Is civility in our every-day communication dead?  Judging by the amount of political advertising, lyrics on rap records, studies on the use of profanity by teenagers and dozens of other “bellweather indicators” - the answer appears to be “yes.”

Especially if you’re Steve Yastrow (writing for the Tom Peters blog) or Richard Rappaport (writing in Ad Age).  Rappaport wrote this tome for Ad Age and decried the rise of “snide” advertising.  Yastrow followed Rappaport’s article with this blog post declaring that “advertising is a sick business.”

So, what gives?

If you read the comments on both pieces (AA | TPB), you’ll see folks lash back against the writers’ opinions.  Some of the comments on the Ad Age article, in particular, are well conceived and convincing.

My comments on Mr. Yastrow’s post may, or may not be posted.  In order to be fully “on the record” I’ll post my comments here as well:

“It’s ironic (to me, at least) that I had to read a snide blog post about a snide article on snide advertising in order to find out what the broughaha is really about. The point of the article is not so much about snide advertising as it is about the decline of civility in ad creativity (although the argument is poorly crafted and unclear).

It seems Mr. Yastrow has missed the point here and, instead, has gone on a screed declaring the end of advertising as we knew it. He’s right that customers are more discerning than ever and that, thanks in large part to the Internet, have a more involved decision-making process than ever before.

Advertising, the way it was practiced in the 80’s and 90’s isn’t any more relevant to today’s society as advertising from the 30’s and 40’s was two decades ago. But it’s the job of the advertising industry to keep up and stay abreast of those changes.

To declare that “advertising is a sick business” is uninformed, judgemental and, well, snide.

Then again, it gives me something to blog about, I suppose.”

Yeah, that’s right.  I’m blogging about a blog about an article.  It’s a weird, Kevin Bacon-ish thing that I’m not crazy about.  But there are two specific points I’d like to make about both articles:

First, advertising has almost always had some relationship to comedy and an essential element of comedy is sarcasm.  Little reminders of our own humanity played out in such a way to bring us back to earth and laugh at someone’s expense (very often our own).  Sarcasm taken to the extreme can be snide and hurtful.  But many of the examples cited in both posts don’t go that far.

Second, even though the arguments weren’t particularly well crafted, the concerns raised about the plight of civil discourse in society is worth noting.  And, yes, advertising has a role to play in re-setting society’s understanding of what is and isn’t acceptable communication.

Interestingly enough, it’s the ability to listen, undertsand and truly communicate with customers that will interject civility into those relationships and enhance brand value at the same time.  And even though Mr. Yastrow doesn’t seem to understand it (may he doesn’t want to), that is the job of marketing professionals and the advertising industry in particular.