the.com/decency
the quiet flex of being kind when nobody's keeping score
means A baseline standard of behavior that's polite, proper, and morally respectable — treating people and situations the way decent folks agree you should.
from From Latin 'decentia,' meaning fittingness or propriety, built on the verb 'decere' — 'to be fitting, to be becoming.' That same root quietly fed 'decorum' and 'decorate,' so at heart decency is about what suits the moment, what looks and sits right. It slipped into English in the 1500s, carrying that sense of the proper and the becoming.
- latin root
- from decere, meaning to be fitting or proper
- costs nothing
- basic decency has zero entry fee, infinite returns
- FCC obsession
- American broadcast law polices it by the second
- common decency
- named common precisely because it shouldn't be rare
- hardest test
- shows up loudest when no one is watching
atticus finch — harper lee's lawyer character in to kill a mockingbird who defended tom robinson despite racism in 1930s alabama
nicholas winton — british stockbroker who rescued 669 children from czechoslovakia before wwii, discovered in 1988
doctor paul farmer — co-founder of partners in health who provided free medical care to poorest populations in haiti, rwanda, and peru for 30+ years