Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and
Speaker 2: there's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there,
Speaker 2: and we're all being very dainty and mindful and considerate
Speaker 2: and this.
Speaker 1: Is stuff you should know. That's right. And another great
Speaker 1: article from Libya. She got right to the meat of
Speaker 1: the matter. So maybe we should too.
Speaker 2: Sure, Okay, I had about six seven minutes of discourse
Speaker 2: on my own personal experience with manners. But okay, hey,
Speaker 2: Pepper thows in, I don't really have that, I know.
Speaker 2: So we are talking about manners, and essentially we should
Speaker 2: probably define it because manners are exactly what you think of,
Speaker 2: but what you think can also slide into what really
Speaker 2: is considered etiquette, which we'll talk a little bit about later.
Speaker 2: But manners can vary quite dramatically from locality to locality.
Speaker 2: They can be regional, national, cultural, household the household. They
Speaker 2: can differ within a neighborhood, like, for example, some houses
Speaker 2: in neighborhood will ask you to take off your shoes
Speaker 2: when you go in the house.
Speaker 3: Others are like, why would.
Speaker 1: You do that?
Speaker 2: That would be considered manners one way or the other,
Speaker 2: especially the taking off of your shoes thing. So it's
Speaker 2: kind of like an expectation of polite behavior that is
Speaker 2: culturally bound. Typically that's what manners.
Speaker 1: Are, and a time era based it.
Speaker 2: Can be, for sure. But some Chuck Olivia cited almost
Speaker 2: out of the gate an Egypsian vizier who's a political
Speaker 2: advisor from the Furonic era. His name was ta Hotep,
Speaker 2: not to be confused with Bubba Hotep, but ta Hotep,
Speaker 2: and he in his resignation letter, essentially his retirement letter
Speaker 2: to the pharaoh, gave all of this advice to young
Speaker 2: people in particular, but it was just basically life advice.
Speaker 2: But it was generally advice on manners, and it is
Speaker 2: it holds up today, like four thousand years later.
Speaker 1: Some of it does. One of the pieces of advice
Speaker 1: was to stay away from a battle of insults. Good advice, yep.
Speaker 1: Avoid gossip that's another good one.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: One that's a little questionable is eat whatever a superior
Speaker 1: offers you.
Speaker 2: Especially if they mash it in your mouths, they eat it.
Speaker 3: Stupid cow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I agree, but they can stand the test
Speaker 1: of time, for sure. But sometimes they're very locked in time.
Speaker 1: But the difference between manners and etiquette even though you can,
Speaker 1: you know, you can use those interchangeably generally. But etiquette
Speaker 1: is a little more formalized, like set of rules, and
Speaker 1: you'll often see them like published in books, and a
Speaker 1: lot of times it's tied to very ritualized, formalized stuff
Speaker 1: like you know, in the King's court, in royal courts,
Speaker 1: at fine formal dining meals and stuff like that, So
Speaker 1: it's a little more formal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Manners are another way to put it in. Manners
Speaker 2: are something that are ingrained from you by your culture, from.
Speaker 3: Your early childhood on.
Speaker 2: Etiquette is something you kind of actually have to actively
Speaker 2: seek out to learn, like whether it's from a book
Speaker 2: or from a finishing school or something like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, or you have like a.
Speaker 2: Spinster aunt who doesn't have anything else to do but
Speaker 2: browbeat you into keeping your elbows off the table tammy,
Speaker 2: dammy oh man.
Speaker 1: So one thing that you're going to see pop up
Speaker 1: a lot. And we probably don't even have to mention
Speaker 1: all of these examples because Libby is always so great
Speaker 1: at our cup always runneth over when she gives us stuff.
Speaker 1: But one repeated thing that you'll see is a lot
Speaker 1: of philosophers talk about this kind of stuff, and most
Speaker 1: of them agree, And most people agree that manners aren't
Speaker 1: just it's not just, hey, be polite to people. It's
Speaker 1: this is sort of the these are sort of the
Speaker 1: unwritten rules that keep us functioning as a civilized society.
Speaker 2: Yeah, high and low, like some are really really important,
Speaker 2: like prohibitions on violence, especially random on expected violence against
Speaker 2: other people. That's tip very better falls under Yeah, it does.
Speaker 2: It falls under the category of manners technically. And then
Speaker 2: also it can be much more evolved in just designed
Speaker 2: to make life more pleasant, like say opening doors for
Speaker 2: people you know, man or woman, but the person following
Speaker 2: you holding the door for them, that's mannerfol It just
Speaker 2: makes it nicer than the shutting the door on somebody's
Speaker 2: face who's coming in behind you. And that If you
Speaker 2: put all that together, manners essentially hold civilization together. They're
Speaker 2: the glue that keeps civilization civilized.
Speaker 1: Yeah. There was one modern day philosopher that Lyvia found
Speaker 1: named Anya Barringer, who said, it's sort of like it
Speaker 1: keeps you pro social and keeps your attention focused on
Speaker 1: making sure other people are doing fine. And an example
Speaker 1: that Olivia gab was like, you know, let's say you're
Speaker 1: throwing a dinner party at your house, and what you
Speaker 1: really want to do, though, halfway through that dinner party
Speaker 1: maybe is good to bed because you're just beat, But
Speaker 1: you don't because that would not be mannerly. So what
Speaker 1: you're doing is you're focusing on everyone else and making
Speaker 1: sure their drink is filled, that they had all they
Speaker 1: want to eat, and you're maybe clearing the dishes and
Speaker 1: doing all that stuff. So you're focused, and it's all
Speaker 1: under the umbrella of good manners. But what you're really
Speaker 1: doing is focusing on pro social behaviors.
Speaker 2: Right, And so some people that now we enter like
Speaker 2: where some people are really critical of that. Like some
Speaker 2: people would argue, you're really tired, go to bed, Why
Speaker 2: are you Why are you sacrificing your health conceivably just
Speaker 2: to keep some people you may or may not even
Speaker 2: particularly like satisfied. Sure you would hope, but I mean,
Speaker 2: somebody always brings tammy, I know. So there's a guy,
Speaker 2: a philosopher named Diogenes. He was one of the founders
Speaker 2: of the school of Cynics way back in the day
Speaker 2: in ancient Greece I believe in the third century. Yeah,
Speaker 2: about twenty three hundred years ago. In Diogenies, he dedicated
Speaker 2: his life to pointing out the hypocrisy that manners generate
Speaker 2: in people. He saw manners as a forced mask that
Speaker 2: people had to wear that hid their true cells from
Speaker 2: other people. And he wasn't saying you should go around
Speaker 2: and like hit other people if you want to, Like,
Speaker 2: he married the thing with morality, like you needed to
Speaker 2: be moral and upstanding, but you didn't need to be,
Speaker 2: you know, deferential to some superior because they're superior because
Speaker 2: society says they are. They're no more superior to you
Speaker 2: than you are to them. That was diogenes whole thing.
Speaker 2: And he hated manners so much so that he engaged
Speaker 2: in some pre shocking behavior in public just to kind
Speaker 2: of prove his point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as the stories go, he would masturbate and urinate
Speaker 1: in public and defecate. Yeah. So I don't know when
Speaker 1: you talk about like he really believed in like upstanding morals.
Speaker 2: Sure, but his point was if you're doing something in
Speaker 2: private with no problem, you should be able to do
Speaker 2: it in public. You're hiding your true self if you
Speaker 2: don't masturbate in public essentially was Diogeny's point, and as
Speaker 2: a result, people don't typically take up Diogeny's point, and
Speaker 2: in fact, he's very frequently considered an exception to the rule.
Speaker 2: Like the fact that he railed so hard against manners
Speaker 2: and just basically it seemed like a weirdo to everybody
Speaker 2: else kind of shows the importance of manners and keeping
Speaker 2: civilized society together. Like people are like, okay, yeah, I
Speaker 2: will kind of not respond to a jerk who's you know,
Speaker 2: socially my social better in exchange for not having to
Speaker 2: walk down the street and watch everybody masturbating in.
Speaker 1: Public, right right. Even the great philosophers over time that
Speaker 1: have sort of had a problem with the really formal,
Speaker 1: hoity toity, courtly type of stuff and that kind of extravagance,
Speaker 1: most of them even still agreed that like a basic
Speaker 1: level of manners and politeness is important to hold society together,
Speaker 1: and if it was, if we didn't have that stuff,
Speaker 1: society would just crumble. Where it can get really tricky,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk you know about this here and there
Speaker 1: is when you're you get too into policing someone else's manners,
Speaker 1: or when you're using that as sort of a I guess,
Speaker 1: sort of a dog whistle to talk about like the
Speaker 1: quote unquote wrong kinds of people and that kind of
Speaker 1: thing that can get very squirmy and thorny.
Speaker 2: Right, We also should say, and we'll get into it
Speaker 2: a little more later, it's manners are culturally bound. Like
Speaker 2: what's what's good manners in one society is not necessarily
Speaker 2: easily translated to another society. Olivia used the example of
Speaker 2: the Joho Jojo Nazi Johoansi.
Speaker 3: That's what I'm going with.
Speaker 2: Joe Ho Nazi people of Namibia, and they're hunter gatherers,
Speaker 2: and they have a tradition where the hunter who brings
Speaker 2: back meat is often its typically criticized for it there
Speaker 2: not being enough meat for the meat being of like
Speaker 2: so so quality, and they're doing that to like knock
Speaker 2: them down a peg so he doesn't feel any more
Speaker 2: superior to anybody else. And you actually see this in
Speaker 2: like the British Isles. It's a real tradition, not necessarily
Speaker 2: of criticizing the meat a hunter brings back, but it
Speaker 2: could happen and more just kind of like social restrictions
Speaker 2: like getting too big for your bridges, I think is
Speaker 2: a way to put it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And a lot of the European style of etiquette
Speaker 1: is historically a lot of it is based around these
Speaker 1: meal times and very formal set meal times that you
Speaker 1: sit down all together and you eat this big meal,
Speaker 1: and a lot of cultures through history don't do that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Native Americans didn't, or you know, many
Speaker 1: tribes didn't sit and have some big meal. Their jam
Speaker 1: was to like, hey, I got a stew on the
Speaker 1: pot at all hours of the day, So if you
Speaker 1: show up in my place, I might offer you some
Speaker 1: food you might want to eat. If you're hungry, then
Speaker 1: that's great. So we don't have that kind of formal thing.
Speaker 1: So that's obviously going to cause some friction and awkwardness
Speaker 1: when Europeans come over and meet Native Americans and say,
Speaker 1: we're going to make our way your way.
Speaker 2: So I was reading about that and apparently that social
Speaker 2: standard for manners for offering food and having like a
Speaker 2: perpetual pot of stew going was that held up during
Speaker 2: lean times winter like it didn't matter how little food
Speaker 2: you had, you still were expected to have that pot
Speaker 2: of you for for visitors.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think if the TV show Reservation Dogs
Speaker 1: is accurate, and I believe it is to modern day
Speaker 1: Native American culture. They on that show, they were they
Speaker 1: eat a lot, and they offer each other food a lot.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And there's another thing about offering food is there's a
Speaker 2: lot of cultures that expect you to decline being offered
Speaker 2: additional food. But there's that's part of a larger kind
Speaker 2: of dance where you the the host continues to offer
Speaker 2: multiple times, and then after a set amount of times,
Speaker 2: you can then and are actually expected to to say, yes,
Speaker 2: that would be great, thanks, I'll take I'll take some more.
Speaker 1: Yeah. That that can be a big thing in the South, Uh,
Speaker 1: offering you food over and over or like.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: I've experienced that with Italian families in the Northeast. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, sit down, keep eating right, and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm usually happy, happy to oblige. I don't want to
Speaker 1: be rude.
Speaker 3: Sure, who would be? You want to take a break, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Let's take an early break before we dive into europe
Speaker 1: salvation no dovish no. All right. So, as we say,
Speaker 1: manners and etiquette has changed here and there over the years,
Speaker 1: and as we'll see a lot of times when there's
Speaker 1: a big sort of like a big war or big
Speaker 1: social change or a big change in power or something
Speaker 1: like that. A lot of times you'll see these etiquette
Speaker 1: rules changing. And there's a book called The History of
Speaker 1: Manners written in nineteen thirty nine by Norbert Elias that
Speaker 1: said that, you know, medieval era through the nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: there was a big change in that. That's when people
Speaker 1: started to care a little bit how they were viewed
Speaker 1: by other people. They started to feel shame for doing
Speaker 1: things for the first time. Yeah, and they started to
Speaker 1: say things like, you know, it's really gross to see
Speaker 1: you blow your nose at the table or to go
Speaker 1: like to get up from your meal and go urinate
Speaker 1: in the corner or something like that, and like we
Speaker 1: need we should keep our bodily functions to ourselves.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So around the time of the Renaissance, the first guides
Speaker 2: to manners started to come out, and that was a
Speaker 2: good example of social organization in upheaval. The Renaissance was,
Speaker 2: so it makes sense that this would be one of
Speaker 2: the first guides to manners. In Europe, it was called
Speaker 2: the sivila tate morum purillium, which means civility of childish manners.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It was written by Erasmus, the famous Dutch philosopher, back
Speaker 2: in fifteen thirty, and he took some time out from
Speaker 2: translating the New Testament to write down manners, which basically
Speaker 2: was like, Hey, don't stir gravy with your fingers, don't
Speaker 2: blow your nose on the tablecloth at the table. Actually,
Speaker 2: just don't blow your nose on any tablecloth anywhere in
Speaker 2: any part of the house.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then if they showed spoons a lot, there would
Speaker 2: be communal soup, so you would taste the soup with
Speaker 2: the spoon, and he instructed, okay, after that, wipe it
Speaker 2: with a napkin after your use of that spoon before
Speaker 2: you put it back, which seems highly civilized for fifteen thirty.
Speaker 1: Can I cover this other one?
Speaker 3: Yes? Please.
Speaker 1: It's a pretty great trick still holds up today. If
Speaker 1: you have to fart at the table, cover up the
Speaker 1: sound of the fart with a heavy cough.
Speaker 2: I can't cough that long.
Speaker 1: Well, And to me, those two things are sort of
Speaker 1: I don't know if I can do those things at
Speaker 1: the same time, because they both engage the same mechanisms
Speaker 1: for me, right, I don't know that'd be weird. I've
Speaker 1: never tried.
Speaker 2: Instead, suck in a bunch of air in pucker your
Speaker 2: bottom hole. That's my advice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna try that at some point, not at
Speaker 1: a dinner table. I don't fart at the dinner table
Speaker 1: at all.
Speaker 2: Good for you, Chuck, You're really Erasmus would be proud.
Speaker 1: In the eighteenth century, in the royal courts, things got
Speaker 1: a little more sophisticated. Etiquette got a little more rigid.
Speaker 1: They you know, the word etiquette actually came from this
Speaker 1: time period. Comes from France, obviously, and there are different
Speaker 1: stories that it came from the word for ticket or
Speaker 1: a label. Some people you might find online that it
Speaker 1: came from signs keep off the grass, signs that King
Speaker 1: Louis had at Versailles, even though Livia said she couldn't
Speaker 1: find a lot of really great things to back that up.
Speaker 1: But Marie Antoinette apparently did have a nickname for her
Speaker 1: French aristocratic retainer, Madame Etiquette, because she was always saying, like,
Speaker 1: you gotta do this, you got to do this right.
Speaker 2: They also did eventually start printing instructions for how to
Speaker 2: behave at court, and that really follows in the vein
Speaker 2: of a label or a ticket. So that also kind
Speaker 2: of later on, I think, after the fact, became etiquette
Speaker 2: a name for that. It didn't make its way into
Speaker 2: English until I think the seventeen hundreds of mid seventeen hundreds,
Speaker 2: and there was an Earl of Chesterfield, the fourth to
Speaker 2: be exact. His name was Philip Dormer Stanhope, and he
Speaker 2: was very famous for a series of letters that he
Speaker 2: wrote to his illegitimate son. He was a minister in
Speaker 2: Holland for the English Crown, and while there he fathered
Speaker 2: a son, and he kept in touch and basically tried
Speaker 2: to explain to his son how to behave in civilized society.
Speaker 2: And it ended up being, if you put all the
Speaker 2: letters together, a pretty funny, witty but also very insightful
Speaker 2: treat us on manners.
Speaker 1: At the time, Yeah, it was kind of long distance fathering.
Speaker 1: He talked about Libya. Is quite a few of these.
Speaker 1: These are pretty good, but long talkers. That's a pretty
Speaker 1: fun one. If one of these unmerciful talkers lays hold
Speaker 1: of you, hear him with patience and at least seeming attention,
Speaker 1: if he is worth obliging.
Speaker 2: Yeah or yeah, don't carve meat to so much that
Speaker 2: you bespatter the company with the sauce or turn overturn
Speaker 2: the glasses in your neighbor's pockets. So just don't, you know,
Speaker 2: just be cool when you're carving meat, I think.
Speaker 3: Is what he was saying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's pretty good.
Speaker 3: What else?
Speaker 1: This one I don't quite get, although I think I
Speaker 1: do maybe for the time period. In scandal, as in robbery,
Speaker 1: the receiver is always thought as bad as the thief.
Speaker 1: So I get that he's talking about gossip. So like
Speaker 1: the gossiper, you know, is no better than the person
Speaker 1: that they're gossiping about.
Speaker 2: No, no, I think the person listening to the gossip too.
Speaker 1: Well, everyone's bad then, right. But what I don't get
Speaker 1: is comparing it to a robbery, Like if you're.
Speaker 2: The fence and you're getting the stolen items, you're no
Speaker 2: better than the thief who actually went in and stole
Speaker 2: the items.
Speaker 1: Oh, the receiver is the fence, Okay, I get it out.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, like Redfoot, Yeah yeah. Another one that I
Speaker 2: thought was pretty interesting was be not dark nor mysterious,
Speaker 2: And he was basically saying, like, be friendly to everybody,
Speaker 2: but be careful how much information you share, and that
Speaker 2: is a long standing piece of advice for manners. It
Speaker 2: goes back to Yeah, it goes back to Betahoe Tep
Speaker 2: who basically said, like, when you're speaking to your equal,
Speaker 2: you can be better than them by being silent. Like, really,
Speaker 2: watch how much information you share with those people. And
Speaker 2: the Philip Sandhope was widely criticized, I'm not sure if
Speaker 2: it was in his lifetime or not when his letters
Speaker 2: came out and were published for being a very cynical
Speaker 2: person who was also you know, shrewdly tuned in to
Speaker 2: manners and how to act courtly. But that really it's
Speaker 2: he exposed it for its worst kind of use, which
Speaker 2: is social jockeying, essentially trying trying to get ahead by
Speaker 2: hijacking the prescribed set of manners or rituals or etiquette
Speaker 2: that that anybody can engage in. And if you do
Speaker 2: it right and you're charming enough and you peer sincere
Speaker 2: on the surface, even the greatest psychopath around can become
Speaker 2: very wealthy and powerful thanks to etiquette. Following etiquette manners.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's a little tricky though, because a
Speaker 1: lot of people have labeled that very thing sort of
Speaker 1: the great democratizer. If you're someone who is of a
Speaker 1: you know at the time and whatever culture you're in,
Speaker 1: like in a what's looked at as a lower class,
Speaker 1: and you can learn these etiquette rules and pass yourself
Speaker 1: off physy upper class, then it levels the playing field totally.
Speaker 3: It does both.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 2: They're not mutually exclusive. It's just some of those people
Speaker 2: can have ill intentions or be insincere jerks. Other people
Speaker 2: are like, I really want to do better for myself
Speaker 2: and there's not easy access to college. This is how
Speaker 2: to how to get ahead in life, So I'm going
Speaker 2: to go learn this stuff and be earnest about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's a common I'm not gonna call
Speaker 1: it a trope, but just sort of a common theme
Speaker 1: and a lot of movies of someone sort of conning
Speaker 1: their way into the elite society, whether it's oh gosh.
Speaker 2: Secret of My Success, Short Circuit Too.
Speaker 1: Six Degrees of Separation, or I can't think of Grifters
Speaker 1: is even doing that.
Speaker 3: I've never seen it.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, Grifters is great, But you know, I can't
Speaker 1: think of like an old sort of English movie version
Speaker 1: of that. But I know, oh, like tricking your way
Speaker 1: into court was a common theme.
Speaker 2: What about Barry Linden. Oh, yeah, there you go, thank you,
Speaker 2: thank you everybody?
Speaker 1: What agreatment? Did you hear the applaude?
Speaker 3: Yeah in my head. So.
Speaker 2: And then in the United States, the initial adoption of
Speaker 2: manners and etiquette in particular was basically European exports important
Speaker 2: to the States from very early on. And it wasn't
Speaker 2: until the nineteen twenties that well, I shouldn't say that,
Speaker 2: it wasn't until the nineteen twenties that the Americans were
Speaker 2: exposed to the formal etiquette that had developed over the
Speaker 2: years on its own in America through Emily Post. Now,
Speaker 2: it had been developing from say the mid nineteenth century on.
Speaker 2: It basically was attached to a rocket ship during the
Speaker 2: Second Industrial Revolution in the United States and the ensuing
Speaker 2: Gilded Age, because there was suddenly a lot of very
Speaker 2: wealthy people who may or may not have had any
Speaker 2: wealth whatsoever before. And so all of these all this etiquette,
Speaker 2: these rules of etiquette started to develop and pass along,
Speaker 2: and Emily Post was raised in that world, and she,
Speaker 2: as I think a forty something divorce a sat down
Speaker 2: and put pen to paper and wrote what became the
Speaker 2: most successful etiquette book of all time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in nineteen twenty two, Etiquette in Society, not a
Speaker 1: colon Everybody a comma, Etiquette in Society and business and
Speaker 1: politics and at home. These days that would still have
Speaker 1: a colon and some dumb long subtitle.
Speaker 2: It'd be nothing. It be instead of commas to be colon, colon, colon, colon.
Speaker 1: Everywhere, aka how to act right right. But you know,
Speaker 1: Emily Post is very famous for being sort of one
Speaker 1: of the first Americans to put this forward. She talked
Speaker 1: about belonging to the best society, and in her eyes
Speaker 1: that meant, well, you know, you're born into it in Europe,
Speaker 1: or you're born into it or earn it in the
Speaker 1: way of wealth in the US. But what I'm really
Speaker 1: trying to talk about is just how to belong in
Speaker 1: those worlds because you're polite and you have good behavior
Speaker 1: and a charm of manner. Vanity Fair. Laura Jacobs from
Speaker 1: Vanity Fair said it was one of the twenty centuries
Speaker 1: great acts of democracy. And again it's this idea that
Speaker 1: here's the code everybody. It's for everyone to learn if
Speaker 1: they want to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was reading about her. I was reading that
Speaker 2: Vanity Fair article, and Emily Post was a heck of
Speaker 2: a person. She had a great sense of humor, She
Speaker 2: had a great sense of perspective of herself in the
Speaker 2: world and even the manners that she was talking about.
Speaker 2: But she became divorced after it came to light that
Speaker 2: her husband had been running around on her. But before
Speaker 2: they divorced, she found out about this because he was
Speaker 2: being blackmailed. There's a blackmailing scheme that blackmailed everybody in
Speaker 2: New York society. And they finally got around to Emily
Speaker 2: Post's husband and he told her about it, and she said,
Speaker 2: don't do not just fall prey to these people, like
Speaker 2: call the cops, expose these people. And she did it
Speaker 2: at the risk of great personal scandal, like she was
Speaker 2: outed as having been cheated on by her husband, which
Speaker 2: really shouldn't have shocked anybody, like all husbands cheated on
Speaker 2: their wives back then, especially in that level of society.
Speaker 2: But she put herself out there and allowed it to happen,
Speaker 2: to be publicly humiliated, I guess is what you call it,
Speaker 2: in order to prevent some scummy blackmailers from winning again.
Speaker 2: And she actually shut down the blackmailing ring with the
Speaker 2: help of the cops just by allowing this to happen.
Speaker 1: Was there an etiquette angler or was that just mora
Speaker 1: an Emily post?
Speaker 2: Was it just shows that she had such a sense
Speaker 2: of justice and what was right that she was willing
Speaker 2: to put herself out there in a really un comfortable
Speaker 2: way to ensure that that justice was done.
Speaker 3: I think, awesome.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's a neat person.
Speaker 1: So Judith Martin is another very famous manner advice person
Speaker 1: here in America, Miss Manners aka Miss Manners. This advice
Speaker 1: column started in nineteen seventy eight, it's still around, and
Speaker 1: Judith Martin is another person who says, you know, this
Speaker 1: is the glue that binds society and kind of holds
Speaker 1: us all together.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: There was another term, which I really like call the
Speaker 1: politics of respectability, coined by a historian named Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham,
Speaker 1: and she was talking about black women in the progressive
Speaker 1: era who were saying, you know, be polite, be modest,
Speaker 1: and this is how we're gonna help make change. And
Speaker 1: Olivia points out, like these these awful pictures during the
Speaker 1: Civil Rights era of black American you know, dressed in
Speaker 1: their best Sunday suit, you know, getting fire hosed at
Speaker 1: a demonstration, you know, stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, some people have said like that's that was a
Speaker 2: good tactic, like it made a lot of sense at
Speaker 2: the time, and it probably did help quite a bit.
Speaker 2: But just if you step back and think about having
Speaker 2: to be civilized in the face of that, just to
Speaker 2: get basic entrance to to constitutional rights is pretty rotten
Speaker 2: if you stop and think about it like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there are a couple of angles, for sure.
Speaker 2: So I say we take our second ad break and
Speaker 2: then come back and talk about get this manners.
Speaker 1: Let's do it.
Speaker 2: Noon, okay, Chuck. So we were talking earlier about how
Speaker 2: manners and even etiquette are not easily translated across culture.
Speaker 2: Sometimes some are I was looking for universal manners and
Speaker 2: I could not find them. I think the closest thing
Speaker 2: that I found that was essentially universal is and I
Speaker 2: don't even think that's correct, but I'll say that it's
Speaker 2: very widespread is the concept of superiors, equals and inferiors
Speaker 2: within a society and how you interact with each one.
Speaker 2: That seems to be fairly universal except in Scotland and
Speaker 2: among the Jewel Huansi, Jewel hu Nasi.
Speaker 1: Oh that's funny. Yeah, I mean, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of examples of this. There's we talked about Edward T.
Speaker 1: Hall in our pair Personal Space episode in nineteen fifty five.
Speaker 1: This is when he was some of his best work,
Speaker 1: and he talks about and this is course in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty five. But so it's kind of funny to look
Speaker 1: at some of these. But he talked about Americans interacting
Speaker 1: with other countries, and he was like, you know, if
Speaker 1: you're from China, you might be you might think someone
Speaker 1: raising their voice like always means that they're angry. So
Speaker 1: that if they see an American like really emphasizing a
Speaker 1: point by raising their voice, they might be caught off
Speaker 1: guard and think they're angry. Whereas, and again this is
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties and Latin America. If a business person
Speaker 1: from America introduced themselves, like you know, from across the
Speaker 1: room and said, mister Charles W. Chuck Bryant, they may
Speaker 1: think that's a little too formal. But then on the
Speaker 1: other hand, they also might say, but these Americans, they'll
Speaker 1: just like kick back and put their feet on their
Speaker 1: desk in the middle of a meeting. And you don't
Speaker 1: do that kind of thing at work.
Speaker 2: I can just see an American meeting somebody from like
Speaker 2: Brazil and introducing themselves as mister right. Some Brazil's does
Speaker 2: their best, like Emo Phipps, like Lah.
Speaker 3: Remember him?
Speaker 2: He was famous for that who Emo Phipps. He had
Speaker 2: that weird like page boy haircut.
Speaker 1: And he was Phillips, Emo Phillips.
Speaker 3: I thought it was Phipps.
Speaker 1: I thought it was Phillips. Am I wrong.
Speaker 3: No, I think it's one of those two.
Speaker 1: He's still around, I think, or did he just pass away?
Speaker 3: I don't think so.
Speaker 1: No, Okay, I never I think. Didn't we talk about
Speaker 1: him recently?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: But then I feel like we did. Okay, No, he's
Speaker 1: still a life.
Speaker 3: Good for him? Is it Phillips or Phipps?
Speaker 2: It's Phillips Okay, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: Emo, he's almost seventy. What I know?
Speaker 3: Wow?
Speaker 1: That page boy? That will make you look young, Chuck.
Speaker 2: I think we're getting old too. Is one of the things.
Speaker 1: No, Uh, let's talk about punctuality for a minute. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's huge, because that's, depending on where you are, can
Speaker 1: mean a lot of things. I often laugh when I
Speaker 1: think back at going to my dear friend Seema's wedding.
Speaker 1: She married my good friend Chris, and they had you know,
Speaker 1: big Indian wedding and everyone was always late on her
Speaker 1: side to all the functions, and she just always laughed
Speaker 1: and was like, hey, the Indians relationship to time is
Speaker 1: very loose, and so everyone just get used to it
Speaker 1: because it's going to be happening in all weekend long, right,
Speaker 1: And they were all wonderful and they were always late,
Speaker 1: and it was a lot of fun and funny.
Speaker 2: So in Australia and New Zealand, punctuality is very very important,
Speaker 2: like even more important than in the United States, where
Speaker 2: it's pretty important.
Speaker 3: Here.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's usually about a five minute grace period
Speaker 2: to where the person is willing to not get upset I.
Speaker 1: Think, and then fins on the thing fifteen minutes if.
Speaker 2: It's something that you're paying somebody for, like say, oh sure,
Speaker 2: hair appointment or whatever. If you're trying to move your
Speaker 2: part closer to the crown of your head, you can
Speaker 2: be up to fifteen minutes late without without them penalizing you.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: But for the most part it's pretty important here. I
Speaker 2: get the impression. In Australia New Zealand it's I saw
Speaker 2: it put it.
Speaker 1: It's critical yeah. My deal with punctuality is I am
Speaker 1: a very punctual person. I get very stressed out if
Speaker 1: I'm running late, and I really try my best to
Speaker 1: not run late for anything. And I've but I've gotten
Speaker 1: really good about trying to not let other people's lateness
Speaker 1: upset me. Like with friends and stuff. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: because that's no good. Like you don't want to be
Speaker 1: mad at a friend if you're waiting on them to
Speaker 1: go do something fun and out. I mean, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go over and play hacky sack in the park,
Speaker 1: like you know, a concert or something that has a
Speaker 1: time that you're now sort of running late for. I
Speaker 1: would get upset, So I've what I've learned to do
Speaker 1: is not just not get upset because I can't control
Speaker 1: my emotions like that, but I have. There are certain
Speaker 1: people in my life that are always late, and I
Speaker 1: just started telling them thirty minutes early. Smart that's all
Speaker 1: you got it. That's the I'm not even gonna call
Speaker 1: it a hack. That's just smart living.
Speaker 2: No, that'stepulation, but smart manipulation, and I think justified to
Speaker 2: people are begging for it. We're both punctual, definitely, and
Speaker 2: I get very stressed out too. Especially, I've really had
Speaker 2: to kind of get more laid back about making it
Speaker 2: to the airport because Uman's like, let's just get there
Speaker 2: two minutes before they close the door, so we don't
Speaker 2: we don't have to spend much time.
Speaker 3: On the airport. In theory.
Speaker 2: I love that, but that's not no, I can't. So
Speaker 2: I used to be like a like, let's leave maybe
Speaker 2: more than two hours before our flight.
Speaker 3: To get to the airport.
Speaker 2: And now I'm like, okay, I can conceivably leave like
Speaker 2: maybe eighty minutes, ninety minutes before something like that, maybe
Speaker 2: an hour, depending on how like Lucy Goosey, I'm feeling.
Speaker 1: I like to be early for flights just because I can.
Speaker 1: I just don't want to be stressed out at all,
Speaker 1: So I like to be pretty early.
Speaker 3: Okay, so fair enough.
Speaker 2: Punctuality very important. Another one is eye contact. That's another
Speaker 2: universal one, but it's not in a necessarily the same
Speaker 2: around the world, and in fact it's quite the opposite
Speaker 2: from place to place. In America the United States, you
Speaker 2: want to hold some sort of eye contact, there's a
Speaker 2: certain amount and you have to This just takes a
Speaker 2: lot of practice. You can very easily trep into like
Speaker 2: crazy looking territory or creepy if you overdo it. But
Speaker 2: if you underdo it, you seem untrustworthy and shady.
Speaker 3: So you have to do just the.
Speaker 2: Right amount of eye contact and you can look away
Speaker 2: and then you look back again, depending on how long
Speaker 2: the conversation is. Apparently in the UK you just don't
Speaker 2: really make much eye contact at all during a conversation.
Speaker 1: Yeah. What I found works for me is to try
Speaker 1: and not think about it, because once that happens, I'm done.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah sure.
Speaker 1: Like in conversation with someone out to know, I try
Speaker 1: to be like, yeah, just have a normal conversation. You
Speaker 1: kind of look at someone's face in general, look them
Speaker 1: in the eyes, to the way a little bit, touch
Speaker 1: their cheek here and there if they say it's okay.
Speaker 1: But once it gets into my head, if it's a
Speaker 1: nervy situation and I'm like am I making an eye contact?
Speaker 1: And am I making too much? Then I'm just done.
Speaker 3: For it totally, especially if you like look away seven.
Speaker 1: Look back and they're like, why are you counting? There's
Speaker 1: there may be at least a short stuff into eye contact,
Speaker 1: because there's a lot more to just besides you know,
Speaker 1: being rude or not being rude, like the science of
Speaker 1: eye contact and what it means and the brain signals
Speaker 1: that are being received and stuff like that. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know, there may be something there.
Speaker 3: They say the eyes are the window to the face.
Speaker 1: Quickly on punctuality. Did every tell you my Chiquill o'neial
Speaker 1: photo shoot story?
Speaker 2: I probably have, yes, but let's hear it again because
Speaker 2: it's been a while.
Speaker 1: Well, and I don't know if this is the angle
Speaker 1: that I even mentioned last time. But I was a
Speaker 1: on a job. It was a still photo shoot with
Speaker 1: Shaquille O'Neil on a beach in LA and he was
Speaker 1: supposed to get there at He was supposed to get
Speaker 1: there at like three so we could shoot him out
Speaker 1: at sunset on a beautiful beach at five. And Shaq
Speaker 1: showed up at like noon and said, I'm leaving it
Speaker 1: too because I got to go get my daughter from school.
Speaker 1: And if you've never worked in film shoots and TV
Speaker 1: and movie shoots and stuff like, you don't like the
Speaker 1: schedules are very almost military like, and how rigid they are,
Speaker 1: and you don't just say, by the way, I'm going
Speaker 1: to completely change the timeframe here, but you can if
Speaker 1: you're Shaquille O'Neil.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and if you look closely, there is not a
Speaker 2: single General Insurance commercial that was shot around sunset.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing, though, I don't want it. He wasn't
Speaker 1: rude about it. He was very nice. He wanted to
Speaker 1: get his daughter from school, and everyone shifted their day
Speaker 1: and it worked out great and we had a good time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you gotta be.
Speaker 2: Careful, Chuck, because he lives here in Atlanta. You might
Speaker 2: bump into him like a Papa John.
Speaker 1: There, you remember me? How was that, p U?
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2: So there's some other questions about manners, like it's really fun. Actually,
Speaker 2: we found a great article on trip Advisor.
Speaker 3: Written.
Speaker 2: Clearly by somebody who's not American born or US born,
Speaker 2: but who has a pretty good idea of what goes
Speaker 2: on here. So it's really neat to see us here
Speaker 2: in America viewed externally and like our mannerisms are habits.
Speaker 2: That kind of stuff explain to somebody who's coming to
Speaker 2: the United States. So if you're want a trip Advisor
Speaker 2: and you go into United States travel articles, look for
Speaker 2: polite manners. And it is exhaustive and extensive and very
Speaker 2: insightful actually, but it's it's pretty interesting to just kind
Speaker 2: of see us through that lens.
Speaker 1: You know, oh totally. You sent this to me. It
Speaker 1: was a lot of fun to look through, and we
Speaker 1: were kind of trading on text like the ones we
Speaker 1: thought were funny, and we both agreed under general decorum
Speaker 1: this passage curse words should be avoided around children at
Speaker 1: all times. Some teens will curse in the streets, however,
Speaker 1: try not to confront them about it's right.
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of people who kind of argue
Speaker 2: that manners are dead, and you can make an argument
Speaker 2: that yes, traditional manners are dead. Like knowing what fork
Speaker 2: has used for what course of the meal. It's very
Speaker 2: vanishingly understood these days. Or keeping your elbows off the table,
Speaker 2: which apparently was initiated to prevent other people from taking
Speaker 2: your like the posture you have which allows you to
Speaker 2: lunch across the table at somebody as hostile. That's what
Speaker 2: I've seen that it prevented people back when they were
Speaker 2: much bigger lunkheads in general, from fighting one another. You
Speaker 2: just kept your elbows off the table, and it's much
Speaker 2: less aggressive if you've if.
Speaker 3: You try them both.
Speaker 2: The whole idea of not putting your elbows on the
Speaker 2: table is an inherited piece of etiquette that frankly is outdated.
Speaker 2: That's my take on it. If you don't put your
Speaker 2: elbows on the table because you have manners, that's fine too.
Speaker 2: But the point is there are customs and manners and
Speaker 2: etiquette that we've gone through. They're just kind of they
Speaker 2: made their point at the time, they were useful, and
Speaker 2: now they're not so useful anymore. That doesn't mean that
Speaker 2: manners and etiquette in general have gone away, just that
Speaker 2: they've evolved, and now we have all sorts of new
Speaker 2: manners in etiquette that are thrilling for people alive in
Speaker 2: the twenty first century.
Speaker 3: I'm thrilled by them.
Speaker 1: At least. Another big one is smoking. I looked up
Speaker 1: the most recent stat I could find, and here in
Speaker 1: the United States, about eleven percent of people still smoke.
Speaker 1: And it's I think considered very rude these days to
Speaker 1: just light up a cigarette, even if you're outside sometimes
Speaker 1: like really close to a bunch of people.
Speaker 2: I find it rude even if you're nowhere near a
Speaker 2: bunch of people, because those that smoke carries so well
Speaker 2: it does that that yes, you to me, I think
Speaker 2: we've reached the point where you're allowed to smoke in
Speaker 2: your own house, in your own car.
Speaker 1: But it didn't use. I mean, we are, We're all
Speaker 1: part of this era. You and I where not even
Speaker 1: so long ago it was fine to smoke anywhere in
Speaker 1: front of anyone.
Speaker 2: I smoked on an airplane once, like it was it was,
Speaker 2: you know, that was definitely within my lifetime.
Speaker 1: I bet there were some French bereguys smoking there.
Speaker 2: We were holding that smoking section down, and smoking section
Speaker 2: was the last three roads. There was nothing, no barrier,
Speaker 2: anything like that. So you're just smoking up the back
Speaker 2: of the plane. It was such a dumb idea.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was. I was curious because I wondered how
Speaker 1: the rest of the world was doing with smoking, And
Speaker 1: so I looked up countries who smoke the most. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I can't remember, uh which one was number one,
Speaker 1: but it was it was like almost fit fifty percent
Speaker 1: of the people. They're still smoked. Well, this is a
Speaker 1: different one I'm looking at now, says China. But oh,
Speaker 1: here we go, it's number one. N A U r U.
Speaker 1: Now RU where is that?
Speaker 3: I'm not sure?
Speaker 1: And Kirabati are both at fifty two percent. There's only
Speaker 1: twelve thousand people that live in Nauru, so I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have to look up where that is. But that is,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know if there used to be
Speaker 1: twenty four thousand people in half of them right passed
Speaker 1: from lung cancer or what.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. One of the other
Speaker 2: things about the evolution of etiquette in manners is just
Speaker 2: the snapshot that it provides the time we live in today,
Speaker 2: and you can get a really good picture of that.
Speaker 2: The cut ran an article. I think it's like one
Speaker 2: hundred and forty rules of etiquette, and a lot of
Speaker 2: them make a lot of sense. A lot of them
Speaker 2: like really kind of tap into the culture that we
Speaker 2: live in now. Like my favorite one was after seventy
Speaker 2: two hours, you have amnesty from mentioning how long it
Speaker 2: took you to respond to a text, So after that
Speaker 2: you can just respond to the text like you're responding
Speaker 2: to it like no time has passed before seventy two hours.
Speaker 2: You have to say, sorry, this took me so long,
Speaker 2: And it's true. It totally makes sense, and I find
Speaker 2: it very mannerly that that just I mean, it just
Speaker 2: makes sense to me. But some whole things like that.
Speaker 1: So if you don't answer a text after let's say
Speaker 1: you wait a whole week, Yes, you don't have to say,
Speaker 1: oh man, I'm sorry, this thing got buried.
Speaker 3: No, you do not.
Speaker 2: And as a matter of fact, I've kind of been
Speaker 2: intuitively picked that up because I've got one brewin with
Speaker 2: my friend Matt that is easily a week and a
Speaker 2: half old. Yeah, and I've just learned not to call
Speaker 2: it out because it makes it way worse.
Speaker 3: They're well aware that.
Speaker 2: It's been a week and a half and it seems
Speaker 2: insincere to be like, oh sorry, it took me a
Speaker 2: week and a half to get back to you. It's
Speaker 2: this is when I had time to like give this thought,
Speaker 2: this attention, and I'm getting back to you now. It
Speaker 2: just makes sense to me as a as a delayed texter.
Speaker 1: What else you got anything else in there?
Speaker 2: There were there were so many No, I mean, there's
Speaker 2: there's stuff all over about tipping, about work culture, just
Speaker 2: you know, going out to bars, dating, ghosting people, Like
Speaker 2: it's okay to ghost somebody, Uh, if you've only been
Speaker 2: on one date and you didn't follow up with a
Speaker 2: lot of texting or emails or any of your calls.
Speaker 2: You can just ghost them and feel fine about it.
Speaker 2: But if you did kind of like, you know, make
Speaker 2: it seem like you're a little more interested and then
Speaker 2: ghost them, that's kind of mean. And then never, they said,
Speaker 2: never ghost somebody and then come back like later on
Speaker 2: in life and ask them for a favor of any kind. Like,
Speaker 2: once you go somebody, that's it.
Speaker 1: You're done interesting. You know, I will say that, like,
Speaker 1: I'm not mister mister Manners, but I do believe in
Speaker 1: being polite and like, you know, open the door for
Speaker 1: people and stuff like that. But I think that, like, uh,
Speaker 1: I think poor manners, like if I was on the
Speaker 1: dating scene or something, I think poor manners can be
Speaker 1: a real red flag as just the overall sort of
Speaker 1: kind of person someone.
Speaker 3: Is, right.
Speaker 2: And I think that's what Emily Post was helping people do,
Speaker 2: was helping sincere people. She said, the three principles of
Speaker 2: etiquette of consideration, respect and honesty. Yeah, and so she
Speaker 2: was saying, if you are those three things, if you're considerate, respectful,
Speaker 2: and honest, here's what you need to do to present
Speaker 2: that in the best possible light to people. To let
Speaker 2: people see how how great you are. This is just
Speaker 2: some easy rules for you to follow that that you know,
Speaker 2: so that you don't seem like a bore when you're
Speaker 2: out on a date, because you're not a boer. You're
Speaker 2: a considerate, respectful, honest person who deserves love.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're also making other people feel comfortable and
Speaker 1: at ease, and those are things we should strive to do.
Speaker 3: Agreed Chuck.
Speaker 2: Well, since I agreed with Chuck and he chuckled a
Speaker 2: little bit because of something that he and I and
Speaker 2: Jerry know about. How that means it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm going to call this one boyd. It's
Speaker 1: so old I don't even remember what to call it.
Speaker 1: It has been in the old folder for a while.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, long time first time as callers used to
Speaker 1: Sam Larry King just got done listening to the episode
Speaker 1: on International Debt Forgiveness. Oh it was not that old,
Speaker 1: and has promised it was very interesting and totally day ruining.
Speaker 1: I wanted to mention something I'll understandably had to sort
Speaker 1: of YadA YadA on the episode for Concision, and that
Speaker 1: is the fact that the rest of Europe simply allowed
Speaker 1: Leopold the Second monarch of a neutral country to set
Speaker 1: up his own personal colony in Africa. While this is
Speaker 1: true on its face, Sebastian Major's excellent three part story
Speaker 1: on the Free State of Congo Our Fake History episodes
Speaker 1: eighty eighty one eighty two elucidates how that came to be.
Speaker 1: While he of course goes on to recount the atrocities
Speaker 1: committed in the Belgian Congo and horrifying detail. The first
Speaker 1: two episodes are the really interesting part where he describes
Speaker 1: the most stunning and cynical whitewashing propaganda kind of campaign
Speaker 1: that painted Leopold the Second as the paragon of late
Speaker 1: nineteenth century abolitionist moral rectitude, culminating in the formation of
Speaker 1: a charity called the International African Association, which all created
Speaker 1: of an ear beneficent stewardship that allowed unchecked exploitation of
Speaker 1: the land and people. That's quite a sentence.
Speaker 3: That was one sentence.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, wow, fantastic, And all of this is sounding
Speaker 2: like really familiar. I was like, yeah, I ran across
Speaker 2: all this in my research and I just realized now
Speaker 2: that this is from reading this email before.
Speaker 3: That's why it sounds familiar.
Speaker 1: It's basically like if the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Speaker 1: turned out to be a front for harvesting adrenochrome from children.
Speaker 3: Nice reuff.
Speaker 1: The story will put you in a fetal position for hours,
Speaker 1: though Sebastian Major's charming Canadian accent makes it somewhat more tolerable.
Speaker 1: Thanks guys, always great to listen to the show, and
Speaker 1: that is from John.
Speaker 2: Thanks John, fantastic email. Thanks for pointing that out and
Speaker 2: yes we had to YadA YadA that and also in
Speaker 2: addition to Sebastian Major's probably mentioned it at the time,
Speaker 2: but behind the Bastards, did I think a couple parts
Speaker 2: on King Leopold too?
Speaker 1: Great show from our very own network.
Speaker 2: Well, if you want to get in touch of us
Speaker 2: with more info, like John, did we love that kind
Speaker 2: of thing, you can wrap it up, spank it on
Speaker 2: the bottom, and send it off to Stuff podcast at
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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