On manners and being well-mannered

[ambitious_wench]

According to The Writer's Almanac, not only is it the 13th anniversary of the crumbling of the Berlin Wall, but it is the birthday of Emily Post, the doyenne of etiquette in America.

Post wrote a syndicated newspaper column that
was carried by over two hundred newspapers. She said,
"Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of
others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners,
no matter what fork you use."

My grandmother used to say the same thing, that good manners was about being sensitive to the feelings of others. Oddly, one of the most conservative authors* I know once said that courtesy is the grease that keep the gears of this society running, and that anyone stupid or young enough to think that they don't need to be courteous accomplishes nothing but throws gravel in an already strained machine. He also said that you can tell when a society is in serious decline by the state of it's public bathrooms. Time was when folks took the time to leave a bathroom as clean as they found it.

Now a-days, I am often shocked at the bathroom habits of my fellow Americans; I kid you not when I say that I have found feces smeared on the inside doorknob of public bathrooms.

I try very hard to be courteous. I try to keep snide comments behind my teeth. I truly do. If I fail, if I offend, tap me quietly, and show me the courtesy of telling me so privately.

*Who was the author, you ask? Robert A. Heinlein.

Comments

[djfiggy.livejournal.com]

I'm the downfall of society, then =:D

[ambitious-wench.livejournal.com]

Was that you that smeared the shit all over the doorknob, Dyl???????

I am so ashamed of you!
Edie

[djfiggy.livejournal.com]

No, but I have urinated on the exterior walls of my high school

[wordswordswords.livejournal.com]

But with Heinlein, the thing is, he used to write characters who were appallingly rude - nearly abusive - but who got away with it because they masked it with surface good manners, without any of the real consideration for other's feelings that marks real politeness.

IMO, anyway. I like Miss Manners.

[ambitious-wench.livejournal.com]

I agree. I can think of one in particular--Jubal Harshaw of "Stranger in a Strange Land". On second thought, he seemed not to even bother with a veneer of good manners.

Then of course there was Michael Valentine Smith, who truly did care about the feelings of others, almost to the point of being rude.

AW