Do Manners Matter?

Here is a PG-13 version of an e-mail I received today:

"TAKE ME OFF YOUR F***ING MAILING LIST NOW, NEXT SPAM S**T I GET FROM YOU IS BEING REPORTED ... STOP IT NOW. F*** YOU AND THE HORSE UP YOUR A**."

I'm trying to think of what I might receive in my e-mail that could make me as mad as one of my articles apparently made the person who sent that message. A Hustler cartoon starring my 86-year-old mother and some Biblical characters? A ransom note?

I really can't think of anything. Consider this, too: I don't spam people, and only send to folks who sign up, or occasionally to a referred address or two. I put a clear "unsubscribe" instruction in each e-mail. That digitized vitriol up there, by the way, was this person's first request for me to cease and desist. Unbelievable!

The proliferation of e-mail, cell phones, handheld internet-capable computers and all the rest of it has certainly changed the way in which people converse. Perhaps "converse" isn't even the right word anymore, but be that as it may, it is not immediately apparent that the grinding and relentless march of technology should trump such time-tested interpersonal mediators as manners!

Okay, so I got some people to give me some e-mail addresses, like yours, perhaps. Then I collected some more online. Then I cataloged all of my own. Then I took the advice of an old friend and started sending out commentaries again, after a 10-year hiatus. (The old friend was editor, and I was managing editor, of a political rag that had enough guts to run my column,
too.) And so, my first pre-blog-era blog, "WHAT NEXT?" was (re)born, having been a print rag under various monikers since 1988.

Now, you can tell me you disagree. You can tell me to stop e-mailing you. But is there anything in what I've said or done that justifies the sort of response that became the subject of this commentary? I mean, don't you think people's fuses have gotten awfully short? Why didn't this person just unsubscribe after the first one? Do some people, perhaps, actually like getting worked up into a lather, a froth, a frenzy?

Do manners matter? Very much so, as it turns out. Manners are another way of oiling the machinery of social relations, a way that makes contention, competition and cooperation all possible within a range of predictable behavior. Manners smooth out, and sometimes simply (and thankfully) obscure, the rough edges and the unintended consequences of engaging in certain relationships, like anonymous ones over the internet. Manners help keep things in balance.

These days, so many people are ready to litigate or call the cops when they're feelings get hurt that I wonder if thin skin is a sign of continuing human evolution. When I was a kid, if someone called me a stupid squarehead or even some non-racial name, I was reminded of two things: (1) consider the source, and (2) sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me. Why should I care if some anencephalic jerk calls me a name? Who cares what an idiot says anyway?! And, in the case at hand, if I am cast as the bothersome idiot, this angry letter-writer could have taken the cool, calm, collected role of a mannerly person who didn't care what I said but had enough class to brush me off, not blow me up.

A real-life saga. A sad one, too. If I bother you, turn me off. But if you get so mad so fast, I wonder what it must be like to be your son, your daughter, your co-worker, your neighbor. It's sad to see civil discourse flogged to death by angry, bitter people unable to insulate their reactions from their emotions; but it's downright depressing to find so many people willing to turn off the talk show by shooting the radio point-blank with a shotgun.

Hey, mind your manners and use the off switch, eh?