Etiquette: A Law of Mutual Kindness

Precious few of us are such spellbinders that we can hold an audience on the intrinsic thrillingness of our discourse, nor are we brilliant enough humorists to provoke with our wit the ready laugh that etiquette hands us. Yet which one of us would enjoy a listener who frankly yawned when he was bored, or felt called upon to tell us that he had heard our cherished best story a million times before? 

Dorothy Dix Answers Writer Who Says ‘Etiquette Makes Hypocrites of Us’

——————

Conventions of Society Save Us Heartaches and Help to Keep Us Happy

Not long ago I wrote an article for this column in which I spoke with enthusiasm of the school for manners that the University of New York is going to inaugurate. A man reader takes exception to my views. He writes: “I disapprove highly of all the etiquette, because etiquette robs us of sincerity. If you go into a room and find people there who are not of the slightest interest to you, why should you hypocritically be sympathetic to their troubles, and rejoice in their happiness, when in reality you do not care whether they live or die? Yet etiquette requires you to do that. Etiquette will stop you from telling a man that he is a liar, or a woman that she is old and ugly. Etiquette prescribes that you smile when you have not the slightest desire to do so. Etiquette forces you to listen to the boresome conversation and long-winded stories of others. Etiquette forces you to do that which you do not desire to do, and to leave undone that which you wish to do.”

“What is the good of etiquette?’’ Etiquette is simply one of the rules of the game. When human beings rose above beasts who were continually at each other’s throats and decided to live together in peace and harmony, they found out that they would have to agree upon certain things that they could do, and couldn’t do, and that everyone must respect these unwritten laws because it made things pleasanter for everybody. Out of this grew what we call the conventions of society and etiquette, and, foolish and arbitrary as they sometimes seem, they invariably rest upon some human need and represent the accumulated experience of centuries of man’s dealing with man, and the best way to do it. Moreover, etiquette is nothing more nor less than the golden rule dressed up in party clothes and with a flower in its buttonhole. It teaches us to treat others as we would like to have others treat us. It makes us respect other people’s privacy and opinions, and be careful of their susceptibilities as we would like to have them respect ours. 

You can have no better illustration of the happy working out of etiquette than in the very instances cited by my correspondent. He asks scornfully why he should appear to sympathize with the joys and sorrows of people for whom he cares nothing. Doubtless this man never takes the trouble to write a note of condolence when there is a death in the family of some acquaintance, or telephone a congratulation good luck comes the way of a neighbor. Yet how would he feel if, when he entered a room, nobody greeted him with a pleasant and cordial word because no one happened to be vitally interested in him? Would he not be cut to the heart if his wife or child lay dead and no human being spoke a word of sympathy to him? Would not the happiness of his success be dimmed if not a man put out a hand and said: “Good for you, old chap, I’m awfully glad for you”? 

My correspondent says that etiquette forces us to listen with an affectation of interest to tedious conversationalists, and laugh over jokes that we cut our teeth on in our cradles. Let us thank Heaven that it does. Precious few of us are such spellbinders that we can hold an audience on the intrinsic thrillingness of our discourse, nor are we brilliant enough humorists to provoke with our wit the ready laugh that etiquette hands us. Yet which one of us would enjoy a listener who frankly yawned when he was bored, or felt called upon to tell us that he had heard our cherished best story a million times before? 

And if etiquette prevents us from enjoying the sacred joy of telling a man that he lies, or a woman that the least observing eye can see that she is ten years older than she pretends to be, and that anybody can tell that her complexion and her hair are only hers by right of purchase, is it not as broad as it is long, for it keeps other people from saying the same brutal things to us? As for etiquette being the mother of insincerity, that is nonsense. There is more to praise than to blame, more to admire than to criticize, more to like than to hate in the world. Why is it not as honest to speak of a person’s good qualities as his bad qualities? Why isn’t it as sincere to turn a cheery, bright face upon the people at your breakfast table and in your office as it is to grouch in gloom? And as for sympathizing with the joys and sorrows of those about us, even if we don’t know them very well and are not particularly attached to them, surely that is just the throb of a common humanity that makes us all kin. 

At its worst, etiquette is merely assuming the virtue of consideration of others by those who have it not, and that is better than the brutality of the savage, who goes his own way unmindful of the rights of others. When we all get to be angels, altruistically intent on promoting each other’s happiness, we can do without etiquette; but until that time arrives, blessed be good manners that make it bad form for us to step on each other’s toes and do and say things we are prompted to do.— By Dorothy Dix in the San Francisco Call, 1916

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