Courtesy, Part 1

I don't know if I can parse out meaningful distinctions between etiquette, courtesy, and manners, so I’ll have to lump them. However, I don't want to bother with meaningless rules like those for how to set the table.

To be clear: the table setting in the West is arbitrary and meaningless. I understand that in Japan certain placements of the chopsticks are associated with funerals and funerals only, and that it is therefore bad luck to use them that way at any other times. Setting the sticks properly is a kind of courtesy in which you avoid inadvertent injury to your companions. It therefore isn't as arbitrary as which side of the plate your desert fork sits by, which has to do with a formal dining scheme that almost nobody knows much less uses. Quick quiz: are you supposed to change the fork-holding hand when cutting food? Answer: I don't remember either, and I couldn't care less.

The implementations of courtesy vary: shake hands or bow? Some of this probably comes from what the culture value. Respect? Bow. Acceptance as equals? Shake.

There seem to be courtesies of respect, of benevolence, and of separation. These are due to peers, superiors subordinates, strangers, and the commons.

Maybe I should clarify. We don't have a lot of official social ranks here (children and parents form a universal exception), but unofficially there are plenty. Our ideal is that we are peers outside the context of our organizational or economic roles. But think about how you and your boss act when you come in for a performance review. You stand, he directs you to sit down and make yourself comfortable. You do, but don't slouch as you might at your own desk. Little courtesies.

We have customs of courtesy to the commons as well: you probably remember "Don't leave a mess for somebody else." You don’t know that "someone else," they're simply other people who share the same common good. It is an application of the silver rule that proscribes doing to others what you don’t want done to you. You don't want people slowing your bus trip by walking in front of the bus when they get off, so you don't do it yourself. I'm not sure every culture has a courtesy of the commons. I know plenty of people who don’t, though some are fairly courteous to people they meet.

I gather that in crowded New York this is a kind of courtesy of separation, where rather than demand that everyone entering your personal space spend the energy to acknowledge you, you pretend they are not there. (Or maybe I'm wrong and they're just very rude.) I never was any good at pretending the Talibe weren’t there, so I wound up essentially saying "no" to them—which is terribly rude.

Rudeness, or the perception of rudeness, seems inevitable when different customs of courtesy intersect.

But. . .

It isn't obvious that the courtesies of different cultures always have parallels with each other. I don't know of anything in Arab culture that resembles the Western chivalry to women. The American courtesies of welcome are very important, but those of hospitality hardly compare with the Arab's.

Of course sometimes courtesies are relevant only within the tribe, and often must not be extended to enemy tribes; something you can see in history books and pre-election family gatherings.

You might expect that in a "diverse" society people would learn each other's courtesies, but it seems instead that we lose them, or perhaps only display them within our tribes.

If they matter, and I believe they do, then what?

Courtesies must be taught--the fact that there are no universal procedures proves that. To get along we need to train all our children in our own courtesies, and in the confidence of them (ignore Connelly and Heesacker, though that is kinder than they deserve) and learn what those of our other cultures are. What are the specifically North Mexican courtesies (and are the peasant ones different from the upper class?), or Inner City Black? Anybody know? That Mexican link says courtesy is important but doesn’t say how it works.

When I was riding the bus to work last year, a rowdy bunch of high-school kids boarded. The girls were making rude gestures over the heads of the unsuspecting passengers before them, and one of the boys was emboldened to start to almost dump his soda on them. I turned and told the girls to settle down and be polite. They snarled that they had the right to do what they pleased, which I of course denied. Nobody else made a move or a sound to support me or chastise the girls. I'm not sure why nobody else spoke up; perhaps because they couldn't be bothered, or they figured I'd already done it, or they thought I was out of line, or because they were afraid to because the kids were black.