c. April 2010
Elizabeth Post, matriarch of the Post family, passed away this week. She was handed the reigns of the etiquette empire built by Emily Post, her husband’s grandmother, in 1965 and served as the voice of reason and good taste as Director of the Post Institute until her retirement 15 years ago.
Luckily, her children and grandchildren continue to honor the family’s legacy by helping people the world over navigate their way through society without making fools of themselves.
Elizabeth Post summed up the importance of good manners when she said, “Etiquette is meant to smooth the path between people to better relationships. It isn’t meant to be something restrictive or unpleasant.”
Who can’t get behind that?
Some consider etiquette to be a relic, a chore or thing of the past. Those people are, with all due respect, wrong. If you follow the news, it’s been hard to miss recent stories that highlight an apparent decline of civility in our society. I, for one, find the prospect of a more caustic and less civil atmosphere alarming.
Given the current environment, and in honor of Elizabeth Post’s contributions to our society, which have helped countless people handle sticky situations at home, work and on special occasions with grace and aplomb, let’s say we all brush up on our manners with some refreshers on civil discourse.
- Don’t yell. The only time this rule should be broken is when there’s a threat of imminent bodily harm to someone in your proximity. In an argument it seldom helps your case and it will only succeed in making you sound like a crazy loon. Don’t YELL IN TYPE either. It may be less damaging to the ears, but it’s equally ostracizing.
- Employ empathy. If you are in a conversation with people who are not minding their manners, don’t stoop to their level. Model the behavior you would like to have them display. Calmly tell them there’s no need to yell, name call, or do whatever inappropriate thing it is they’re doing. If that doesn’t work and things are devolving simply walk away. As the sage rapper Jay-Z once said: “A wise man told me don’t argue with fools/Cause people from a distance can’t tell who is who”.
- If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all. This is especially true online. If you would be mortified to have your grandma see something you wrote - don’t post it. And don’t cop out and hide behind online anonymity. It’s not as anonymous as you think, and you should always be willing to own your words. We all gossip from time to time, but there’s a big difference between sharing some speculation with girlfriends you trust over cocktails and slandering someone’s good name in print. Do the former often and the latter never.
I could go on, but at the risk of sounding preachy I’ll stop. Go forth, be nice and make your mom proud by always remembering to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.
What do you think? Is our society becoming less civil and more contentious? What realms of our society could use a behavioral boost?
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