Manners cost nothing and are so enriching

THE Dáil’s Ceann Comhairle Seán Barrett spoke yesterday about how Oireachtas proceedings, like life in general, depend on a good level of civilised behaviour and respectful personal interaction to be effective.

He spoke of pointless grandstanding, of inappropriate and overly aggressive interventions and of his disappointment that some Dáil debutants have decided not to observe traditional dress codes while in the chamber. Sadly, he could have been describing a good portion of Irish life.

Like the fish knives and white gloves so beloved of the Victorian middle classes — social climbers or snobs if your disposition so disposes you — many of the mores once sacrosanct have been cast aside as holier-than-thou affectations that were, in so many pathetic ways, mere ostentation.

And so many of them were, just as they were manifestations of social subordination imposed on the weak, on those of “no property”. Tugging the forelock was demanded by convention because it was much, much more than being mannerly. It was acknowledging how society once — and still does if we’re in the mood to be honest — ordered itself.

This behaviour was so demeaning to all involved that it could not survive the great post World War I social upheaval that insisted on equality and human dignity in all our interactions.

This ever-changing etiquette has always been fertile ground for comedy and has even sustained a genre — the comedy of manners — for as long as writers have written.

And, almost as an aside, there are few depictions of tragic, vacant snobbery better than two from the classics — the pharmacist Homais in Flaubert’s Madame Bovary and the creepily abject clergyman Mr Collins in Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

So much of what Mr Barrett alluded to yesterday — he was far too mannerly to be more direct — is the direct opposite of the preposterous, poisonous behaviour of Homais or Collins.

Where they saw everything as a test of manners or status today too many of us see no place for manners at all. One tyranny has been replaced by another and our society, and too many of our relationships, are all the poorer for it.

Boorishness has too easily replaced snobbish buffoonery and it is a poor reflection on us all that we seem so indifferent about it ... or are we just too polite, too mannerly to point out what might be perceived as failings in others?

It seems that while rightly rejecting deference we have forgotten the need to show respect for each other, for ourselves and for the institutions through which our democracy functions. This, if we’re still in the mood to be honest, diminishes and devalues all of our lives.

The season of goodwill to all men — and women — is upon us and what better gift, and one that is easily affordable, to bestow on each other than to treat each other with the kind of respect that is defined by good manners.

Having manners is after all no more than imposing the kind of self discipline on yourself that shows proper respect for others. That shows how you would like to be treated yourself.