The Extremely Difficult Realisation

Etiquette versus courtesy

Etiquette has, admittedly, been used as a weapon. The excellent Mrs Humphry wrote Manners for Men and Manners for Women at a time of class mobility when, through their own intelligence and hard work, talented young men (and their wives) could find themselves a rung up the British caste system ladder. However, not everybody likes newcomers, and cruel people used the sometimes subtle social codes to exclude them. Mrs Humphry's project was to equip her readers with textbooks that would help them fit in. 

There's a famous story about a man being served a slice of cherry pie in which the cherries all had stones. The other men at his table watched intently to see what he would do. Would he complain about the cherry stones? (Bad.) Would he meekly swallow the stones? (Worse.) What the man did was fish each cherry stone out of his mouth with finger and thumb and dot them around the rim of his plate. The watching men relaxed, for this was exactly what they were all brought up to do. (Mrs H. advises something similar with seeded grapes.) 

Incidentally, I was reliably informed that this kind of test was still being conducted in German professional/academic circles in the late 20th century. Leading job candidates would be taken out to lunch and the hiring committee would note their table manners. These were a decisive factor. The German who told me this had very good table manners. 

But true good manners, that is, courtesy, cannot by definition be a weapon, although I suppose they can act as a bucket of cold water over someone who is behaving unreasonably. Twenty-three or so years ago, I answered a client who was giving me absolute hell over the counter at my government job with "I'm sorry, ma'am. I have just learned that my mother has had a stroke." This was, in fact, perfectly true, and although I was out of my mind with worry, I'll never forget the look of shock on the woman's face. She gruffly asked if my mother would be alright, and when I said I didn't know, she quickly concluded our business and fled. 

The extremely difficult realization

The English philosopher Irish Murdoch defined love as "the perception of individuals" and "the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real." I would say that courtesy, or authentic good manners, is the indication that one understands that someone--indeed, everyone--other than oneself is real.   

Honouring the reality of other people is not only the basis of good manners, it is the basis of Western Civilization and Part 2 of Christ's answer to the question "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" To love your neighbour as yourself means to recognize that your neighbour is as real as you are. And who is your neighbour? If I understand the story of the Good Samaritan correctly, your neighbour is usually the person right in front of you. 

The first person right in front of you is usually your mother, and she is usually the first to teach you to say "Please" and "Thank you." This is either because she naturally resents being bossed and taken for granted by a two-year-old or because she instinctually knows that her child will not do well in life, which for humans is communal, without these basic courtesies. If she is a Christian or philosophically inclined, she may also want her child to be kind to others for their sake as well as his. 

The thoughtful mother wants her girls and boys to grow up to be ladies and gentlemen, no matter what social or economic stratum they are growing up in. And after you have hit my age and have the privilege of serving hot beverages to others on a regular basis, it is easy to guess who has been well brought up. The lady or gentleman looks me in the eye, smiles, perhaps adds a greeting, says "Please," says "Thank you," and moves away from the table so that other real people can get their tea or coffee. Sometimes they collect their own and other people's teacups and bring them to the kitchen. They volunteer to help with the dishes or to hoover the floor. They never, as did one benighted youth, stalk into the hall before Mass has ended, seat themselves at the far end, and shout "I guess the tea's not ready then?"

Sometimes I think it's amusing, given my CV, that my chief ecclesiastical role is Tea Lady. That was not one of those times.

In this case, I was perceived not as real, but only as Older Lady Who Makes Me Tea. But I must admit that is unfortunately how I originally thought of my predecessors over the pot when I first swanned into the parish hall as a slender thirty-something. I wasn't a barbarian: I said please and thank you and didn't hog the biscuits or block the queue. Nevertheless, I don't remember offering to help wash the cups--which my merry new companions presented as an activity fit only for elderly ladies. Off we went for Gin & Tonic and long lunch parties instead. I did not even, at that time, know all the tea ladies' Christian names. 

Thus, you see, my own coming to the extremely difficult realization that everyone other than myself is real is a work in progress.

There are countless examples of acting as though other people aren't real, or not really real. Employees exasperate managers, managers mistreat employees, employees bilk customers, customers humiliate employees, seated men ignore pregnant women standing on the bus, young women upbraid men for holding open the door for them, callous men tell their partners in sin to "get rid of it." 

Ghosting

A strange and relatively new form of pretending other people aren't real is "ghosting." Ghosting occurs when one withdraws from a friendly or sexual relationship simply by disappearing. It used to be associated solely with seducers--the kind of men who talk women into sex through promises of a rosy future together and then disappear, seemingly off of the face of the earth. Now, however, all kinds of ties are cut by one person without offering any explanation to the other.  

I wonder, however, if this is not understanding that the other person is real or simply not knowing how to behave towards him or her when the relationship is coming to an end. A private tutor recently told me that his students--even students he has had for years--ghost him all the time. It happens so often, he thinks it is part of British culture. Having to choose between an embarrassing conversation (or difficult email or terse text) and disappearing, the timid Brit naturally disappears. 

But I don't think that this is part of British culture. I think that this is part of the decline and fall of Western Civilization--which I am hoping to reverse in my small way. A large part of that decline has been caused by horrible older people encouraging flattered younger people to flush accepted codes of good manners down the toilet. It's one thing to stop wearing gloves and hats, but it's quite another to end a years' long professional relationship without a proper good-bye--or, come to think of it, to scrunch up a party invitation and throw it on the floor for the inviter to find.  

Nature abhors a vacuum, and in place of our gentle traditional courtesy, we have been given the dictats of Woke. The two could not be more different. Good manners as the expression of the understanding that everyone else is real unites society. Ganging up to bully people about their privilege/race/skin colour/heteronormativity divides it.  

What we need is to go over the basic good manners expected in different social occasions--the authentic good manners, the ones that make people-not-oneself feel at ease--and so I'll write about that in my next post.