Etiquette and Deference to Others

At the same time as it's become fashionable never to look up to anyone, it has become nastily acceptable to look down. Respect and consideration are traditionally due to other people for all sorts of reasons, some big, some small. Lynn Truss compiled a list of those due.

It is very bad news for our society that overt disrespect is such a big game these days, because it just stirs people up without enlightening them. Mass entertainment that demeans public figures satisfies popular base instincts but leaves nobody better off. Besides, at the same time as it's become fashionable never to look up to anyone, it has become nastily acceptable to look down.

The “end of deference” is about a lot more than the flattening of class distinctions, in any case. This where the baby has been so thoughtlessly poured down the drain with the bath water. Respect and consideration are traditionally due to other people for all sorts of reasons, some big, some small.

Here are twenty (mostly lapsed) reasons to show special politeness to other people that have nothing to do with class.

1. they are older

2. they know more than you do

3. they know less than you do

4. they got here first

5. they have educational qualifications in the subject under discussion

6. you are in their house

7. they once helped you financially

8. they have been good to you all your life

9. they are less fortunate than you

10. they have achieved status in the wider world

11. you are serving them in a shop

12. they are in the right

13. they are your boss

14. they work for you

15. they are a policeman / teacher / doctor / judge

16. they are in need

17. they are doing you a favour

18. they paid for the tickets

19. you phoned them, not the other way round

20. they have a menial job

The utter bloody rudeness of the world today is about a lot of things, as we have already seen, but I think what most dismays many honourable people is the way “deference” has become a dirty little demeaning word, while its close relative "respect" has become a cool street-crime buzz-word mainly associated with paying feudal obeisance to those in possession of firearms. Both words have lost their true meaning. Deference is not about lying down and letting someone put their foot on your head. It is not about kow-tow. It is about assessing what is due to other people on all sorts of grounds. 

The dictionary definition of “in deference to” is: “out of respect for; in consideration of”. To show deference does not mean “I hereby declare I am inferior to you.” But that's what people seem to think it means, so they refuse to defer to anybody, on any grounds at all. The same misunderstanding prevents people from apologising. They think that if they say “Sorry”, it means “I am 100 per cent to blame. And now that I've admitted it, you can sue the pants off me.”

From Lynn Truss’ “Talk to the Hand: # ?*!, The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door”

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia