Gentility Recalled: Mere Manners and the Making of Social Order

THE debate continues over whether we in the United States should by law have a common, official language. Yet even if the debate were resolved and English made America's official language, that would not solve our national communication problem. For while people with a common language can converse and otherwise express themselves in words, their ability to communicate in the best and fullest sense is grossly diminished by an absence of shared codes of conduct --manners and behavior. Professor George Martin of Wofford College, one of the essayists in this book, writes that good manners are associated with good character and are "the grammar of social life, conventions of behavior which define the level of civilization a people or a person has obtained." The level at which we now find ourselves is one of moral and cultural anarchy. We are immersed in lives of money, discord, and all things physical. We have rejected what Professor Caroline Moore calls "the mature moral world of human relationships."

The 11 essays in this volume, edited by NR's Digby Anderson, have as their common theme a consideration of the qualities, customs, and traditions that make civilized societies possible. The word "Gentility" in the title could more correctly have been "Good Manners" because, judging from the essays, it seems intended to mean conduct or rules of behavior as a reflection of moral character. "Recalled," sad to say, does not mean restored or revived; it means only remembered. That we need to be taught, which we do, how critical good manners are to a healthy social order is a sad reminder of what we have lost. How we can rescue ourselves from this morass of barbaric infantilism is a question of the greatest importance.

In his Introduction and Summary, Mr. Anderson discusses manners as a prerequisite for social order, as "the means by which people of different backgrounds" can "meet within a code of behavior based on shared values." Clearly, the critical element of "shared values" seems to have been lost in our present state of moral and cultural narcissism. Mr. Anderson points out that our elders, those who have matured and become wiser through experience, should set examples for and teach the young those manners which promote "a framework of orderly behavior," without which there can be no meaningful and constructive discourse between people of different ages.

On this subject, I found Anthony O'Hear's essay to be of great interest. He notes that the middle-aged and older people whose responsibility it is to uphold standards are in many cases precisely the same individuals who have undermined good manners in the first place. If older people either never learned or forgot their manners, who will teach the young?

Essentially he asks why, confronted with a 61-year-old in a jogging suit and Reeboks, with his grey hair dyed brown, his face instant-tanned, and listening on his Walkman to the Rolling Stones, a 13-year-old shouldn't address his elder as "Bob"? And, with "Bob" for a mentor and example, why shouldn't Junior put rings through his nose or any other part of his body, cover himself with tattoos, and dye his hair green? According to Professor O'Hear, the failure of adults to act their age is bad manners; it is "a refusal to admit their own mortality"; it is undignified and shows a lack of humility. More important, not to require proper conduct from one's dependent children is a grave disservice to those children. Good manners must be taught before they can be learned. At the same time, O'Hear recognizes that if adults act like children, children cannot reasonably be expected to view and respect them as adults.

His essay brought to mind a friend of mine who teaches in a public school. She and her fellow teachers are reluctant to discipline their students because of the way parents and, of course, school administrators may react. Parents are afraid to lose a playmate, someone with whom they want to be an equal. So why would parents support a distinction between teacher and pupil when they themselves make no distinction between parent and child? Teachers are prevented from teaching proper conduct; most parents choose not to.

In his essay entitled "Running a Respectable Household -- Habits of the Home and Social Order," Michael D. Aeschliman seriously considers an otherwise all too casually used term: the "family." It is refreshing not to be family-valued to death in the usual superficial terms. He reminds us that, traditionally, the family has always been the crucial source for learning morality, honesty, courtesy, deference, and proper behavior. That precious civilizing institution has come under vigorous and vicious attack, and has been further undermined from within by dysfunctional, nonfunctional, one-parent, and nonexistent "families." It has also been besieged by the glamorous irresistibility of the market place. According to Professor Aeschliman, unique family intimacies, bonds, loyalties, and beliefs have been overwhelmed by the mindless pleasures provided by inescapable modern technology, much of it labeled "educational." In many families, parents have been replaced by electronics. All of these problems have been further aggravated by the universities and media, which constantly portray the traditional family as "a sexist prison" ruled by outdated notions of "guilt and indebtedness, frequently in alliance with oppressive religious superstitions."