DO MANNERS MATTER?
by Erik Jay
A few years ago, I had a mailing list of about 1500 brave souls who agreed to received regular commentaries from me by e-mail. The essays went out under the masthead, “What Next? The Journal of Contentious Persiflage.”
Scary, huh?
Anyway, I only sent it to people who had asked for it, but occasionally readers would suggest friends or relatives who might also enjoy it (or, sometimes, enjoy not enjoying it).
I would send a sample issue out to such folks, with a statement prominently placed at the beginning of the e-mail explaining how they came to be getting such an eccentric tract. Here is a slightly censored version of an e-mail I received one day after doing some of those “referral” mailings:
"TAKE ME OFF YOUR F***ING MAILING LIST NOW, NEXT SPAM S**T I GET FROM YOU IS BEING REPORTED TO MEDIAONE.NET. STOP IT NOW. F*** YOU AND THE HORSE UP YOUR A**."
Try as I might, I never could imagine what I might receive in my e-mail that could make me as mad as an issue of "WHAT NEXT?" apparently made the person who sent that message. A partial-birth abortion credit card? A Hustler cartoon starring my mother and some Biblical characters? A ransom note?
I really can't think of anything. Consider this, too: Not only did I begin each mailing to a new person with an explanation, I put a clear "unsubscribe" instruction at the end, as well. That all-caps, digitized vitriol up there was that apoplectic person's first request for me to cease and desist. Unbelievable!
The proliferation of e-mail, cell phones, handheld internet-capable computers and all the rest of it has certainly changed the way in which people converse. Perhaps "converse" isn't even the right word anymore, but be that as it may, it is not immediately apparent that the grinding and relentless march of technology should trump such time-tested interpersonal mediators as (drumroll, please) manners.
Now, you can tell me you disagree. You can tell me to stop e-mailing you. But what kind of person would respond with the sort of obscene rant that is the subject of this commentary? I mean, don't you think people's fuses have gotten awfully short? Why didn't this person just say, “No thanks, don’t want it”? Do some people, perhaps, actually like getting worked up into a lather, a froth, a frenzy?
Do manners matter? Very much so, as it turns out. Manners are another way of oiling the machinery of social relations, a way that makes contention, competition, and cooperation all possible within a range of predictable behavior. Manners smooth out, and sometimes simply obscure, the rough edges and the unintended consequences of engaging in certain relationships, like anonymous ones over the internet. Manners help keep things in balance.
These days, so many people are ready to litigate or call the cops when their feelings get hurt that thin skin must be a sign of continuing human evolution. When I was a kid, if someone called me a stupid squarehead (an alliterative alternative to “dumb Swede”) or even some non-racialist name, I was reminded by parents and older siblings of two things: (1) consider the source, and (2) sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me. Anyone remember that one? Does anyone even say that anymore?
Why should I care if some anencephalic noodlehead calls me a name? Who cares what an idiot says anyway?! And, in the case at hand, if I myself am cast as the bothersome idiot, this angry letter-writer could have taken the cool, calm, collected approach of a mannerly person, one who didn't care for what I said but had enough class to brush me off, not blow me up.
A real-life saga. A sad one, too. If I bother you, turn me off. But if you get so mad, so fast, I wonder what it must be like to be your son, your daughter, your co-worker, your neighbor. It's sad to see civil discourse flogged to death by angry, bitter people unable to insulate their reactions from their emotions; but it's downright depressing to find so many people willing to turn off the talk show by shooting the radio point blank with a shotgun.
Hey, mind your manners and use the "off" switch, okay? It's not as noisy, and a lot less messy.
Seriously though, a lot of people died a few centuries ago to enshrine our right to free speech in the Bill of Rights. Don't go starting a battle with me just for exercising it. And if you really just have to be mad about something, there are lot better targets than a silly piece of e-mail you don't want, an article in a magazine that you don't like — or, heaven forfend, some freakin' Internet screed.
