Power to the Polite: Is Your Attitude Fueling Tyranny?
Civility is what separates us from savagery. But being too nice empowers authoritarianism. How do your manners impact the culture war?
“Where the hell is the apple cider vinegar?” I mumbled to myself under my cloth, ‘It’s a Girl!’ mask while pacing the grocery aisles during the lockdowns.
That’s when someone interrupted my search with the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my life:
“We ask you observe the Covidien arrows.”
The what?
I turned to see a green-haired clerk pointing at the floor like the Family Guy monkey.
“Oh, sorry, didn’t see those,” I said as he rolled his eyes before walking away in a silent rage.
In my defense, the directional dictators were small and crudely designed with black electrical tape on a grey floor.
But of course, that was neither the time nor place to argue the efficiency of ‘Covidian arrows,’ masks, or social distancing. I just wanted to get my stuff and leave.
Sure, the employee was required to enforce such rules, but why be rude? Perhaps more importantly, why did I apologize?
Manners are the social glue that allowed humans to progress to our modern state. Unfortunately, that adhesive is eroding, and I believe that is the cause of social decay in general.
But tolerating and being nice to communists is also to blame.
Where is your attitude on the politeness spectrum?
Manners and Authoritarianism
We may think of politeness as a product of civilized society, but manners have been a self-preservation mechanism hard-coded into our systems for millennia. Being nice lets strangers know we aren’t a threat, which evolved into the social norms that separate us from savagery.
In the more modern sense, the term “manners maketh the man,” which dates back to the 14th century and remains the motto at New College, Oxford, suggests that our demeanor, personality, and politeness determine how we develop into adulthood.
Even Leon Trotsky, a Soviet politician and Josef Stalin’s arch-enemy, described politeness and manners as a “necessary lubricant in daily relations.”
In her recently released book Mao’s America: A Survivor’s Warning, Xi Van Fleet recounts her childhood experience living through the Chinese Cultural Revolution before moving to the US.
She now warns Americans of wokeness as the same methodology she saw the Chinese government adopt to control people.
The only difference is in China, the nation was split over class, whereas in America’s cultural revolution, it’s about race and “diversity.”
In an early chapter, Van Fleet briefly mentioned how manners and common courtesy, or lack thereof, played a significant role in the Communists' takeover, adding she could write a whole chapter about the topic.
When people stopped recognizing each other as fellow humans on a basic level, the government could control the population.
In China today, people will ignore injured citizens on the street as the government sets the precedent that helping someone suggests you are partly responsible for their injuries.
In an extreme case, in 2011, a two-year-old girl was hit by a car in the Zhejiang province, but multiple people walked by as if she wasn’t there for fear of getting tangled up in the court system.
The Politeness Spectrum
But isn’t politeness and tolerance what got us into this mess?
Just look at Canada.
It started with “political correctness” and “affirmative action,” then along came the anti-bullying campaign.
Yet we, as a society, wanted to be tolerant and progressive, which most people were on board with. Sadly, kindness was taken for weakness, allowing activists to usher in more government control in the name of “equity.”
Now here we are, sending men into women’s prisons, teaching children about sex toys, and a Supreme Court Justice can’t define “woman” “because she isn’t a biologist.”
This unchecked acceptance of everyone’s feelings allowed leftists and communists to take over every facet of polite society.
Be Nice. (But not too nice)
In the corporate world, modern workplace, and marketplace, we’ve replaced courtesy with credentialism, just like in the USSR and Communist China, particularly in a virtual and remote world.
In his book The Infinite Game, author and motivational speaker Simon Sinek discusses observing Navy SEAL training, where leaders say physical performance isn’t everything.
To be an elite operator, one must be principled.
In fact, leaders prefer a medium performer with high trustworthiness over a high performer with lower trustworthiness. Of course, people in the top right sector are rare birds.
Sinek adds that we have many tools to develop hard skills, like writing code and integrating cloud systems, but we fail to reinforce basic human skills, such as being respectful and trustworthy.
When we keep this up, we promote an authoritarian society that only values power and position.
Yet some argue that being nice is inefficient, especially in written communication.
We are here to do business-not coddle people’s feelings. Something we all can relate to these days.
However, researchers proved that being nice improves efficiency, especially virtually.
In a study by Adam M. Grant and Francesco Gino, productivity increased by 66% when task requesters simply added “please” and “thank you” to inquiries.
So, let’s try to save this country and Western society in general by rebuilding the bedrock of society.
Say hi to people on the street, hold the door for someone, and remember there is a human being on the other side of your emails and chat boxes.
Go forth and mind your manners, not the communists demanding you obey the ‘Covidien arrows.’
GB
Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use. -Emily Post
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