Manners Versus Character in Three Acts

*This essay by Quest Lakes was originally published in the MVN as a column during the summer of 2018.


"Under ascending authoritarianism, demands for 'civility' are precursors to calls for censorship." - Leah McElrath
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I’m always surprised when people equate good manners with good character. Some of the nastiest people in history have had lovely manners. The serial killer Ted Bundy was reportedly very ‘polite.’

Those who always say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and ‘yes, sir’ do not necessarily have stellar characters. Just this week I saw Attorney General Jeff Sessions, with his southern drawl and genteel manner, grin into the media cameras as he used the Bible to justify the Trump Administration’s separation of immigrant children from their parents. He used Romans 13, the same passage slavers mis-used to justify slavery: “the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.”

Then today there was yet another salvo in the manners versus character war. Trump was recorded saying that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un “speaks and his people sit up in attention. I want my people to do the same." The polite, rapt attention the North Korean people display when Kim Jong Un speaks is based in fear, not respect for the dictator’s character.

Good manners and politeness are often on display for the cameras in authoritarian regimes. A United States where people have the freedom to express their dismay with their elected officials, even with the use of impolite vulgarities, is part of a healthy democracy.

And keeping the actions of our elected officials under scrutiny is necessary to our freedom, even when those officials have commendable manners and find our demands for transparency rude.

For example, here in Nevada when a certain elected official engaged in a backroom deal with a mining company for hundreds of thousands of dollars, I’ll bet not a single vulgarity was uttered. Probably there were many expressions of gratitude. Gentlemen probably held doors open for ladies. But we can’t be sure, because the public was excluded from those polite negotiations among people of bad character and good manners.
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"Liberal columnists, the professional bleeding hearts, have the public ear, but what they do with it is simply to reassure it. They sound as though they're being daring, but they're not. If reality broke into one of those columns, God knows what would happen!" – James Baldwin

"Not one single member of the Nazi Resistance ever said 'If only we had been more civil early on...' Politeness favors only the oppressor." - @HoarseWisperer

"Commentators who are more excised over “F_ _ _ Trump!” than they are towards this administration’s heinous policies and undermining of our institutions are replicating the white familial behavior of prioritizing 'not making a scene.' It’s designed to disarm resistance." - Ethan Grey