Etiquette, Cancel Culture and Rudeness

This was only written in 1991, but do some of Margaret Visser’s final words from the post script in her marvelous book, “The Rituals of Dinner,” still ring true? With the current climate of “cancel culture” and the rudeness often seen in the gleeful joy of “taking someone down,” due to what is most often differences in opinion, Etiquipedia is, sadly, not so sure…
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 “One of the guiding principles of modernity is mobility — the opportunity to move up the social scale, as well as to flee from any social “scene” we find uncomfortable and unaccepting... We have greatly reduced the likelihood that anyone need play a predetermined role on a ‘stage’ dominated from the start by people born to power... None of us need tolerate surveillance and adverse judgements from people who have set themselves up as arbiters of elegance. We can move away if they disapprove or try to put us down.”

How Rude Are We? 

Are we ruder than other societies are? Are we ruder than we were in the past? There is increasing concern for manners in the modern West: newspaper articles protest about the lack of them; the number of books telling people how to behave and their enormous sales attest to an anxiety on this score which rivals that experienced in the nineteenth century; and a new and expanding business is the etiquette industry, where people formally, and for a fee, teach protocol and the arts of the dinner table to ambitious business men and women. It is realized, in the commercial world at least, that bad manners might actually spoil a corporate image, hamper a deal, impede mobility; good manners might make a competitive difference. Since bad manners can be corrected, the demeanour of the staff is one of the things a careful company can try to polish and control.

The idea is to pinpoint trouble spots, moments where even we, with our insistence on informality, set up specific expectations which could trip up the unwary or the simply ignorant. We must know, for example, that at a formal meal served by waiters, serving dishes are likely to appear, silently and without warning, from the left; the serving spoon and fork must be used in a correct and unobtrusive manner to remove a portion of the food presented (do not take too long choosing your portion!); when eating is done, plates will be removed from the right. Most people are right-handed, and this rule is for their convenience. 

If plates should be presented already loaded with food, however, they are set down from the diner's right, and taken away from the left. The need to be prepared for such moments is heightened because formal meals are unusual, and important for reasons that go beyond eating for nourishment; and because etiquette involving the presence of servants is not everyday experience. We do eat out at restaurants, however, where practice in old-fashioned formality is available to us, as is the surveillance of our manners by people outside our families.

One of the guiding principles of modernity is mobility— the opportunity to move up the social scale, as well as to flee from any social “scene” we find uncomfortable and unaccepting. Physical movement facilitates social mobility; it is possible to live in an inexpensive neighbourhood, for instance, and still drive to a job in a smart area of the city. We have greatly reduced the likelihood that anyone need play a predetermined role on a “stage” dominated from the start by people born to power. Modern cities set out to offer many alternatives-a choice of “stages” upon one of which a person may hope someday to shine, and plenty of escape routes from unwanted constraints. None of us need tolerate surveillance and adverse judgements from people who have set themselves up as arbiters of elegance. We can move away if they disapprove or try to put us down. — Margaret Visser, 1991

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