Will thank-you notes save the West?

I was quite startled, the other day, to read this column by one of my youngest colleagues. 

Myles argues that the problems of his generation, Gen Z (or Zoomers), can be blamed on a lack of silence in their lives. He contrasted the study habits of the Boomers--who looked for books in silent libraries--with those of the Zoomers, who have a constant stream of music filling their ears as they click around on the internet. It was if he were describing two different cultures. Meanwhile, he suggested that the reason so many twenty-something Catholics are choosing the Old Mass over the New is that they find there the silence they so desperately crave. 

"What else does your generation need?" I asked a Zoomer friend as we walked along a sunny Edinburgh street. 

She thought this over and said, "Challenge." 

In her view, Gen Z is given everything on a plate, and nobody challenges it to do difficult things. I thought this very interesting. It occurred to me that this may be more of an age problem than a generation problem, since the kind of young people who go to university have been throughly coddled since the end of the Second World War or (in the UK) since the end of National Service.*

On the other hand, I was made to do many things I disliked (for example, walk two long blocks between home and Brownies all my 7-year-old self), got regularly bruised playing ice hockey, rode my bicycle all over the neighbourhood, had reasonably restricted TV viewing, was bribed into silence with chocolate on 10 hour car journeys to Indiana, almost drowned in the municipal pool, had to call adults on the (rotary) phone, took coffee shop jobs, and rocked infant siblings back to sleep. Apart from the multiple infant siblings, I think these experiences were pretty typical of Gen X. 

One thing that I suspect may be typical of Gen Z is that it doesn't answer RSVPs or write thank-you notes. And here is where I get anxious because the primary directive of a hostess is to set her guests at ease. Do I want to embarrass my guests by publishing reminders that they should send me emails to announce their intended presence or absence at my tea dances, let alone a demand for thank-you notes? Decidedly not. And do I want to give the impression that I am a queen of etiquette? I'm afraid Benedict Ambrose, who has been known to flinch at my colonial lapses in taste, would object most strenuously to any such pretence. (This reminds me, my bread-and-butter note to Mrs. Polish Pretend Son is shockingly late.) 

"But if you don't tell them, who will?"asked my Zoomer friend, and suddenly I recall that one of the charges against Gen X (from which God has hitherto spared me by not sending babies of my own) is that we want to be friends or, to channel Hilary White, "fwends" with our children instead of parenting them properly. 

So I have gloomily concluded that I should lead a small seminar on Traditional Social Manners on behalf of The Youth on the grounds that this will challenge and therefore help them. And indeed I think it will help them because, like it or not, they are now in Grown-Up Land, and grown-ups like other grown-ups who respond to the acronym RSVP and are charmed by the ones who send thank-you notes, particularly the kind that come by post, after parties. In this electronic age, social media messages are perfectly acceptable, but the little cards are more tangible, make a greater impression, and linger in the memory. 

"So-and-so," I think as peruse the back of the envelope, "was very well brought up." 

Another challenge I would like to offer, since I am out on a social limb anyway, is a script for graciously saying No to a gentleman's invitation to dance and what to say if you are the gentleman receiving the No. Bear with me while I think out loud here:

Gentleman: Would you like to dance?

Lady: No, thank you. That last waltz tired me right out.

Gentleman: In that case, may I bring you a cup of coffee? 

Lady: No, but I'd love a glass of our TLM watered-down squash. Thank you!

Gentleman: I will be right back!

Off he goes.

Gentleman 2: Would you like to dance?

Lady: No, thank you. [Gentleman 1] has just gone to get me a squash. 

Gentleman 2: Yes, it is quite hot in here, isn't it? I wonder if [Lady 2] would like to dance?

Lady: Ask her, by all means!

In short, if you don't want to dance with someone, give him a polite excuse. And if your invitation to dance is turned down on the grounds of tiredness/heat, ask the lady if you can get her something to drink. If the excuse is that she is in anxiety about some no-show, offer to look for him/her. But, to be on the safe side, don't ask her to dance for the very next tune. Wait until later. 

(This scenario, by the way, presumes that everyone is acquainted and standing in a respectable parish hall or ballroom, not Club Super-Sexy in the Cowgate.)

The virtue underlying the RSVP, the thank-you note, the gracious negation and acceptance of negation is thoughtfulness. This is a quality for which I myself was not famed as a 20-something. Poacher turned gamekeeper, eh? But later in life I noticed that the secret to popularity was neither a fashionable wardrobe nor compliant parents--nor even the ability to speak Italian--but being known as a thoughtful person.

A thoughtful person someone who strives always to put people at their ease, who says please and thank you, who says how much they appreciate this or that, who brings the culturally-correct offering to dinner parties, who gives up his or her seat on the bus to the person who clearly need it (for example, not any lady but the old lady or the lady carrying bags or leading children, and not any old man, but the old man who looks past caring).  

This reminds me that the answer to the horrible woman who snaps at you for holding the door for her is "I apologize for having offended you, ma'am." That should take the wind right out of her ill-bred sails while leaving your dignity unimpaired. Normally, your good manners should never cause anyone discomfort. I once knew a man who practically had a seizure every time I touched a door. This was very unpleasant. 

To paraphrase the late Father Bernard Lonergan, the lovely old rules governing social life in the West have  torn to pieces, and it is up to young men and women of good will to put them together again. It would be absolutely lovely if, alongside silence, Zoomers who flock to the TLM also learned the social skills that would set them apart from--or, even better, edify--their generation. These are neither affections or the entree to a clique but manifestations of the thoughtfulness that fosters peace and friendship between men and women and even--dare I hope--between Boomers and Zoomers. 

*Or, in Poland, since post-communist prosperity.