A Southern Man's View of Manners Today

Your Count's post today is in response to a recent article in the New York Times taking shots at the civility or loss of same in our land.   The reporter happens to be from San Francisco, so I don't know where she gets her soap box.  But anyway, feel welcome to read her concerns and my response....

This front page article in the Times under the headline: A Last Bastion of Civility, the South, Sees Manners Decline struck me like a gut punch. Not so much because it wasn’t true--sadly, parts were accurate--but because the writer seemed to be celebrating the decline of chivalry and manners in Dixie.

The most inflammatory sentence in the entire piece goes as such: To be sure, strict rules regarding courtesy and deference to others have historically been used as a way to enforce a social order in which women and blacks were considered less than full citizens.  Grrrrrr…..

Now, I was raised in the South and educated here, too. Some of the manners enforced at the fraternity house may have been a bit of show, but I assure you, when my grandfather stood up as his 84-year-old wife left the dinner table, it was a sign of respect and courtesy, not some subliminal effort to tell her she was
not his equal. Real men in the South know their manners. Today it’s not as
formal as before, but they know how to open the door for a lady or a senior, and
they use the respectful salute of “Sir” and “Ma’am” because their father did it
and their grandfather before him.

The photos in the NY Times article are of preteens learning ballroom dancing. The message to me is that this antiquated ritual of learning to waltz and shake hands is a dead language. Oh, how I hope not. 

When I attended Flossie Gerdine’s etiquette and dance classes, it was under pure duress and never really became fun. Being so young, I didn’t even care how cute MiMi and Cookie and Anne and the others were. But eventually, at a Cotillion in a big city or a lost cousin’s wedding I was able to put my fox trot skills to work and have really never looked back. You want to eat at the big people's table? Learn to do the box step.

Life is tough enough these days. A modicum of decorum cost nothing and sends a little jolt of “it’s all gonna be fine” to the giver and receiver of the gesture.  Manners for a man, if practiced, become secondary and habit. You almost feel embarrassed when you let yourself slide to the level of the modern slug.

When your Count was a bachelor in New York City, using my manners made meeting people the equivalent of hunting in a baited field. Holding a chair, a sincere “Yes, Ma’am” and a well-timed “y’all” got me invited into some of the most
magnificent parlors on Park Avenue. You were set apart.

Like a natural blonde in Hong Kong, people were fascinated at the most basic of chivalrous acts and responded in kind. I like to think folks from the South who spend time in the North leave it a better place. At least they exposed the Neanderthals to some manners.

Bring it on, oh ,you Yankee reporters. Tell us we’re losing our grip.  It just makes us more determined than ever to keep our courtly ways a bit longer.  I have a son who knows manners and practices them (somewhat) often. He’ll get there. And my two daughters have been trained to recognize a real gentleman from a phony.

I’ve found that young men from large cities like Atlanta aren’t as likely to practice good manners as those from towns like Athens.  But my girls have been exposed to them all. Who they choose is their business, but I’m rootin’ for the nice guy who stands up when they enter the room.