When Did Polite Become a Four Letter Word?

The theatre lights dimmed, the movie started. The three young women sitting next to me began giggling and laughing, heads together in loud whispers. The couple behind decided this was a perfect time to have an argument. A young man in the row ahead pulled out his phone to send a text message. My partner turned to the Bickersons behind us, didn’t say anything, but levelled a strong look. You’d think he’d thrown boiling oil on them. Suddenly we felt that we were in the wrong! When exactly did the tables turn?

Manners and etiquette have always been interpreted within the context of their times. Granted, at certain times in history, rules of etiquette have certainly taken on extreme tones. The Victorian era is a case in point. But a modicum of politeness has always been observed and expected by most people. Modern rules of etiquette and social conduct are often attributed to two women – Emily Post and Judith Marten, otherwise known as Miss Manners.

Both Post, who wrote extensively on etiquette in the 1920s and Martens who started writing a “good manners” column in 1978, both firmly believed that a person had a responsibility to respect both oneself and those around them. Their advice became part of the social fabric for several generations. And while their doctrines have often been satirized, there has always been an underlying truth in their words. “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,” wrote Emily Post. For the most part, sage advice like this was passed from parent to child, not always with words, but more often through action.

But a decade or so ago something changed. In general, people have become a lot less concerned with being polite. I’m constantly amazed at how people treat each other. In stores, customers seem much less respectful of an employee’s position – and on the flip side it galls me to witness the rudeness some store employee’s heap on customers. People on public transit have no qualms about sharing personal conversations they’re having on their cell phones with everyone else on the bus. And some patrons of theatres are more apt to treat the space like their living rooms and disregard the fact that many of their fellow theatre goers are there to enjoy the film or the show. It was recently reported that a woman in England was terribly injured from having bleach thrown in her face when she asked several people to “keep quiet” at a screening of the latest Harry Potter movie. When did this become acceptable behaviour?

I know that many would say that the advice Miss Manners and Emily Post provide is outdated and without relevance for life in 2009. But in fact the foundation on which they both built their opinions was the ideal of respect. And respect for each other really shouldn’t be considered outdated. As Miss Manners once wrote ” When a society abandons its ideals just because some people can’t live up to them, behaviour gets very ugly indeed.”  Words to live by.