A few days ago I sat down to watch what I thought was a time-honored and personal favorite musical of mine–My Fair Lady. Turns out my memory regarding this movie had taken a 10 year hiatus because it certainly wasn’t the movie I remembered. I should have guessed my memory hadn’t been serving me well when I got up to leave once the movie had finished, only to find out that what I thought was the ending credit roll was only the intermission. All that aside, it was a decent experience. If you like musicals, that is. You may or may not recall the leading man, Professor Henry Higgins, as a brutish and egotistical character who experiences a “change of heart” (if you can call it that). Amidst the unpleasant strings of insults hurled at his pupil, he does make this fairly insightful comment: “You see, the great secret, Eliza, is not a question of good manners or bad manners, or any particular sort of manners, but having the same manners for all human souls.” *Ironically, this statement is quickly followed by yet another insult, so we’ll just pretend that this was a noble declaration meant to stand alone.*
Manners and etiquette. Old fashioned? Out of date? Reserved for the upper middle class and beyond? No one seems to notice or care, so why even bother? Perhaps you can argue that manners build a fabricated facade which wrongfully stifles the true feelings of an individual. Whatever the argument against manners may be, I boldly declare that it falls flat in comparison to any argument for the institution of manners. I promise that there is room enough in your vocabulary for “please” and “thank you,” and moreover that the world is in desperate need of as many “pleases” and “thank yous” as it can get.
I feel that a flawed conception surrounding the world of manners and etiquette is that their silly rules and guidelines only achieve an uppity, “holier than thou” attitude, as if they are devised to place someone above another. But let this be the most emphatic point I make on the subject: What it really boils down to is this simple equation . . .
