A Matter of Manners

A thought I had recently has stuck with me over the weekend about the core values of manners. It’s been something I’ve thought about the past few years, and I wanted to commit it to a post. It’s about respect and the other auxiliary things that surround it, such as manners, friendship, leadership to name a few. This especially important now, when respect for people seems to have bottomed out. Our discourse with our fellow citizens seems to be rougher than was in the past couple of decades, and we seem to take relationships for granted these days. How can we change this trend? How can we be better? How does this pertain to an IPC?

© Can Stock Photo / innovatedcaptures

Respect

I’ve read many articles about how social media has made things worse in the realm of public discourse. Folks can post anonymously, and be as rude, crass, and frankly loathsome as they want to be and not face the consequences. But is this the fault of social media, or is this a failing of our society, and social media is but the messenger? The one thing that I’ve observed is that the concept of respect for others is not often taught to children these days, and when these kids grow up, it becomes a foreign concept applied for all the wrong reasons. Now that we’ve elected controversial presidents, uncovered salacious Hollywood scandals, and seem to be solidly polarized as a culture in how we think and feel about many social topics, respect sounds like a dead notion. It’s been thrown out on to the rubble heap with once noble ideas of chivalry, patience and charity. I have a naive thought that if people knew the power of respect better, then we would be in better shape in these regards.

So, here we are. What can we do?

One way of looking at respect is seeing or even assuming the positive worth or quality of someone. This should relate along every plane of society, whether it be gender, race, religion, philosophy and politics, or what have you. If you give someone an equal footing in your dealings with them, at least at first, then you’re establishing a rapport that both of you can build on. After that, the relationship becomes a sliding scale of sorts. Depending on either one’s actions, the scale can move further along a positive path, or tumble toward negative territory. Both parties are responsible for how the scale moves. Sincerity and selfless action are two of many ways of moving the scale into positive territory. Having selfish or even abusive agendas are two sure ways of sliding into negative respect territory. Take a lesson from Harvey Weinstein. Selfishness, especially when it’s taken to an abusive level, catches up with you eventually.

When you’re running an IPC, the ability of giving people a measure of respect is a quality you want to encourage in yourself. You’ll meet folks of all sorts, and you want to give them a measure of respect, so they feel empowered to bring their unique perspective to your club. How they act will indicate whether of not they’re worthy. Respect goes both ways. It is a sliding scale.

Politeness

Politeness is often branded as an ‘old-fashioned’ trait, but it has an important function as a societal filter. If you go to YouTube, Facebook or Twitter, you can see the disastrous results when the ‘polite filter’ is turned off. People have the potential to get very nasty in expressing themselves, or in their opinions of others. Sometimes they hide behind a fake name and picture, other times they’re quite open.  I’ve heard both sides espouse doing this as empowering. But is it really empowering? I don’t think so. It’s tit for tat; it’s hiding behind a computer; it’s rudeness at it’s most basic. Is that you? Politeness and respect are tied together. Respect is the concept, politeness is the expression of the concept. Practice politeness. Get a copy of Emily Post’s Etiquette and read it, and then practice what pertains to you. Consider etiquette the functional part of politeness. 

Language

How we express ourselves through language affects our manners. I’m all for free speech, but how you speak reflects the person you really are. Although society seems to accept more alphabet -bombs or -words in everyday language, the fact is that it only reflects how inarticulate and lazy we’ve become. If you really want to make an impact, clean up what you say, and how you say it. Eliminate, or at least minimize, the crass words that have very little significance in daily language. Also, strive to increase your vocabulary. Replace the bad with the good. The more words in your arsenal, the better you can express yourself. This way, you can avoid getting into a donnybrook over how you said something.

Self-reflection

If you’re like me, it’s easy to see a lack of manners in other people, but we don’t see it in ourselves. Therefore, we don’t practice our manners as much as we ought to. Self-reflection is a powerful tool in course-correcting yourself. As a friend said to me about patience, “Every day gives me the chance to practice patience.” The same can be said of manners. But to measure your efforts, you need to think back on what you do. Aim to do little better every day, and think where you need to improve, or think of the areas where you may be backsliding. Keeping a journal is handy to track how well you’re doing.

Being an organizer of an IPC is to aspire for better for yourself and your members. There’s no better place to start than with manners. The world will be that more improved with your efforts.

Apologies for the semi-rant, but I think it's important, especially when you deal with people, I’ll be writing much more on this later.