Are Manners Important?

In the wrestling match of behavioral decision, manners represent Freddie the Face, the Trident of Gentility correctly positioned in his right hand, competing from the tradition of respect, apologies and group dynamics. He is polite, hard to dislike, but ultimately a bit repressed.

In the opposing corner, we have Bruiser Brody, brandishing the Cosh of Impulsiveness and representing the scrapping tradition of uncloaked self interest. Wild, briefly captivating but ultimately prone to self destruction.

The contest is usually settled by submission for, as Jeremy Paxman remarked in The English, our code of manners is largely designed to protect ourselves from ourselves.

Manners disarm aggression and ease communication between two potentially hostile parties. Two English neighbours, if forced into unexpected social contact, will happily gas about the weather. They are less likely to boast about the new garden extension, or bitch for the return of the borrowed stepladders.

It is not proper.

Nor is it appropriate for manners to become too important.

Without a code of propriety, life becomes Animal House and John Belushi pisses on your leg. However, too much concern for communal respectability and we become players in our own comedy of manners, allowing foppish characters such as Frasier Crane, to flick imaginary lint from our lapels.

Both Belushi and Frasier are attempting to dominate with extremes of piss and posh. They are displays of aggression and create status anxiety. We have come full circle with manners and mayhem: they may be no longer in the same ring, but they are both being used to fight.

Manners are important but not at the expense of morality.

“Many who would not take the last cookie would take the last lifeboat.”
Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic’s Notebook