Stories like this, where irresponsible parents bring their young children to see movies that aren't appropriate for them, and/or allow them to ruin the experience for other paying customers are all too common. We've all been there at some point, especially those of us that live in big cities and the suburbs thereof. Usually, it's a parent who won't control their children, or someone who refuses to take their cell phone call outside of some place (movie theater, fancy restaurant, etc.) that is supposed to be a quiet environment.

In many cases, you can't just go over and tell the person to stop behaving like that or take control of their kids because if they get upset with you, the police will probably be on their side. It doesn't matter that they were behaving in a way that was destructive to the environment around them, what matters is that you invaded their space and created a heated argument or fight by telling them to behave like a civilized person. The police could issue citations for their behavior, but they're not going to do that, and most importantly for you, they are probably not going to let you--or anyone else--intimidate someone into behaving like a sensible person.

This behavior on the part of authorities is a form of legalism. For the uninitiated, legalism generally means rigid adherence to the exact letter of the law, rather than the spirit of the law. Usually, the only sort of people who behave this way are authoritarians and limp-wristed, bed-wetters who cringe at the thought of people being able to exercise discretion in the use of force or verbal coercion. The archetypes of these two types are the cop and prosecutor who will send an old man to prison for murder for killing a young man robbing him at gun point (we must enforce the gun ban and excessive force laws, after all) and those who apologize for this behavior saying that it's necessary to prevent vigilantism. Nevermind the fact that such legalistic, letter-of-the-law-uber-alles behavior tends to accomplish nothing good for society.

In a society where legalism is not the norm, there would be no potential legal trouble for going to the table of a couple whose children are destroying the dining experience at a restaurant, and telling them to get their brats under control. If they did anything about it, the police would be firmly on the side of the restaurant, and the customers who said something. After all, it would be clearly the family with the children, not person who confronted them, who were disturbing the peace. Yet, once again, in reality, one is likely to be told that "their behavior didn't make your actions necessary" and you're likely to get in trouble for having the guts to confront them.

So how do we get away from this legalism? The answer is that society must start once again trusting individual, non-state actors to behave intelligently in doing their part to enforce societal norms. Most people can't accept this, however, because it means that there will no longer be as many matters which are entirely up for personal opinion as there are now; it'll mean that you have to regard the parent who says that their unholy terror's behavior isn't "kids being kids" as an idiot and a bad parent. That might even be a bit judgmental--though not all judgmentalism is created equal.

The simplest answer for why things have gotten a lot worse is that people have been liberated by the government from having to be accountable to one another. The government won't allow private citizens to non-violently enforce social norms anymore, lest someone, somewhere not be allowed to just be themselves.