Miss Manners: Etiquette steps in where the law can’t – and shouldn’t

Gentle readers: An open society cannot function without etiquette.

Yes, etiquette, which many people still dismiss as having to do only with fork-obsessed snobs.

Miss Manners cannot help noticing that our basic forums for the open exchange of ideas are flailing: classrooms, lecture halls, town halls and legislatures. When everyone is spewing invectives and personal insults – and, in the worst cases, threats – nothing gets accomplished.

A democracy requires people of different views to listen to one another so as to work out compromises to keep the society functioning. So we need to agree not to clog up the works with our emotional outbursts, however strongly felt.

We need civility.

Nobody (except dictators, professional or amateur) wants it to be illegal to express one’s opinions. But all of us know people we wish would just shut up.

To avoid bringing down the heavy hand of the law on speech, we are supposed to be using a paralegal system of voluntary restraints, otherwise known as etiquette rules. Not laws; rules.

You see the problems:

1. Who makes the rules? Do they favor one viewpoint or another? Do they suppress legitimate speech? Everyone wants total self-expression, and everyone wants to be treated with respect, which would require others to be restrained.

Some rules are obvious. If everyone talks at once, or if speakers are shouted down, no one is heard. If irrelevant topics are introduced, everyone will be there all night. But the difference between a personal attack and legitimate criticisms of individuals’ actions can seem vague. Miss Manners can tell the difference, but she cannot be everywhere at once.

2. How are the rules enforced? With none of the law enforcement sanctions available, what can be done about the people who do not volunteer to restrain their counterproductive impulses?

The sanction that etiquette does have is expulsion from the activity that has been disrupted. In situations of the most serious contention – the justice system, the military and professional sports – this is backed up by compulsion. But in ordinary life, it usually leads to more contentiousness.

To work out the limits and judge individual cases will require people of good will to work together, accepting the notion that there are words and actions that they can legally express, but nevertheless should not. That they are entitled to express their views strongly, but must temper them to allow civil discourse, rather than a fruitless exchange of insults.

But that brings us back to the problem itself: that this reasonable basis of democracy is being sabotaged.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I was at a concert, and after intermission, the audience was asked to stand while the king and queen of Norway (or some other allied nation) entered and were seated. Everyone stood instantly, but I did so reluctantly, not wanting to make a scene.

I thought Americans were not supposed to show obeisance to monarchs. Are we? Was the request off-base?

GENTLE READER: No, no – there is a difference between standing and bowing or curtseying. Besides the fact that they go in opposite directions.

Bowing down is a symbol of obeisance, and Americans do not bend our knees for our own leaders, much less for foreign potentates. But standing is a sign of respect, and Miss Manners finds no subservience in showing it for old age, high position or your favorite performer.

Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website www.missmanners.com.