All I have to say is Rudeness is bad. Manners are good. The way people behave towards each other, even in minor things, is a measure of their value as human beings. Manners are about showing consideration, and using empathy. But they are also about being connected to the common good; they are about being better. Every time a person says to himself, “What would the world be like if everyone did this?” or “I’m not going to calculate the cost to me on this occasion.
The problem is that it has become politically awkward to draw attention to absolutes of bad and good. In place of manners, we now have doctrines of political correctness, against which one offends at one’s peril: by means of a considerable circular logic such offences mark you as reactionary and therefore a bad person. Therefore if you say people are bad, you are bad. And to state that a well-mannered person is superior to an ill-mannered one — well, it is to invite total ignominy.
There is a tiny flame of hope, and here it is. Let’s try pretending to be polite, and see what happens. Old Aristotle might have been right all those centuries ago: that if you practise being good in small things (I’m paraphrasing again), it can lead to the improvement of general morality. |