The importance of manners

A little guide kindly offered by my grandparents.

The importance of manners and etiquette came up in a recent conversation with my friend Emily. We realized that they certainly matter to both our families and as a direct consequence they now matter to us, whether our past five-year-old selves like it or not. But recently I've noticed that a lot of other people have also been discussing manners, in this Serious Eats column or on the America's Test Kitchen podcast I listen to for example. It makes me wonder whether this is part of a general slow-movement trend, where doing things properly and thoroughly and consciously is given precedent over rushing through things in a haphazard and informal way.

But back to my conversation with Emily, I told her that I thought I was taught manners to make me a more pleasant person. My mother, in the three-page list of rules she once drafted for me after a particularly vicious fit, explained that saying bonjour monsieur or merci madame was just the nice thing to do and made my company enjoyable. In fact, no one wants to be in the company of a stupid brat like the one I had been a few hours before.

This emphasis on manners for the sake of social cohesion and positive interactions was also brought up in the ATK podcast I mentioned earlier. First, the guest speaker differentiated manners from etiquette. The first relates to underlying principles guiding social interactions, whereas the latter refers to cosmetic details like when to use a fish knife or even how long to mourn somebody's passing. But then the speakers got into precisely why it is that manners are defended, and the resounding explanation was that they are a way of keeping our primal urges at bay. Without proper education there would be little stopping us from sticking our fork into the centerpiece leg of lamb, plowing into a crowded subway car, constantly interrupting conversation or doing whatever else we might impulsively want to do, all of which would make for rather barbaric experiences.

Maybe that's your preference, and I'm sure you won't be alone. But for the sake of social cohesion it is undeniable that we should all behave with the least bit of civility. If only for that, manners are worth remembering, discussing and adapting to current circumstances. Looking at you, chatty lady on your cellphone...