The Virtue of Courtesy – by DONALD DEMARCO ( An Excerpt)
Courtesy is the entrance-level virtue that allows strangers to suddenly feel that they are kindred spirits. It is also the foundation on which other virtues might be established, such as kindness, thoughtfulness, amicability, and generosity.
Marshall McLuhan ( 1911 – 1980) once described the newspaper as “orchestrated discontinuity.” It is difficult to ascertain how much influence the newspaper has had on life, but life itself has become an increasingly exasperating experience of “orchestrated discontinuity.”
I recently drove into a gas station to fill my tank and take advantage of its new, at-the-pump method of payment that dispenses with the need of a human cashier. The computer, however, did not “recognize” my credit card and therefore did not “authorize” its use. I was therefore obliged, though not unhappily, to deal with a human being. She explained to me that, in her opinion, the reason the computer did not accept my card was because it may have had a nick or scratch on it. “These machines are very sensitive,” she said, in an understanding tone that seemed to reflect the voice of considerable experience. We examined the card. I always kept it snug in my leather wallet, giving it a private pouch that was free from any possible rough contact with other cards. Yet, there it was, a tiny abrasion on the upper edge — enough, presumably, to make it unrecognizable to the sensitive eye of the computer.
Close to the cash register was a special display of a new and apparently quite “hot” video — The Best of Jerry Springer. The word best, of course, is better understood as meaning worst. And here is the “orchestrated discontinuity”: While technicians are laboring to make our machines more sensitive, TV producers are laboring equally hard to make their programming more coarse. It has been estimated by certain authorities in the business that the “Jerry Springer Show” exceeds the now defunct “Geraldo Rivera Show” in sheer coarseness by a factor of at least 10. Yet even this new low point in coarseness has been surpassed by the video.
Air-conditioned nightmare
We are obliged to keep our credit cards immaculate out of deference to sensitive machinery. But when it comes to human interaction, at least in the popular style exhibited on the immensely successful “Jerry Springer Show,” gross insensitivity to other people’s feelings is the order of the day.
We now live, as the playwrite Arthur Miller has pointed out, “in an air-conditioned nightmare.” We treat our neighbor in a manner that would not be tolerated by a sensitive computer. Another way of putting it is to say that we are misplacing sensitivity. Human beings are incomparably more sensitive than any kind of machinery. The computer does not really care if it is used, abused, or ignored. But human beings do. And profoundly. Yet, we consider it progress to make machines that are more and more sensitive, while we note the marked increase in crudeness that takes place between human beings. We feel a growing obligation not to bruise our credit cards, while we observe that bruising other people’s feelings is becoming a national pastime.
Persons, not machines
What’s missing in our era of machine-efficiency is courtesy. There is no point in being courteous to a machine. The machine is programmed for efficiency, not civility. Human beings need to be acknowledged as having a value that has absolutely nothing to do with efficiency. They need to be honored as human beings. Courtesy does this. It is the entrance-level virtue that acknowledges that the other human being is worthy of being honored simply because he is a human being. Courtesy may or may not lead to friendship, but it is the first virtue in the catalog of human virtues that one can express to a complete stranger without risk of impropriety.
There’s no point in greeting a machine or saying “hello” to it. Its sensitivity is wholly mechanical. Human beings, unlike machines, have an inherent dignity. They need to be reminded of this dignity, lest they forget they possess it.
Our ability to recognize that another human being is a human being is not impaired by the fact that he is imperfect in some way. A society of unblemished, beautiful people is one in which common courtesy would be unnecessary. The ideal for a credit card is not the ideal for a human being. “I will not recognize you unless you are unflawed” is the most discourteous attitude one could have for another human being. It represents the failure to acknowledge the dignity that is inherent in each one of us. Ladies and Gentlemen
Courtesy is paradoxical but immensely practical. The courteous person assumes that every man is a gentleman and every woman is a lady and treats them accordingly. In doing so, a person displays the mark of a gentleman or a lady. It may seem naïve and gratuitous to make such an assumption, but it is remarkable how many people begin to act as gentlemen and ladies simply because they were thought to be worthy of respect.
The foundation for courtesy is the dignity of man. Courtesy is the appropriate response to recognizing the divine imprint in another person. It senses nobility at first sight and then acts in a manner consistent with that sense.
Courtesy is the entrance-level virtue that allows strangers to suddenly feel that they are kindred spirits. It is also the foundation on which other virtues might be established, such as kindness, thoughtfulness, amicability, and generosity. No true and lasting human relationship can begin without the virtue of courtesy. It appears at the beginning of a relationship (should we call it a relationship?) and abides throughout it. It is expressed to both the stranger and to the intimate. It is the needed antidote to our world of machine-efficiency. It reminds us of our distinctive humanity and invites us to follow its beckoning course. Its sensitivity is always an accepting one, greeting the poor and the afflicted and the affluent and the healthy with equal temperament. It offers the smile of recognition, and the possibility of friendship. It costs nothing, and can, at times, save us from despair.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
DeMarco, Donald. “The Virtue of Courtesy.” Lay Witness (November 1999).
Reprinted with permission of Lay Witness magazine.
Lay Witness is the flagship publication of Catholics United for the Faith. Featuring articles written by leaders in the Catholic Church, each issue of Lay Witness keeps you informed on current events in the Church, the Holy Father's intentions for the month, and provides formation through biblical and catechetical articles with real-life applications for everyday Catholics.
THE AUTHOR
Donald DeMarco is Professor at Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell, CT and Professor Emeritus at St. Jerome's University in Waterloo Ontario. He has written hundreds of articles for various scholarly and popular journals, and is the author of twenty books, including The Heart of Virtue, The Many Faces of Virtue, Virtue's Alphabet: From Amiability to Zeal and Architects Of The Culture Of Death. Donald DeMarco is on the Advisory Board of The Catholic Educator's Resource Center.
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The Virtue of Decency - by DONALD DEMARCO
In the 1937 film Gone With the Wind, Clark Gable shocked a nation of moviegoers when he said to Vivien Leigh, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a dam.”
In retrospect, the shock is particularly difficult to fathom because the word “dam” (not “damn”) refers to a printer’s measure, hence to something of little worth.
In 1940, Bertrand Russell’s appointment to teach philosophy at the City College of New York was revoked because of his views on sexuality. One magazine epitomized the broad public outrage against the appointment when it described Lord Russell as “a desiccated, divorced, and decadent advocate of sexual promiscuity.”
While we can take some measure of pride today for being more tolerant and less prissy, we have reason to wonder whether we have become so jaded that nothing at all shocks us any longer. Hugh Hefner and others have dedicated their careers to convincing their public that lust has nothing to do with shame. After Madonna and Howard Stern, adult videos and escort services, royal and presidential scandals, is there anything left that has the power to provoke in us a sense of moral outrage?
Miami virtue?
William Bennett’s recent book, The Death of Outrage: Bill Clinton and the Assault on American Ideals, sounds an alarm to awaken people to the dangers of becoming morally numb. For too many people, sexual shenanigans that should shock people are systematically transposed into entertainment fare. What was once morally outrageous is now merely good copy. It is “Miami Vice” we want to watch, not “Miami Virtue.” And many seem to live according to the maxim that vice is nice, but virtue can hurt you.
Washington, DC’s mayor, Marion Barry, was photographed smoking crack cocaine. After his release from prison, he was promptly reelected. His drug habits were more cool than shocking, more amusing than outrageous.
Woody Allen’s 1989 movie, Crimes and Misdemeanors, is about how to hire a hit man to “take out” a nagging mistress without ruffling your conscience or compromising your social status. Taking a woman out once referred to showing her a good time. Times have certainly changed. The deeper question is: “Has moral man changed in the process?”
Uncommon decency NCOMMON DECENCY
To a significant degree, virtue has now acquired a bad name. For the young, it seems to be the opposite of having fun. For older people, it appears to be a symbol of lost values that politicians exploit for partisan advantage. For young and old alike, it seems to be a set of arbitrary values that one benighted generation tries to impose on the next.
Do we have an innate moral sense that can never be eradicated? Or can we become so desensitized that nothing can ever shock or offend our moral sensibilities? Is common decency a fundamental virtue? Or is it merely a passing product of social conditioning that fades into oblivion as culture becomes more “enlightened”?
Candle in the wind
James Q. Wilson, who teaches at UCLA, believes that one of the greatest needs of our time is to get back in touch with our moral sense. He closes his book, The Moral Sense, with these words:
“Mankind’s moral sense is not a strong beacon of light, radiating outward to illuminate in sharp outline all that it touches. It is, rather, a small candle flame, casting vague and multiple shadows, flickering and sputtering in the strong winds of power and passion, greed, and ideology. But brought close to the heart and cupped in one’s hands, it dispels the darkness and warms the soul.”
It is difficult to read this passage and not think of “Candle in the Wind,” Elton John’s moving tribute to Lady Diana. While it may very well be that the world’s reaction to the tragic ending of Diana’s life was oversentimentalized, there is a deeper truth that may give us hope. Human life is fragile and transitory. Like a candle, it is so easily extinguishable. The “winds” that threaten life are brutal and irrational. So too can power and passion, greed, and ideology be brutal and irrational. We are outraged when we see this taking place. The public outpouring of grief and affection over Lady Diana’s passing assures us that we do have an operative moral sense. We are moved, and powerfully so, when we witness the unfairness of irrational forces snuffing out a beautiful life. We do not cheer for the hurricane.
Tolerable outrage
Our moral sense, including our sense of decency, is still intact, though it is at times obscured by the accumulated debris of layer upon layer of tabloid-type entertainment. We must revitalize our capacity for moral outrage without becoming unduly intolerant, while enjoying forms of entertainment that do not make us jaded.
Decency is still a virtue. It is the ability to recognize and rejoice in things that are delightful and wholesome. It is also the capacity to be shocked when confronted with anything that is truly shocking. It is the sense of what is proper behavior and what are suitable standards for personal and artistic expression.
Leglislating virtue
Though decency is at least regulated by law, it should be most strictly ob served by men. Traditionally, people have believed that the vast majority of human beings could be relied upon to be decent enough to behave decently. Legal regulation was assumed to be more unnecessary than unwise — the law, of course, being a poor substitute for virtuous behavior. And thus it should be. Decent behavior should be inspired not by law, but by our own sense of decency.
The commonest way in which our sense of decency is assaulted in the contemporary climate is through vile language. But there is never a season for vile language to be generally acceptable. The words of a 17th-century poet, W.D. Roscommon, still apply:
Immodest words admit of no defense,
For want of decency is want of sense.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
DeMarco, Donald. “The Virtue of Decency.” Lay Witness (June 1999).
Reprinted with permission of Lay Witness magazine.
Lay Witness is the flagship publication of Catholics United for the Faith. Featuring articles written by leaders in the Catholic Church, each issue of Lay Witness keeps you informed on current events in the Church, the Holy Father's intentions for the month, and provides formation through biblical and catechetical articles with real-life applications for everyday Catholics.
THE AUTHOR
Donald DeMarco is Professor at Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell, CT and Professor Emeritus at St. Jerome's University in Waterloo Ontario. He has written hundreds of articles for various scholarly and popular journals, and is the author of twenty books, including The Heart of Virtue, The Many Faces of Virtue, Virtue's Alphabet: From Amiability to Zeal and Architects Of The Culture Of Death. Donald DeMarco is on the Advisory Board of The Catholic Educator's Resource Center.
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