Love it!

Is this your own?

2the9s said:

Yes!

Mizzunderstood said:

blackcherry said:

"Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute."
-Josh Billings

Mizzunderstood said:

Well that explains everything!

sag10 said:

Oh come on, I'm serious here, as I'm sure you all realise and I'm requesting now, please, some serious responses?! Please? + tell me nothing of your views.

WE HAVE CONTACT!

Therapy said:

ok... define "manners".

if you're talking about outdated, stuffy, overly formal interactions, i wholeheartedly agree.

but i do see a benefit in treating others with good manners in the broadest sense - respect, open-mindedness, kindness...

the way i read your quote, manners and meaningful genuine interactions seem mutually exclusive.

(just wondering - hey, you asked for serious responses...)

Therapy said:

I didn't know you wanted responses!

When you meet someone for the first time or when you are talking to someone you don't know in public, manners are necessary and desirable. But they can be substitutes for meaningful human contact when people who know one another are polite at the expense of being honest or true, or when manners are used to maintain walls.

Even in the first case, we might see manners as a means of "feeling someone out," their stregngths and weaknesses, rather than as an attempt to get to know them. Like animals circling one another around.

I certainly think it's important to be civil, but reifying manners is not the way to go, unless you are at a state dinner or some sort of religious or civil service; in which case these are less manners and more rituals anyway.

People who are excessively polite or who yell and scream and cry for civility are usually those who will take any opportunity and use any means to be uncivil etc.

Oh, and YES I hold the door for my wife!

Well, EXXXCCUUUSE me.

IAmTheTouch said:

I completely agree with TheTouch. There is a place where mannerly takes over honest expression, and therefore does stifle genuine interactions. But there is also a side to being mannerly that is quite positive.

I tend to be a stickler for good manners. It's important to me that people don't swear excessivley in front of children, chew with their mouths closed, use please and thank yous appropriately, and ask permission before taking your things (and sometimes your time). I prefer people don't talk in movies, on their cell phone at the dinner table, or out of turn over someone else who's trying to say something. I like it when strangers smile at me, open doors for me, and say hello on the street. I do the same.
I understand that there comes a time when we become so comfortable with people that certain aspects can go by the wayside, but in general, I'm in favor of good manners. I don't find them stifling.

Therapy said:

Where are your manners, young lady!!

bkw said:

don't think i didn't hear you belch a few minutes ago, young man!!

OK. I am going to expand on what I mean.

When are manners mainly used? I think when one does not know another. Why is it necessary? Can I cut through manners, not to be rude, but to deeply touch another person in a way that is energising and joyful?

Therapy said:

I still don't think I'm understanding... Do you mean like, you see someone on the street who's crying and instead of leaving them alone you ask what's wrong? At least offer assistance? I'm trying to think of a specific example of not using "manners" with a stranger to "deeply touch" someone. I guess I think I don't see myself being "deeply touched" by a stranger unless it had to do with a random act of kindness (not necessarily to me, even something you witness), which really has nothing to do with manners... In fact I'd say it's good manners that gets you in the door to turn someone you don't know into someone you do. Do you have an example?

Therapy said:

uh oh! this is gonna be good!

Therapy said:

I know what you mean. The boundaries of what's appropriate with strangers sometimes keep us from being human.

MelissaC said:

Okay, very good wording, Melissa. And if that's what is meant by manners in the original statement, then I completely agree.

madartista said:

Yes, I think the boundaries of what is appropriate with strangers sometimes keeps me from being human. What I mean by manners, are like scripts that are unconsciously spoken, programmed into most people in childhood, which, as I stated in the original post, I think substitute genuine interaction with another human. I think exchanging something small and genuine, like what is going on for me (I feel... today. I think... today etc) with a shopkeeper for example and finding out what is going on for them, is a way of connecting deeply which I have experienced occasionally to be joyful and energising.

Manners are used in situations with people with whom I intuite an interaction to be safe with. Therefore, if it is ok for me to use manners with a person, I can also go deeper than that. And that is my personal preference, and it really comes out of the fact that for me, to connect with another is better than not connecting.