THE ONLY CAUSES WORTH FIGHTING FOR (via Mike Daley)

"Live" with TAE: Judith Martin: America's favorite authority on manners and personal conduct says our national vision of a more egalitarian society is influencing etiquette and behavior across the globe. (John Meroney and Patricia Beauchamp, June 2003, American Enterprise)

TAE: Europeans have traditionally turned up their noses at American manners and culture. Is this still true?

MARTIN: Well, there's this sense among some Europeans that America has a crude culture and that we have no standard of manners. Many Europeans believe that our etiquette is a rough imitation of their standard. The English often think of Americans as failed Englishmen in manners and language. While American etiquette indeed has European roots, it also has a heritage from all over the world. As I state in my book, there are two major factors in American etiquette: the mixture of influences--because this is a nation of immigrants--and the revolutionary decision to condemn hierarchical distinctions.

TAE: American culture is often said to permeate the most remote corners of the globe. If that's true, how has our culture affected Europe?

MARTIN: European governments have become much more egalitarian than they once were. Citizens have a higher sense of how they ought to be treated. Also, American belief in the accomplishment of the individual has spread to Europe.

TAE: In America, even the richest of the rich, Bill Gates, Ted Turner, and Warren Buffett, for example, continue to work after they've made their fortunes.

MARTIN: Yes. Americans don't think very highly of those who don't do something useful even if they can afford a life of relaxation. The European ideal used to be to rise above having to work. It was the preferred lifestyle to go hunting, look after property, and pursue other leisure activities. That
ideal has totally changed, largely because of America.

TAE: So America is exporting her manners?

MARTIN: For better and for worse, yes. American openness and friendliness is very much an influence now in Europe. Europeans have even embraced those unfortunate exaggerations of it, such as instant intimacy--the refusal to distinguish between old friends and new acquaintances in nomenclature. As a result, the distinction between the informal second person--"tu" in many countries--and the more formal one is being lost in European languages.

TAE: The French have a reputation for being rude to Americans. To them, we're uncouth. What kind of reception awaits the average American in France in 2003?

MARTIN: When I was in Paris a few years ago I was astonished at how polite and warm everyone was. Europeans love our movies, and they wear sweatshirts that bear the names of our colleges. But despite all that, there's still this view that we don't know how to behave. It has nothing to do with actual day-to-day contact with us; such views are based on a myth.

TAE: What does the Declaration of Independence, especially its line, "All men are created equal," have to do with manners?

MARTIN: "All men are created equal" is a revolutionary idea that inspired many to immigrate to this country. It meant that people who'd been living in a certain stratum of life, such as masters and servants, weren't destined to be there permanently. Alexis de Tocqueville wrote about master-servant relationships in various countries, and he said the key factor in America is that both parties realize they might change places tomorrow.

TAE: So the equality championed by Thomas Jefferson and the other Founders has something to do with whether we're mannerly today?

MARTIN: Of course. When I started writing my newspaper column 25 years ago, people thought that etiquette was some kind of silly antiquated torture device used by people who had nothing better to do than humiliate others. The idea that in order to have a pleasant community we need some paralegal system that controls behavior has been many years in coming. The proposition that "all men are created equal" has helped us see that it's not acceptable to be a bigot or go around insulting large groups of people. However, when this country started, "all men are created equal" didn't mean all people. The Founders certainly didn't mean slaves and women. So we've been expanding that. [...]

TAE: Is there a link between manners and morality?

MARTIN: Sure. Philosophers always considered behavior indicative of the great philosophical and moral questions. The connection between morality and manners is a bit like the one between law and etiquette: The law deals with what affects life, limb, and property; etiquette is supposed to deal with the less lethal aspects of behavior that interfere with the community good. The moral foundation to manners is that we ought to recognize the existence and rights of other people.

TAE: Several years ago, companies started the concept of "casual Friday," the one day of the week when employees don't have to wear suits. What do you think of it?

MARTIN: It's a silly idea. People dress as if for leisure but they still try to look as if they are in charge. It requires more effort, not less--which undermines the objective.

TAE: In your book, Miss Manners' Guide for the Turn-of-the-Millennium, you write on the subject of dress, "Total relaxation does not seem to inspire creative flirtation or wit." Are people who dress formally really more charming than those who opt for a more casual look?

MARTIN: No--they have more choices. Do people make more of an effort to be charming when they're dressed up? Often, yes.

TAE: Is there something wrong with dressing casually?

MARTIN: Look, life is a drab affair if there's no sense of solemnity or festivity to relieve the ordinary routine. People should comb their hair and wash up for family dinner so that there's something special about that daily event. What I have trouble with is people who try to sabotage formality. They think that dignity is pretentious. They love expensive wines and audio-visual entertainment but also love to denounce the trappings of formality as materialism. The reality is that formality is neither unfriendly nor pretentious. It's merely an alternate style, appropriate to dignified occasions.

The attempt to restore some manners to the American scene is necessarily a conservative project, requiring as it does that one think first of the other and only then of themself and also that there be some universal agreement on when and who we should defer to. No one has done more to advance this cause than Miss Manners. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 15, 2003 10:10 PM