What's the Matter with Manners in the Twenty-First Century

A group of adult friends recently asked me to write a short monthly column about etiquette for their school newsletter. I obligingly sat down and turned out a four-line poem about responsible cell phone use. But, in the midst of trying to find a rhyme for "texting" (which I eventually decided against) I had to stop and ask myself: is defining and spreading a code of social conduct really a worthwhile use of my time?

No one really denies that the age of Emily Post is over. Gone are the days when we show each other respect by following the same social code. We are all told to celebrate our differences. We all have our own values and beliefs. No one ought to impose his or her social beliefs on me. "Treat others as you would want to be treated" is the golden rule of moral behavior—although "I can do anything I want, so long as it doesn't harm anyone else" might be a more common variation. It would seem that, in this brave new world, manners are simply obsolete.

Of course, we all realize that the ideas of rude and polite haven't died. A Google search, for all its statistical merit, yields almost one million hits for "so rude." A male coworker who accuses a dieting woman of having an eating disorder. A cellphone goes off during an important meeting. And we find huge, generalized groups who are simply rude by definition: young people, bartenders, Italian tourists, conference attendees, people from Boston, and pregnant women.

Clearly, we all know what rude is. We all know we ought to treat other people as we want to be treated. But we don't. Why? Could it possibly have anything to do with the collapse of manners as a social code?

Aristotle had a brilliant concept of how behavior works. All human action is based on goo d and bad choices. The problem is that we can't, as modern morality seems to expect us to, simply resolve to make all good choices. I can make up my mind in advance not to harm another person, but the real choice comes when, tired and hungry from a long day's works, I have to choose whether to give my seat to the elderly man in the aisle.

Enter Aristotle. Men, he noted, are creatures of good and bad habits. Good habits help us practice making good choices; bad habits help us practice making bad choices. Every time I choose to hold the door, I'm teaching myself patience and empathy. Every time I leave the last cookie for my housemate, I'm teaching myself selflessness and generosity. It really is a brilliant insight—I can't always do the right thing by other people, but I can slowly learn the habit of treating them better with time and practice.

I contend that, historically, manners have served as a system for habituating virtue, getting used to doing the right thing. Sometimes the rules seemed (and often were) arbitrary or silly. Still, if I choose to show consideration in small things, I am developing the habit of showing consideration in great ones. The use of "please" and "thank you" helped me develop a habit of gratitude. When I used the shrimp fork for my shellfish, I was practicing showing respect to my hostess. Even the most obscure points of etiquette force of to think about the ways we behave towards others which, ultimately, forces us to see a little more of their humanity.

Unfortunately, some of the oldest and most revered laws in our code of manners, like the use of the shrimp fork, seem so obsolete we've forgotten what they were for. No one pays any attention to the "no elbows on the table" rule anymore. Few blink when I forget to break my bread into little bits before chomping down. When manners are perceived as obsolete or arbitrary, they no longer serve any purpose at all.

So, we have two choices. We could remind ourselves why manners are important, go back to using them to help ourselves develop habits of consideration and kindness. Or, we could reject them altogether and take up something new.

Of course, if we are going to reject codes of etiquette, we have to accept that we need to think harder about our moral choices. I can't count on being in the habit of saying, "I'm sorry" or "No, thank you"—I have to look the homeless man squarely in the eye and consider whether I owe him an apology for not being able to share with him. Without the habit of respectfully listening to others, I will have to work very hard not to roll my eyes at the upset coworker crying about her third break-up this month. Codes of etiquette really do help us practice being a little more human. Without them, we have to make those hard choices on our own. That is the real challenge of twenty-first century etiquette.

Manners really do matter, or at least moral choices do. I for one plan to stand by etiquette of the old-fashioned kind, building good habits by following an older social code. I need all the practice I can get to truly treat others as I wish to be treated. I just hope that all this practice will make those difficult moral choices a little easier to make and helps me see other people as human beings even at the most trying of times.