Manners are a misunderstood thing: They are not, at heart, about aesthetics, about making yourself a more pleasant dining companion. It does not matter, in itself and in the greater analysis, which fork you use for your salad. The point of manners is to make other people feel valued, respected, and considered.
Which is to say, the point of manners is to keep the peace.
We develop complex social codes and social rituals in order to prevent violence. Violence, suppression, and misery were all most of the human race knew until the day before yesterday, when the emergence of market capitalism taught us how to cooperate with one another and the Industrial Revolution gave us the means to do so on a grand scale. It isn’t Leviathan who prevents bellum omnium contra omnes — it is manners, the rules of social intercourse, that keep us from poking each other in the chimp.
Politics always brings out tribalism — politics is tribalism for most people — and this year’s election has been more tribalistic than most: Witness how the 80-odd percent of Republicans who opposed bailouts when they were done by Barack Obama reversed course and became the 80-odd percent of Republicans who support bailouts when organized by Donald Trump. (It is not a question of GM vs. Carrier, after all.) Those affinities and loyalties are deeply imprinted in us, and there is no escaping them.
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