Good manners are a combination of intelligence, education, taste and style mixed together so you don't need any of those things. Good manners have a number of distinctive qualities: First, they can be learned by rote. This is a good thing; otherwise most rich men's daughters could not be displayed in public. Secondly, manners do not vary from culture to culture or place to place. The same polite behavior that makes you a welcome guest in the drawing rooms of Kensington is equally appropriate among the Mud People of the fierce Orokaiva tribe of Papua New Guinea — if you have a gun. This is the advantage of Western-style manners. Citizens of westernized countries still have most of the guns.

Another distinctive quality of manners is that they have nothing to do with what you do, only how you do it. For example, Karl Marx was always polite in the British Museum. He was courteous to the staff, never read with his hat on, and didn't make lip-farts when he came across passages in Hegel with which he disagreed. Despite the fact that his political exhortations have caused the deaths of millions, he is today more revered than not. On the other hand, John W. Hinckley, Jr., was rude only once, to a retired Hollywood movie actor, and Hinckley will be in a mental institution for the rest of his life.

P. J. O'Rourke, Modern Manners
© 1983 by P. J. O'Rourke. All rights reserved.

Posted 19 April 1996

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