A Mannered Response

I encourage all (what, four?) of my readers to take time out of their day and read this delightful, if fairly silly, essay on manners by Theodore Dalrymple in the American Conservative. Dalrymple’s classic traditionalist claim is that modern culture has been degraded by a lack of disciplined, formal manners. The new twist is that he sees the degradation as an inevitable outgrowth of the liberal notion that man has “a natural goodness of heart” which will "spontaneously" produce manners. But the egalitarian left has twisted this, he says, by viewing whatever natural behavior occurs as a rebellion against the constraints of formal etiquette. As Dalrymple writes, “The rejection of etiquette and the formality it entails is therefore a sign that one is on the side of the angels, that is to say, of the egalitarians.”

Dalrymple, who fully admits to being a trained product of his mother’s firm belief in the necessity of rigorous, disciplined manners, goes on to point out several instances of oh-so-perturbing unmannered behavior he’s encountered from British youth, including one incredibly amusing anecdote about a young woman who puts her feet up on train seats. He asks her to desist, but encounters resistance, provoking the article’s best line:

It is a wearisome business trying to prove from first epistemological principles in every instance of minor public misconduct that it is morally wrong, especially when every failure to make the case is a justification for further such misconduct.

I wonder if the line isn't indicative of a more serious problem: Only a writer for the American Conservative would fret over how putting one's feet up on a train squares with his "first epistemological principles," even if somewhat in jest. Later, he sums up his case like so:

Not only do the ceremoniousness and formality help to smooth the rough edges of social interaction, but they allow some grading of such interaction, according to degrees of desired or achieved intimacy. Formality, moreover, is the precondition of subtlety and even of irony; without formality, life becomes coarse-grained and crude. The distinction between friendliness and friendship becomes blurred so that it is no longer even perceived.

Dalrymple is right, of course, to an extent. Few individuals are endowed with enough natural social grace to float through each day’s daily interactions with real ease. For the rest of us, a bit of formality will help remove some of the confusion and coarseness of life. And I’m certainly no believer in man’s natural goodness: self-discipline is the key to both civil society and personal success. The tough, unpleasant work of life would never occur without it, and society ought to be built to encourage such self-motivation.

But Dalrymple’s essay is also indicative of his personal inability to get along in a world with looser, or at least different, conventions than those for which he had trained. As he explains at the beginning in his bit about walking on the outside of a lady to shield her from car splashes, most of those formal conventions have no meaning. It is merely his inability to shirk them that produces discomfort.

This is telling: It seems to me that many of the traditionalist conservatives who pine for a more dignified, formally pleasing society are doing so mainly as a way to deal with their own formal upbringings. Certainly, the discipline to be ceremonious and polite even when it’s not really necessary can serve as a sort of rehearsal for the rest of life--a practice, if you will--for those times when discipline or self-control truly does matter: pivotal moments in school, work, and personal relationships. The majority of the time, though, putting one's feet on the seat really isn't all that big a deal.

The problem arises when, primarily for nostalgia or personal comfort, the rigors and routines of practice are stressed more than the end product. It shouldn’t matter if a musician doesn’t rehearse much if his performances are great. Nor should anyone worry about an athlete who comes late to practice if his gameplay is phenomenal. This is the same attitude that promotes homework and habits over high test scores and articulate papers--it prizes rigidity over results. Trial runs can be useful, but merely as a means to an end. Dalrymple, however, who grew up in an environment that stressed the benefits of such discipline and practice, is focused on the rehearsal, not the product. Loosening the strictures of societal interaction can be a good thing: perhaps Dalrymple should put his feet up and see for himself.