please and thank you

Kate: "done beats perfect," as they say. I knew (and know) lots of people who don't get "perfect" grades but they learn just as much, if not more, than the people who do.

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I'm reading a book right now called "Say Please, Say Thank You." (Donald McCullough). As you could guess, it's on civility and politeness (but NOT, as the author is quick to point out, etiquette: there is a difference, he says, between knowing precisely what fork to use at a fancy dinner and treating people with basic kindness and respect).

The book is one I find extremely quotable (so I'll subject you to some quotations from it, here). I agree with most of the author's basic points.

I also agree with his observation that none of us are perfect, that we all slip (even this morning, driving to work: that guy behind me who apparently couldn't be arsed to turn on his headlights even though it was dark out, and then roared past me - passing on the right, which is technically legal here but always spooks me badly - when I was stopped, waiting for traffic to clear before making a left turn. If I could have talked to the guy in that car, I would have said some choice words to him. Also about his choice of bumper stickers...I tend to think that insulting people's religions is neither funny nor cute)


McCullough relates a story, early in the book, about an experience where he "lost his civility" - in an airport shop, buying something from a woman who didn't get off the phone the whole time he was interacting with her. She shortchanged him and he kind of got in her face about it and about her being on the phone. The woman told him: That was my mother. She's disabled and can't get out much. She needs me and I can't be with her as much as I want to because I have to work (or words to that effect).

McCullough relates how he felt a total heel after that - how he had assumed that it was the frivolous sort of conversation, and that he had really been more unpleasant about the short-changing that he needed to be, and so on.

And he makes an interesting point:

The Golden Rule tells us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Because this is in the form of an imperative, we might have the wrong impression: we might imagine that we can choose to put this rule into effect or not, depending on whether we obey it. Actually, it's closer to the Tall Buildings Rule - step off the top of a tall building and you will be squished on the sidewalk. We're talking law here, a statement of what happens in the universe of relationships. Whatever you do unto others they will do back to you. Call it the Law of Reciprocal Action.

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McCullough goes on to explain how when that law gets broken, it can lead to a whole chain of events: treat someone with disrespect (and that's his fundamental argument: the whole "good manners" thing is treating people with respect, whether you think they deserve it or not) and they will likely turn around and treat someone else with disrespect...and on and on. It's like the old saying about the guy who has a bad day at work and then comes home and yells at his kids and kicks the dog.

But McCullough points out there's a reverse to this: when you treat someone BETTER than they deserve (he uses the example of Aldonza/Dulcinea from "Man of La Mancha" - Aldonza is little more than a prostitute, but Don Quixote insists on seeing her as "his Lady." At the very end of the play, just before Quixote dies, he sees her, transformed - because he believed her to be his Lady, he believed better of her.

And - though the book really isn't intended, I think, to have a religious tone, McCullough does suggest that we are, after all, children of God - and that the whole please/thank you/excuse me thing could, in fact, be acknowledging that. Giving people their dignity.

He has chapters on different topics: starting with "Please" and "Thank You" and moving on to things like respecting others by not being late (! I know people who are chronically late; the feeling one does get is that they think their time is more important than your own).

In the very first chapter, he makes a fine point:

The one who neglects to say "please" creadles within his or her soul an infant dictator who thinks it's all right to bark orders and who may just grow up to become a cruel despot...

That may be overstating things a bit, but...yes. There is something of the dictatorial in the person who doesn't preface requests with "please."

He also speaks of gratitude, and its importance: he points out something that I have noticed many times, that there is an inverse relationship between a sense of entitlement and a sense of gratitude. That stopping to be grateful is acknowledging that on some level, we have enough. It is sufficient. That the half-full glass could just as easily be empty, so let us rejoice in the fact that we have half a glass' worth.

And he remarks also that our culture works against this:

When we say 'thank you,' we heave a sigh of satisfaction in a world of grasping. Instead of reaching out toward more, we pause to enjoy what we have.
This is why gratitude has a hard time surviving. We live in a culture of consumption that constatntly tells us we need more. The New York Times estimated that the average American is exposed to 3500 commercial messages each day...they're all saying, "You don't have enough! Keep striving to aciewve more and acquire more!" A thankful spirit gets run over in the ensuing stampede...

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McCullough also discusses "white lies" and their obverse, what most of us in the blogosphere refer as TMI. He points out that white lies - and here he means "snow white" lies, not "black, or gray, or even off-white lies." These are the kind of little lies that are designed to protect the other person - not coming out and saying exactly what you feel (like, if someone asks you if their unattractive haircut is becoming to them). He also points out that part of politeness is sometimes NOT sharing information, and that this is hard in a "tell-all world."

(And yes, I am aware of the contradiction of writing this on a blog, which is basically a diary where I am slapping the pages up against the plate-glass window of the world for all to read as soon as I write them).

He points out that Aristotle had a good rule: honesty, he said, was telling the right truth to the right person at the right time in the right way for the right reason.

Or, more simply put (as my university's "wellness" magazine included in a "list of suggestions for surviving family reunions) - before you say something, ask yourself: is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?

In the last chapter ("Tell your buddy his fly is open"), which he suggests people skip to after reading the chapter on white lies, he continues with this thread:

Does this mean we should always blurt out the truth, no matter what? No, I don't think so. Let me suggest two guidelines. First, the truth must be pertinent to the situation. Lewis Smedes has beautifully summarized what this means: "A politician out to speak the truth about public matters as he sees them; he does not need to tell us how he feels about his wife. A doctor ought to tell me the truth, as he understands it, about my health; he does not need to tell me his views on universal health insurance. A minister ought to preach the truth, as he sees it, about the gospel; he does not need to tell the congregation what he feels about the choir director [and here, I add: this is the very crux of what bugs me so about the pontificating entertainers - I really do not need to know how much t.p. Sheryl Crow uses, even if she's joking about it] Telling the truth does not call us to be garrulous blabbermouths. Truthfulness is demanded from us about the things that we ought to speak about at all." It is neither ethical nor courteous to dump all our feelings at all times on all people.

In other words: avoid TMI.

One thing that McCullough never states explicitly, but that underlies so much of his writing is the concept of self-control. As I said earlier - thinking about the guy who scared me by passing me on the right (when I could hardly even see him) this morning - there are things I would have LIKED to have said to him. But the truth is, if I were really allowed to confront him? I'd probably not say any of them. I might express a desire that in the future he drove with his headlights on, I might tell him he scared me by passing so fast on the right and that it struck me as dangerously impatient. But I'd not curse at him, not call him an idiot - when I was actually confronted with him.

I think, perhaps, the anonymity of the modern age, of the internet, makes it easier to be rude. It is easier to forget one's self-control when the person who is the object of one's ridicule is not standing right there being spoken to face-to-face.

I will admit that one of the things I struggle with on a regular basis is this:

You have heard that it was said to those of old, “You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.” But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, “Raca!” [a Syriac word indicating great contempt, meaning “empty head” or “one who acts as a numskull” see Barnes, 1972, p. 52; Lenski, 1943, p. 219—CC] shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, “You fool!” shall be in danger of hell fire (Matthew 5:21-22). (from apologeticspress.com: article)

I do not have unlimited patience for what I perceive as foolish behavior. I do not like feeling I am being taken advantage of (for example, by people who come to me pleading disorganization or lack-of-experience or something, and therefore, they need to hand something in late). It is hard for me not to feel contempt for people that, I think, failed to use common sense. (It is probably my greatest failing in terms of personality). But I am reminded of the words I quoted above (and, I will say in my defense, I never say the thing to the person's face - I may criticize their behavior, but I will not call them a fool, except in my own head.)

I am not sure how to get past that, and it is something I struggle with.

However - the whole issue of courtesy. It is such a large topic and such a vital one. I am generally good with the basic "please and thank you" of everyday life. I am frankly often surprised at how few people say those things. It really does not cost a person anything, and it does, I think, make the other person feel better - in that you are seeing them as a PERSON, and not an obstacle in your path or as a servant.

It all comes down to the fundamental problem of seeing other people as PEOPLE - as fellow beings who love and fear and hope, as fellow beings who are as bound for the grave as we are, and who are deserving - and yes, I think, deserving, by mere fact of their existence - of a little basic kindness and respect.

I have real problems with people who label politeness as "repression" or who say it's unnatural. Well, yes, wearing clothes is unnatural, too, when you think about it. So is being vaccinated against diseases. So is having indoor plumbing. But those are all blessings of society (and regardless of what YOU may say, I argue that indoor plumbing is a blessing. And a vaccine that prevents me from getting polio or measles or tetanus. And so is clothing - even if it's just to cover the parts of me I'd rather the world not see).

It is not being "real" to be impolite to people. It is being impolite. "Realness," I'd argue, is a more difficult concept - it's closer to telling people the right truth at the right time (as per the Aristotle concept). It's saying the things the person needs to hear, but not necessarily including things they don't need to hear.

The problem I have with rudeness being seen as being "genuine" or "real" is...well, it's also part of the self-control idea. Yes, it may be closer to our animal natures to grab and wallow and push and force ourselves to the front. But we are not merely animals. We have intellects, or, if you like, souls. And I think that is the fundamentally human part of us - not tool-using, not walking upright. It is the fact that we can choose how we behave. We can choose to be animalistic and make the lives of others more miserable. Or we can choose to be on the side of the angels (as I would argue it) and strive to restrain our impulses to make people's lives miserable - and in fact, respond to those better impulses, those impulses to make people's lives a little nicer and a little better.