Extreme Etiquette (cont.)

She got the biggest student buzz when she demonstrated how to hold a knife and fork. As students practiced, the clatter of dropped silverware filled the room. “If you can’t do it, just do the best you can,” Anna said. “I don’t want to see food flying across the table Pretty Woman style.” To my surprise, Anna herself uses the European style, eating with the left hand after cutting her food. Turns out Emily herself did this, preferring the method to what she called “zig-zag eating.” Anna’s other tips to the students:

If you get lousy service in a restaurant, leave a tip anyway. “You can leave less than 15%, but talk to management. Otherwise it doesn’t resolve anything.”

When the wine steward hands you the cork, just look at it. If the wine is more than halfway up the cork, it hasn’t been sealed properly.

Pass the bread bowl to the right after offering to the left.

Eat cherry tomatoes with a fork. “Better to squirt someone from your plate than from your mouth.”

If you see spinach on someone’s teeth, tell them by discreetly pointing to your own teeth. (“Or you could text message them,” one student says pragmatically.)

Anna insists, though, that the rules should help us, not restrict us. “Worlds won’t end if you do it differently,” she told the students. “Sometimes the rules get in the way, because people follow the letter of the law. Short of putting your face on the plate, you really can’t go wrong. But if you wouldn’t be comfortable seeing yourself do something on video afterward, then you shouldn’t do it.”

Etiquette takes on particular importance in the business world because business is more formal than most of the rest of our lives. And being formal means you follow the “forms”: suitable dress and behavior. This has always been true. The ancient Romans published books about decorum, the art of fitting in with the ruling elite. They meant “fitting in” not just socially but in a Darwinian sense as well: only the fittest, the ones who most closely fit themselves into their social environment, thrived. Cicero said that decorum was the most important, as well as the most difficult, of all leadership skills. He himself was a novus homo, a “new man” who rose to the top rank by talent and etiquette. He was clearly not alone: Books on manners followed through the centuries. Many of the books published in nineteenth century America were about elocution—the skill of speaking like a lady or gentleman.

And that’s really what etiquette is all about, I have come to realize: the art of fitting in. Emily and her descendents are right. It’s not about the rules. It’s about adapting to any environment. Survival of the fittest. In that sense, Etiquette is a manual for surviving in the field—whatever that field is.

It’s nice to think about a world in which everyone followed the Posts. If everyone suddenly turned polite, dictators would issue a formal apology for their misbehavior and withdraw to their villas. Instead of foul shots in basketball, there would be contrite expressions of regret. Children would sit up straight in restaurants and speak in calm undertones. American presidential debates would have the candidates attempting to out-flatter each other:

“My opponent might really do better in the White House. But then, I’m not one to judge.”

Maybe this is what Heaven is like—a place where consideration has been elevated to the sacred, where everyone is charming to everyone else, without even trying.
If so, I’m doomed. My mother tried her darndest to turn me into a gentleman. She tried to send me to dancing class, and I threatened to run away from home. She tried to teach me not to interrupt, to let others have their turn, to listen instead of talk nonstop. I was a great disappointment to my mother.

But maybe a person can change. When I got home from the Emily Post Institute, feeling inspired by the overwhelming kindness of the place, I decided to be thoroughly considerate to my wife. I asked how her day went, avoided discussing politics (a traditional no-no in polite company, because it breeds disagreement), and said her hair looked really nice.

She was on to me. “You visited the Emily Post Institute, didn’t you? Is that what this is all about?”

“No! Well, yeah, sort of. The people there made me want to be more polite.”

“As in etiquette?”

“Right, etiquette.”

“Then why are you double dipping your carrot?”

It was true. I had eaten half a baby carrot and used it to scoop more chive dip. Hopeless.

But I’m trying. I’m really trying.

——

Jay Heinrichs is editorial director of Spirit and author of the extremely polite book Thank You for Arguing: What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion.

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