Do You Remember Miss Manners?

All social interactions have Rules & Standards of Conduct, like Parliamentary Procedures. These emphasize the issue of civility and define how one should express disagreement in both public and individual interactions. In less formal settings, rules of conduct are simply called manners.  Without manners, a hostile environment is created.  Hostility is intimidating and offensive.  One gets ready for a fight (or to run away) rather than having a feeling that it is safe to be honest and open.  Research demonstrates that a hostile environment evokes feelings of impotence, diminished self-esteem and emotional turmoil and lead to symptoms of anxiety, depression, and other mental health disorders for the non-dominant person of an interaction.  Remember, you will not always be the one on top.  There will be time that you will be in the non-dominant role.  Manners are necessary to live and work in close proximity with others, especially with strangers. 

Tips for Promoting Civility

The Institute for Local Government created a set of tips for promoting civility in Public meetings.  These tips also apply to interpersonal interactions. Think of these tips as manners.  Key points are embracing diverse points of view and not allowing ridicule, cheering, booing, or heckling which create fear about speaking up for most people.  Another is separating people from the problem.  That is, you need to talk about the problem not the personality or motives of the speaker.  (Tips for Promoting Civility)   

I remember how impressed I was in academic meetings, when I saw people who were especially good at applying the sandwich method when they stood up to speak. They were able to say they disagreed with everything the speaker said in such a polite way that the speaker never got defensive. The sandwich method places a negative comment between two positive ones.  You don’t say, “You’re lying” or “That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”   Instead, the approach goes something like this, “You make interesting points, but I don’t think it accounts for (make your point)…  How do you think this can be fit into in your model?”

Miss Manners’ “Suggestions”

Miss Manners was the nom de plume (pen name) for Judith Martin.  She was a celebrated columnist from 1978 through the early 2000’s that ran 6x/week in over 200 newspapers worldwide.  Her columns covered the essential qualities of politeness rather than what fork or spoon should you use at a formal dinner. In a 1995 interview by Virginia Shea, Martin emphasized the main reason for manners: “There are plenty of people who say, “We don’t care about etiquette, but we can’t stand the way so-and-so behaves, and we don’t want him around!” Etiquette doesn’t have the great sanctions that the law has. But the main sanction we do have is in not dealing with these people and isolating them [until they behave].”

“If you can’t be kind, at least be vague.”  Judith Martin

“When virtues are pointed out first, flaws seem less insurmountable.” – Judith Martin

“We are all born rude. No infant has ever appeared yet with the grace to understand how inconsiderate it is to disturb others in the middle of the night.” – Judith Martin, Common Courtesy: In Which Miss Manners Solves the Problem That Baffled Mr. Jefferson

“The whole country wants civility. Why don’t we have it? It doesn’t cost anything. No federal funding, no legislation is involved. One answer is the unwillingness to restrain oneself. Everybody wants other people to be polite to them, but they want the freedom of not having to be polite to others.” – Judith Martin

“One reason that the task of inventing manners is so difficult is that etiquette is folk custom, and people have emotional ties to the forms of their youth. That is why there is such hostility between generations in times of rapid change; their manners being different, each feels affronted by the other, taking even the most surface choices for challenges.”
― Judith Martin, Common Courtesy: In Which Miss Manners Solves the Problem That Baffled Mr. Jefferson

“It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help.” – Judith Martin

Conclusion

I remember one particularly antagonistic patient who felt that being nice was the same thing as being a wimp.  He was correct that no one wanted to listen to him, but it was not because they disagreed.  He was just too unpleasant to be around. He treated people like they didn’t have brains.  He didn’t follow the Holy Trinity of Manners: Follow Rules of Conduct (Manners), Be Polite, and try to be Politically Correct.

It does no good to call people out unless the purpose is to shut down the discussion.  If you want to continue, think of using tips from motivational interviewing and manners when you respond.  Thomas Jefferson was right, “Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.”