A guide to figuring out what constitutes good manners in the 21st century

Hello again, the reader. In yesterday's discussion, we pontificated over the responsibilities of good citizenship, and how these responsibilities should be considered a "duty" rather than an inconvenience to things such as jury duty. So following that same train of thought, I figured we could discuss another important aspect of being a good citizen in the 21st century, and that is the concept of manners in the 21st century, which thanks to technology seem to be rapidly evolving such as when is it appropriate to text versus making a phone call etc. and so forth. This discussion should help ease the debate about what exactly constitutes manners in the 21st century. If I missed anything that you think is important, dear reader. Please feel free to leave a comment and let me know...

Never before in our history has it been easier to treat people like crap then get away with it.

This is because we’ve evolved in very small groups and tribes, typically no more than 150 people. Everyone knew each other. Everyone held each other accountable.

If you disrespected the group or treated people unfairly, you would be quickly ostracized from your tribe and sent to live on your own (which was typically a death sentence).

According to Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck, this is why our social reputation is so important to us – and why we have a natural craving to be liked and respected by others.

Of course we still need these social ties to survive and flourish. But in today’s world, we interact with many more people, especially strangers, because it’s so much easier to communicate and travel.

This makes it easy to treat people like crap, because many people we cross paths with we probably won’t ever see again. And in short, this influences a lot of people to lose their good manners and respectability.

It’s easy to flip off the guy who cut us off on the highway. It’s easy to be rude to the waitress at that new restaurant. And it’s easy to just throw your garbage on the ground in a public park.

Why?

Because most of us know we probably won’t see these people again, so there are no consequences to being rude or disrespectful. When people can’t be held accountable for their actions, it’s easy to get away with doing bad stuff – that’s a sad but unfortunate fact of human nature.

Of course just because something is easy to get away with doesn’t mean it’s right. This is why learning “good manners” today may be more important than ever.

When we talk about good manners, we aren’t so focused on dinner etiquette or what fork to use when (though certainly that can play some role), but what’s more important is how we generally treat the people will interact with.

Having good manners means treating every stranger like a neighbor. As the old adage goes, “You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.”

In a similar vein, how do you treat people who you will likely never see again? The answer to this question ultimately tells you how much you need to work on your “good manners.”

This discussion will cover basic tips and advice to having good manners in the 21st century.

Good Manners When Communicating

• Give people a response, even if you don’t want to talk to them. – If someone says “Hi,” give a simple “Hi” back. A small exchange lets people know you acknowledge their existence.
• “No” is better than false promises. – Be willing to turn people down if they ask for help, especially if you know it’s unrealistic for you. Most people would rather you be direct with them now than disappoint them later.
• If you have to give someone negative feedback, do it privately. – Criticizing people in front of others adds unnecessary insult to injury. People will appreciate it if you can give feedback while still keeping their dignity and reputation intact.
• Focus on saying positive things about people who aren’t present. – It’s easy to spread negative gossip about people, but you’ll be more likable if people don’t have to worry about the things you say behind their back.
• Trying to pressure people just makes them do the opposite. – Always respect people’s choices and free will. Often when people feel they are being forced to do something, they will just resist doing it even more.

Good Manners and Technology

• Behave online as you would in real life. – It’s easy to act like a jerk behind an anonymous username, but try to treat your “digital self” as your “real self.” If you wouldn’t say it to someone’s face, it’s probably not nice to say online.
• Respect people’s privacy. – Don’t reveal information about people that they haven’t already publicly disclosed. This is especially true for any private pictures or videos that you may share with someone from a past or current relationship. It’s not cool to use the internet as a tool for revenge.
• Don’t mass invite people to events on Facebook. – There’s no reason your friend in Colorado is going to be able to attend your local music gig in Brooklyn. Be reasonable with your invites: send them to people who you think would actually be interested in going, or who are at least in the area. (This also applies for invites to apps – don’t annoy people just so you can get an extra life in Candy Crush).
• Avoid looking at your phone every minute. – If you’re out with people – whether it’s a date, or a bar with friends, or a family dinner – you should be spending more time interacting with them than looking at your phone. Most of the time, that e-mail or phone call or tweet can wait a couple hours. You’re important, but probably not that important.
• Be cautious of spontaneous phone calls – As Amy points out, most people under 40 would rather you contact them via text before calling them. Phone calls tend to be a lot more intrusive than texts or emails, as you need to respond to them right away. If you need to have a conversation with someone, it helps to text them first and make sure it’s a good time.

Good Manners and Dating

• Men, you need to ask her out. – It’s always nice for a woman to be the one to ask a man out on a date, but the truth is most women won’t do it. If a guy is interested in a girl, he is often the one that needs to express that interest first. The simple fact is a guy who is too afraid to ask girls out won’t find many dates (unless he is incredibly good-looking). Women often want to know you care enough to take a risk and ask them out.
• Women, you need to reject nicely. – While many women get unwanted attention constantly, it’s still important to learn to reject these advances as kindly as possible. First, because guys are people too who have feelings. And second, because rudely responding to a guy often ends up with him just becoming nastier toward you. “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down,” etc.
• First dates should be cheap, short, and local. – There’s nothing worse than being stuck with a person you don’t like for hours and hours. First dates should be no more than a half hour – at a coffee shop, going to a park, etc. – and there should be an easy way out if you don’t like how things are going. There’s also no point in making it too expensive, first dates should be about finding if you are compatible.
• If a breakup is inevitable, sooner is better than later. – Many times people stay in relationships longer than they should because they fear disappointing the other person. Yes, it hurts to make people feel rejected, but prolonging a relationship that isn’t going to work only prolongs the pain as well.
• Online dating is about meeting in the real world. – You shouldn’t have to share your whole life story before meeting someone. Most people know quickly whether they would bother meeting a person in real life or not. Be cautious of too much “digital dating” before ever seeing someone in person (The risk of being Catfish‘d – when someone pretends to be someone else – is one good reason to follow this).

Good Manners When Going Out and Socializing

• Follow through on plans (or let people know if they change). – One of my biggest pet peeves is when I make plans with someone and then they randomly go missing that day, or don’t get back to me until much later saying their plans changed. I don’t care if you change your mind last minute – I sometimes do too – but at least do the courtesy of telling the other person what’s up so they don’t feel completed ditched.
• Tipping is a part of the true cost of going out. – Don’t be cheap and try to weasel your way out of a tip – or justify not tipping due to some extremely high standards for the bartender or waitress. Unless you have an exceptionally bad experience at a bar or restaurant, you should pay the customary 15-20% tip – because that’s what good people do (and that’s how these workers make a living). If you don’t have the money, don’t go out.
• Introduce shy people into the conversation. – If you’re hanging out with someone who is very shy and reserved, do them a service by introducing them into the conversation. Just ask, “Hey Todd, what do you think of this?” Most of the time these “invisible people” want to socialize more, but they just have trouble getting started. Make that process easier for them and they’ll greatly appreciate it.
• Would you pass the “Spilled Drink Test?” – If you’re at a fancy event dressed up really nicely and someone spills a whole glass of red wine on you, how would you react? The person with good manners learns how to brush it off and still enjoy the night, while the person with bad manners will probably throw a hissy fit and bring everyone’s mood down with them.
• Empathy is everything. – At the end of the day, good manners is just about taking people’s perspective and considering their thoughts and feelings. Always be willing to ask yourself, “How are my speech and actions affecting the people around me?” If you can ask yourself this and be completely honest with yourself, you’ll be a much more likable and respectable person.

So what does it mean to have “good manners” these days?

It’s not so much about what fork to use when. Ultimately, it’s just about having empathy and treating people with kindness and respect as if every stranger was your neighbor.

As always thanks for listening. There will be more to come soon, guaranteed.

13 inalienable and indisputable responsibilities of upstanding citizens

Hello again, dear reader. Recently we have pontificated on citizenship in a previous discussion, using quotes and anecdotes, and the viewpoint of Pres. Theodore Roosevelt. And then we discussed the importance of realism in society and how they are important to a well informed citizenry for today's discussion, which is in the same vein as the two previous discussions. I thought we would discuss the inalienable rights and responsibilities that come with being a quality system. Everyone knows about the Bill of Rights, such as the right to free speech etc. and so forth, and most people. Sadly enough taken for granted as something that has always existed and always will. And that is not the case at all, each of the founding forces, a considerable amount of time, blood sweat and tears to formulate the Bill of Rights for all future American citizens, and most people forget or choose not to remember that what they take for granted as their inalienable rights. Also come with responsibilities, and although these 13 responsibilities are loosely based on the "American Bill of Rights." I have no doubt that they can be applied to any other Democratic (or any) nation-state that wishes to use them...

When citizenship is mentioned at all today, it’s usually in the context of rights: “I have the right to do this!” “I have the right to do that!”

But as this discussion will hopefully point out, these privileges come with accompanying obligations.

“A good citizen has an ‘inalienable and inescapable Responsibilities’ to live up to as well as a Bill of Rights to live under.”

 Inalienable and inescapable Responsibilities, you may never have thought about this concept, but such a thing inarguably exists. Membership in any group confers certain advantages, but they are contingent on each member following the group’s rules, actively participating, and contributing to the group’s health and strength.

While the privileges of the Bill of Rights are explicitly spelled out, the obligations of the Bill of Responsibilities are implicitly charged. The latter are thus easy to forget, often subsumed by an exclusive focus on the former.

Yet the continued existence of rights is premised on the fulfillment of their reciprocal responsibilities. Democracy can only flourish when people are able to govern themselves. In the absence of such self-governance, without the collective willingness to live virtuously, participate intelligently in the public sphere, perpetuate the greatest good for the greatest number, and serve each other and our communities, more and more regulations and laws must be passed to compel behavior and maintain order, curtailing liberty. Freedom paradoxically cannot endure without constraints.

Democracy is thus a two-way partnership: citizens receive certain rights, services, and protections from the government, and in turn offer their money, time, knowledge, and commitment towards maintaining these privileges. Individual rights must always be matched with individual responsibilities; one cannot hope to have a healthy democracy if citizens are solely focused on what they can get, to the exclusion of what they can give.

I think it is useful, then, to pause occasionally to discuss the implicit obligations of citizenship in a more direct way — to reflect on how we measure up in our duties. As the Scout manual puts it: “the ‘Bill of Responsibilities’ is a sort of yardstick of citizenship.”

Below you’ll find an attempt to spell out some of the responsibilities that are attendant to the rights contained in our national, state, and local laws (including the Constitution, statutes, and judicial opinions); they can of course be added to, and vigorously debated.

1. The right to a fair trial./The responsibility to serve willingly on a jury when called.

It’s hard not to moan and groan when you’re called up to jury service. It’s an inconvenience to your life, and sometimes a detriment to your paycheck as well. But the factors that make jury service especially inconvenient — a steady job, being a business owner, having children — are also things which speak to the fact that you’re an engaged member of the community, and thus a valuable juror. When these kinds of engaged citizens try to duck their duty, jury pools are left only with those who aren’t “clever” enough to find an out, the unemployed, and the retired. This hardly makes for a jury of one’s peers.

Were you to be accused of a crime, you’d want a diverse, savvy jury hearing your case; give other people the same privilege by willingly serving when called to do so.

2. The right to free (and/or government supported) schooling./The responsibility to take full advantage of one’s education.

 I had never thought of education as being a two-way street until I read this in the Boy Scout Citizenship manual:

“As a citizen of the United States, you have the right to a free education in the public schools; but you also have the responsibility to do your best to take the fullest possible advantage of that educational opportunity in order to prepare yourself for a life of useful service to your fellow citizens.”

While we often think we have the right to goof off in school, that it only affects ourselves, if you’re attending a publicly funded institution or using publicly funded loans to finance your education, you’re goofing off on someone else’s dime. Factory workers and doctors, teachers and firefighters, are laboring 40-80 hours a week, and giving up chunks of their paychecks so you can play Fallout 4 and flunk your biology class.

If you’re a student, make good on your fellow citizens’ investment in you, by taking full advantage of your education and equipping yourself to leave school able to strengthen your community and country.

3. The right to protection of life and liberty./The responsibility to stay ready to defend that right and the willingness to serve when called.

Americans today enjoy the privilege of being protected by a professional, all-volunteer military force. But should another large-scale crisis, like the past world wars, emerge, the draft would be re-instituted. Citizens not only have the responsibility of answering such a summons when in force, and also staying ever ready to serve during times of peace. To the best of their ability, citizens should prepare their bodies and minds for a call to defend their country. The Founders imagined every man as a citizen-soldier.

4. The right to enjoy natural resources./The responsibility to preserve and conserve public parks and lands.

Our national parks are some of our greatest treasures, and our local parks some of our most appreciated retreats. Government provides access to these wild and bucolic preserves; citizens are charged with following “leave no trace” principles, practicing fire safety, and keeping them clean and pristine.

5. The right to welfare assistance./The responsibility to be as self-supporting as possible.

The government’s aid programs are designed to help those who have no other options for assistance — as a safety net when all else fails. Citizens have the responsibility of only availing themselves of such programs out of true and honest need, and making a best faith effort to decrease the chances of falling into that fix: working when possible, exercising financial prudence, and maintaining healthy habits. No one is ever entirely self-sufficient, but striving towards that goal ensures that welfare goes to those who really need it, lightens the burden on the system, and frees funds to be put towards other important projects, thus strengthening the nation.

6. The right to use public libraries, roads, transportation, parks, police/fire services, etc./The responsibility to pay the taxes which support such services.

Nobody likes paying taxes. But nearly all of us like to drive all over town and across the country on paved roads, eat non-contaminated food, and read reams of books for free. Nearly all of us want to know that the police and fire department would come to our aid in an emergency. All of these services, and many more, rely on tax money to exist. If you take from the pot, you also have to put into it.

This isn’t to say that citizens don’t have the right to opinions on how they should be taxed, and how their money should be used. As the Boy Scout manual advises, every citizen has the responsibility to “watch whether these funds are spent wisely or not.”

It can be galling to see how much government money is wasted and misappropriated, but the recourse to this outrage is to vote for politicians and policies that will change the system, not to stop paying taxes until they meet personal standards. Otherwise, one’s position is akin to someone who justifies stealing a business’ services because the individual disagrees with their business model; e.g., sneaking into a movie without paying because you think they charge too much for tickets.

7. The right to free speech and protest./The responsibility to offer informed opinions and constructive criticism, and to uphold the free speech of others.

The right to free speech, and its related rights to assemble peaceably and petition the government for a redress of grievances, are some of our most cherished American privileges. As long as we don’t unfairly hurt others, or incite violence or treason, we can say whatever it is we want. As Citizenship celebrates:

“The government cannot censor our letters, burn our books, cut our radio programs off the air, or otherwise hamper the free expression of our thoughts, providing we respect the rights of others. In America there are no ‘thought police’ to control what we read or listen to…We have the right to gather together when and where we please…Even when we are criticizing our government, we are entitled to police protection.”

While we have the right to say nearly anything we want, that doesn’t mean we should; we also have the responsibility to offer speech that is well-informed and well-reasoned.

Citizens should know how government works so as not to call for one of its branches to make a change or take an action that is not actually within the purview of its powers. Citizens should also not just complain, but offer constructive solutions, “avoid[ing] any criticism unless he can suggest an improvement.” We have the responsibility of actively striving towards the change we want to see — of putting our skin in the game and working through community groups, churches, non-profits, and elections to alter the landscape and address injustices.

At the same time, citizens should fervently uphold the right to free speech for others, including those — especially those — with whom they disagree. Too often there is a tendency to support free speech when someone says something with which we concur, only to throw it out the window when they say something that offends our sensibilities. But the right of free speech can only be preserved when it is applied equally, even to words the majority find despicable. The government is not to act as the thought police, and neither should its citizenry.

Finally, the right to speak freely comes with the responsibility to listen earnestly. It requires, as the Citizenship manual puts it, “keeping an open mind, trying to understand [others’] viewpoints, considering the minority opinion on a question and cooperating with the majority opinion, once it is accepted.”

8. The right to equality under the law./The responsibility to stand for the equal rights and opportunities of others.

A good citizen doesn’t just enjoy his own access to equal opportunities, his own equal protection under the law — he is distressed by the encroachment and violation of these rights for others. This not only applies to the right of free speech, but to other rights like the freedom of religion; if you want to enjoy the right to worship as you please, you’re responsible for supporting the right of others to worship as they see fit.

As the handbook advises, a good citizen wants everyone to share the same constitutional privileges he does, and “Stands for equal rights to opportunities for all, for fair play regardless of anyone’s race, religion, nationality, social position or way of earning a living.”

9. (If you choose to exercise it) The right to bear arms./The responsibility to train yourself in the safe and effective use of your firearm.

The Second Amendment enshrines Americans’ right to equip themselves with one of the most powerful tools on earth — a tool which can take another’s life. With great power, comes great responsibility, and those who choose to exercise their right to bear arms, also have the responsibility of becoming versed in how to use their firearms safely and ably.

10. The right to vote./The responsibility to be fully informed as to candidates, issues, and parties.

While there are no longer any explicit barriers to voting (besides age), an implicit barrier should remain: knowledge of what one is casting his ballot for; Knowledge that runs deeper than headlines and sound-bites, and encompasses a good understanding of both sides of an issue, and the positions, policies, and character of political candidates.

The simple act of casting a vote in and of itself is often seen as the ultimate expression of citizenship; but voting in ignorance is no better — in fact is often worse — than not voting at all. As the Scout manual admonishes, “Be a thinking citizen, not a thoughtless one.”

11. The right to publish anything short of sedition and slander./The responsibility to vet and examine published information.

Just as Americans have the right to say nearly anything they please, we also have the right to put down on paper (physical or digital) almost anything we’d like. The freedom of the press ensures that individuals and media companies can publish their thoughts, opinions, and reports without government interference. But the readers of these publications in turn have a responsibility for evaluating the validity and accuracy of the information that is disseminated — calling out errors and refusing to support purveyors of lies and misinformation.

In the digital age, when anyone and everyone is now able to become a “publisher” and exercise the freedom of the “press,” the responsibility to vet and filter information has become more important than ever.

12. The right to happiness./The responsibility to contribute to that happiness by living virtuously.  

Everyone loves that the Declaration of Independence consecrates “the pursuit of happiness” as an unalienable right. Yet few understand how the Founders defined happiness. It was not mere personal pleasure or a good feeling; rather, they conceived of happiness the way the ancient Greeks did: as virtuous excellence.

The Founders believed that the success of the republican experiment they were setting forth was contingent on its citizens living lives of industry, honor, frugality, humility, and justice. If citizens wished to enjoy their rights, they needed to live right; private happiness, or virtue, led to public excellence — an environment in which individuals had the liberty, protection, and structure to truly flourish.

13. The right to effective, intelligent, just representation by elected officials./The responsibility to be an active, engaged, informed citizen.

Everyone wants to live under a fair, honest, effective, efficient government. But few want the obligation of helping to produce that good government. They want virtuous politicians, but live morally lax lives themselves. They want to be heard, but don’t listen. They want to be served, but don’t want to serve. They want to get, but not give.

They don’t understand why government seems so inept…yet people invariably get exactly the leaders they deserve.

There is no protection without participation, no freedom without duty, no liberty without constraint.

If citizens wish to fully enjoy living under their rights, they must fully live up to their responsibilities.

As always thanks for listening, and there will be more to come soon guaranteed