NSW Chief Justice Jim Spigelman has identified a growing tide of incivility in our society. He points to widespread incidence of road rage, insensitive use of mobile phones, careless littering, "ugly parent syndrome" at junior sports events and the increasing boorishness of the mass media and popular culture.

The Prime Minister has expressed support for Spigelman's comments. He is particularly critical of the race to the bottom in television shows such as Big Brother, and he warns of a trend towards increasing vulgarity.

But John Howard's comments have generated some predictable reactions. Sociologists have assured us that society is no cruder or ruder than it used to be, but this complacent claim is easily refuted. In TV, for example, today's guidelines prohibit "very coarse language which is aggressive and very frequent". Forty years ago, "coarse language" was ruled out completely.

In England , Channel 4 broadcasts a program called Distraction, aimed at young people. In one episode, the contestants had to leapfrog and give piggybacks to elderly, fat and completely naked strangers, then sit beneath a pigeon coop while getting splattered with bird droppings. The winner was required to vandalise a car. If you think Big Brother has scraped the bottom of the barrel, stand by your sets.

Another reaction to Howard's comments was to blame him for the decline in manners. As a letter-writer to this newspaper put it yesterday: "Howard's policies ... have created a society where people only look after number one." So next time you see someone on the train with their feet on the seats, blame the Government's workplace reforms.

This too is obviously absurd. Adam Smith explained two centuries ago how a market society does not destroy civility but generates it. For strangers to trade with each other, they must be able to trust one another. Shared norms of behaviour emerge to make transactions between individuals possible, and it is in the interest of all parties to observe them.

The idea that pro-market reforms lead to incivility and boorishness actually turns reality on its head. Reducing the role of government in our lives places greater responsibility on individuals. It is when government assumes the responsibility for looking after us and making decisions for us that we are most likely to behave like irresponsible children.

Last year British Labour MP and anti-poverty campaigner Frank Field gave a Centre for Independent Studies lecture on the topic of respect. He has no doubt civility is fraying: his constituents complain to him of little else. He puts it down to a boorish popular culture, widespread welfare dependency and, primarily, the erosion of the two-parent family.

Field thinks the spread of single-parent female-headed households means many boys now grow up without the steadying influence of a mature, responsible male. He also bemoans the loss of parenting skills, which has left increasing numbers of children unsocialised and rudderless. It is within the family, he says, that we first learn consideration for others, and as family life has collapsed, so too has civil virtue.

We should not exaggerate the scale of our difficulties, however. A series of focus groups conducted by CIS in 2002 found that most Australians, young and old, affluent and battlers, understood the importance of civility and wanted to behave respectfully towards others. Their problem was that the rules have got blurred. Fifty years ago we knew that a man should hold open a door for a woman and offer his seat on the bus. Today we are not so sure.

Because there is now so much uncertainty about what the rules of conduct are, many people feel reluctant to intervene when they encounter bad behaviour. If I tell a youth to remove his feet from the seats, will others support me or will they think I'm an interfering old busybody? Am I alone in deploring gratuitous swearing and loutish behaviour, or do others think as I do?

This is where public figures such as the Prime Minister and the Chief Justice can play a role. They cannot create civility where none exists, but they can help strengthen an existing public ethic of respect by acknowledging the existence of common rules and expressing support for them.

In his lecture, Field noted that "rules and guidelines are necessary, even for the best of us". Even for those who behave well, rules provide reassurance that their instincts are good and are shared by most other people. This insight is crucial. Most people want to behave properly, to be civil and respectful to others, but our shared norms of behaviour are repeatedly being challenged, and this generation probably feels less certain of itself than any other before it. In a situation like this, it is vital that people in authority reaffirm our shared, instinctive ethical judgments and do not undermine them. It is called providing leadership.

In the past, when the norms governing public behaviour were clearer than they are today, public figures such as teachers and police officers felt confident about expressing and enforcing them. They knew the rest of the community (including those higher up) would back them up. Today, this confidence is ebbing away. Last October, Sydney magistrate Pat O'Shane dismissed a case brought against a youth who had drunkenly sworn obscenities at police in a public street, and she ordered the police to pay the offender's costs of $2600. She told her court: "I'm not sure there is such a thing as community standards any more."

Statements like this from people in authority can cause huge damage. There are still community standards, but they take a hammering when prominent people such as magistrates refuse to acknowledge them.

If we want to safeguard civility, our teachers, politicians, broadcasters, magistrates and judges must understand how important it is for them not only to recognise that community standards of behaviour still exist, but also to defend them wholeheartedly and tenaciously. If we cannot rely on this, then we are indeed in trouble.

Profesor Peter Saunders, the social research director at The Centre for Independent Studies, is co-author of Six Questions About Civility, available at www.cis.org.au. Frank Field's The Ethic of Respect: A Left Wing Cause will be published by CIS later this month.