The Power of ‘Excuse Me’

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York City wants schools to teach civility and all citizens to behave less rudely. No doubt, before his campaign ends, this will all come back to haunt him, especially if he loses his temper. As for civility on the city’s streets, there is no way to go but up. Yet, Giuliani will probably be criticized by those who say manners are trivial compared with the big issues.

Surprisingly, the mayor has history on his side, especially if we consider the big sweep of Western civilization. Anger control and violent responses are culturally and historically determined. In his unusual two-volume book “The Civilizing Process,” sociologist Norbert Elias was the first to link the rise of manners and the rise of the state. His ideas seemed preposterous: Could his study of such things as use of the fork really be serious?

Elias tied table manners, body posture and small bits of daily behavior to the rise of centralized monarchies and, ultimately, the bureaucratic state. He showed how apparently different realms--kings and table manners--attached together. For example, rather than stabbing meat from the center of the table with their own knife, those at court learned to take turns and use a fork. The king’s power at court required an orderly crowd who could pay attention and not turn a meal into a grab fest. Taking turns required patience and self-restraint. It still does. The power of the state began to shape the most basic human actions.

This issue is still urgent. Stateless societies are usually violent ones, whether frontiers, cities in disarray or nations in collapse.

Many historians and sociologists now believe that the long history of manners in Western society, and the growth of the state indirectly propelling them, help account for a five-century decline in personal violence. The analysis goes like this: In the 14th and 15th centuries, monarchs took control of their courtiers by insisting on some simple rules of behavior at court. Don’t hit. Eat with the fork, not with the knife (reduces violent fights at high table). Self-control, even in the way one greeted another or stood in a group, began at court. Hence: the word “courtesy.” Thus began the slow spread of manners from court to countryside.

If this is correct, it suggests that stronger states would have less violence, and cities less than rural areas. This is exactly what historians of medieval crime have found. Lower rates of violence began in cities and spread to the countryside, both in England and on the Continent. Overall, bloody interpersonal violence declined from its high point in the Middle Ages as people began to depend on each other’s predictable, nonviolent responses.

Rules of etiquette made courtly social relations less impulsive, and impulse is what usually led to violence. Impulse control, on the other hand, led to order. Am I the only one with the impulse to shoot a rude driver? Where did I learn to control such impulses? From an early age, we teach children to sit properly, not to interrupt, to take turns: This is how we learned impulse control. Courtiers learned these rules, too.

Manners can be imitated, and change can ripple through a society with often unexpected consequences. The medieval courtiers elaborating polite forms of greetings and early writers of etiquette manuals were not trying to reduce impulsive violence among peasants. “Romeo and Juliet” reminds us that personal violence once accompanied elite behavior.

If we all used Miss Manners as our guide to human relations, wouldn’t we be better off? It is indeed true that rude interactions can lead to violence. Cut someone off on the freeway (a key late-20th-century form of rudeness), and they may shoot you. Presumably, if the shooters were never cut off, they wouldn’t shoot. Or if they had a Miss Manners-trained response to slights, they might politely flash their lights and leave it be.

Imagine if every police-citizen interaction were governed by etiquette: The noncriminal would go away less offended and maybe even bad guys would learn how to treat others. Nice manners don’t cost much and lower tensions between strangers as much as between friends.

The problem is that if Elias and the historians who have followed his lead are correct, manners are deeper than a few surface rules. They take centuries to permeate society. Indeed, manners go deep and shape an individual’s self-concept, just as they go wide and relate to all members of a social system. Manners are both a consequence and a cause. The “civilizing process” reduced violence over a 400-year period, not overnight.

And there certainly are some strong arguments against good manners, especially in America. Our nation has an ingrained suspicion that manners mask and deceive. We have a long-held demand for authenticity: We hate hypocrites and dissemblers.

This search for authenticity was evident in the 19th century. Mark Twain made us see the moral superiority of Huck Finn and Jim, both bereft of the Victorian veneer of good manners. Huck apologized for his honesty and authenticity. He felt bad that he couldn’t live up to the hypocritical rules and superficial politeness of the do-gooders trying to save him.

Today, schools of pop psychologists teach us how to declare our true feelings, how to overcome the false smiles implied in courteous behavior.

Another problem is that the content of good manners makes a huge difference. Following social rules can lead as surely toward violence as away from it. In the late 19th century, some of the highest murder rates in the United States were probably among the most polite Americans: white Southerners. The gloss of good behavior could turn a simple slight into a deadly confrontation.

One of the most infamous bludgeonings in U.S. history did not occur at Florence and Normandy but on the floor of the U.S. Senate, in 1856, when Sen. Preston Brooks of South Carolina beat Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts unconscious with the metal end of his cane. Brooks came up behind Sumner, who was seated at his desk, and attacked without warning. This all followed prescribed rules of gentlemanly behavior, for in an anti-slavery speech, Sumner had insulted Brooks’ uncle in such a way that a duel was not called for. Sumner was an invalid for three years.

Slights and insults can be turned into murder if the rules of etiquette guide them that way. In “All God’s Children,” Fox Butterfield relates how Sen. Strom Thurmond’s father, the South Carolina state prosecutor, shot a drunken salesman who walked into his office. He had called Thurmond a “scoundrel” and, according to etiquette, that insult merited a lethal comeback. No wonder Southerners were polite to one another. The fragile veneer of good manners overlaid weak, almost nonexistent states that depended on the slaveholders’ violence for stability. No etiquette could fix that.

Contrast this Southern code of manners to the infamously blunt, laconic and unfriendly Yankee. Randolph Roth, the leading historian of New England violence for the 19th and early 20th centuries, has had to work hard to explain why this region has so little violence. He has too few murders to study. One wouldn’t turn to New England for etiquette lessons but, on the other hand, no one will kill you if you say the wrong thing.

Apparently, these regional differences are more than stereotypes. Psychologists Robert Nisbett and Dov Cohn have done a fascinating experiment with college students, comparing the reactions and testosterone levels of young men subjected to unexpected and unreasonably rude behavior. Those from the South have a rise in testosterone and anger levels, while those from the North laugh off the intrusion. Could these culturally ingrained ways of dealing with anger and slights explain why Georgia had a white murder rate nearly three times that of Massachusetts in 1995?

So the expectation that polite and predictable behavior--”after you,” “I’m sorry,” “pass the salt, please,” “you’re welcome”--will give social interactions the sanity, tolerance and safety that everyone wants has some flaws. Courtesy must reflect an individual’s inner self or the superficial veneer can lead one down the path to bloody confrontation. We have to actually mean, “Excuse me.”

Giuliani’s idea is a good one--and cheap, too. If New York’s mayor succeeds, we can hope that having tried civility, everyone will like it and keep at it. But for this to happen, mayors and council members everywhere will have to mind their manners, to provide a solid government presence so we can see them. That may lead, over the long term, to the good behavior that can make all lives more pleasant, less stressful and safer.