t intend to keep an appointment, don’t make one. If you don’t intend to respond to emails, don’t invite them. If you don’t intend to reciprocate an invitation, don’t accept one.

As consideration for others is the root, responsibility is the stem. Response-ability. If you don’t have response-ability, don’t get married, don’t get a job, and for heaven’s sake, don’t have children—don’t even own a pet. Don’t involve yourself with others at all until you develop response-ability.

Character then is the fruit of responsibility. There’s a reason that applications for employment, for membership in some organization, even applications for credit or a mortgage—all require “character references” because they require trust.

And finally, there’s integrity, which, to continue the metaphor, is a healthy plant—from good roots to fruitful bloom. Integrity is the unity of one’s character—it doesn’t have an unhealthy root, or a weak stem, with an adopted appearance grafted on it, but is of one piece, from root to flower.

When I was teaching, I never “policed” my students during an exam. By the time I taught them, they were young adults, already formed. I told them: If you cheat on an exam, you’ll cheat on your taxes, you’ll cheat on your wife—because you’re a cheat. The object of your cheating does not determine whether you’re a cheat—your cheating does. If you plagiarize, you’re both a thief and a liar, not just here and now on this research paper, but everywhere and always—because lying and stealing is what you do. So, if you cheat, you have a far more serious problem than just getting an F on this exam. That’s the meaning of integrity.

Good manners isn’t just a “quaint” concept. It’s the outward sign of integrity. And bad manners is the outward sign of integrity’s absence. It is the visible measure we have for discernment of invisible traits. Excuses are red flags. The vague “I’m just so busy” is the reddest and most obvious of those flags.

But again, the issue here is not the existence of poor character and bad manners, but the fact that it’s no longer exceptional, hardly even noteworthy. I see a connection between a virulent demand for respect (“rights”) and lack of self-respect, which bears the rotten fruit of disrespect for others. The excuse-makers, also known as “victims,” believe that their lack of respect is someone else’s fault. But no matter how loudly other people’s respect is demanded, how successfully it’s legislated, the problem isn’t solved, the disease isn’t cured. What’s missing is self-respect. You don’t get that from other people. In only one way is it the same: it has to be earned. It isn’t a “right.”

I know someone who has so much responsibility it would make most of us tremble. Writer, editor, professor, speaker, husband, father—just to name a few I know of. There are likely others I don’t know, since I’m not a close friend. I’ve had occasion to email him a few times on unimportant matters, and I always receive a response within 24 hours. He’s never too “busy.”

“To him who has, more will be given, but to him who has not, even that which he has will be taken away.” That probably sounds unfair to those whose habit is excuse, those who have no response-ability, those who think respect is their right.

But if the root is poor, maybe we should take a look at the soil in which it’s planted.