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Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of Everyday Life, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door Some time ago, I held open the door and
stepped aside to allow a lady following me to precede us while
entering a building. Out poured three young men without so much as
by-your-leave or a "Thank you", sweeping us aside, confident
in their swagger and unconcerned in their manner. Their action
simultaneously triggered emotions ranging from bemusement to outrage,
to plain and simple rage—quite out of proportion of the un-civic act
that had happened. A glance at the fellow victim showed a similar
reaction in her too, along with a bemused, resigned look. We had
just come back from a holiday abroad and seen orderly traffic,
courteous behaviour of people in packed mass transit stations, and the
total absence of blaring horns. Now this! It was intolerable. It was
just not fair. Why is it that we react so violently when we are
confronted with a situation in which the other party acts as contrary
to the rules that define good conduct and behaviour? Good manners
are basically rooted in empathy for the feelings of others. Naturally,
a rude person is often taken as much more than a lout. Sometimes we
even take a leap and erroneously equate uncivil with immoral. We have
a Hobbesian`A0notion of a world without rules and good conduct and
even thought we are in no danger of returning to what the 17th-century
philosopher called "the state of nature", where life is
"solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short". We want our
world to be orderly where people are well mannered and courteous.
Lynne Truss, who wrote the best-selling Eats, Shoots & Leaves,
on bad grammar in everyday life, now takes on bad conduct, in her
book, which has been released in India now. The title, "Talk to
the Hand, (because the face ain’t listening)," successfully
introduces us to this delightful diatribe against the erosion of
manners in everyday life. She is anecdotal, and also quotes from a
variety of sources as she takes us on an instructive, opinionated and
sometimes erratic tour of the manner-less world. "Just as the
rise of the Internet sealed the doom of grammar, so modern
communications technology contributes to the end of manners. Wherever
you turn for help, you find yourself on your own," she says.
Anyone who has to deal with an automated voice service, so much of a
darling of banks, corporations and others of their ilk, will assert
how maddening the process of navigating through their system is. We
are seeking help, and we find that, to use Truss’ phrase,
"there is an unacceptable transfer of effort." The system is
not designed to put the consumer’s requirements first, and is,
therefore, frustrating. Devices like mobile phones give us freedom,
and also somehow create a situation in which we believe that we are in
isolated bubbles even as we are in a crowd, we talk and others listen,
we share all on Facebook and Twitter. Like the 1897 quote from The
Times prophetically announced: "We shall soon be nothing but
transparent heaps of jelly to one another." Truss does rant from
time to time, and actually echoes us during our exasperated moments.
Here is an interesting one: "The effect of all this limitless
self-absorption is to make us isolated, solipsistic, grandiose,
exhausted, inconsiderate, and anti-social. In these days of relative
affluence, people are persuaded to believe that more choice equals
more happiness, and that life should be approached as a kind of
happiness expedition to the shops." Rants, even those concerning
boorish behaviour, get boring if they drag on. Sometimes they do so in
the book. Occasionally you want her to say what exactly you should do
in a particular situation, instead of just raving about it. Some
examples are too British, even for Anglophile among us, and at times
you long for the sure touch that was exhibited in Eats, Shoots and
Leaves. Truss, however, had touched on a subject close to the
heart of millions of people who simply fail to understand the way the
social order around them is devolving at a stunning pace. This is
unacceptable. Tehzib or manners are fundamental to civilised
societies and the last word on this must go to the American who wrote Etiquette
in 1922, the famous Emilie Post: "Beneath its myriad rules, the
fundamental purpose of etiquette is to make the world a pleasanter
place to live in, and you a more pleasant person to live with."
Amen.
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PLEASE,
thank you, excuse me, sorry — expressions that smoothen human
interaction and become a way to get out of millions of awkward
encounters every day. In our public schools, children are told that
these are "magic words", which they are, indeed. Manners
matter. That’s a fact. 