In this contemporary period the issue of bullying and how to address it, in a manner which effectively reduces and prevents it, is an issue which has garnered significant attention. Indeed, the effort to try to protect children from undue mistreatment and to lead them on a kinder and more respectful path is a worthwhile one. It is for precisely this reason that it is important to make sure it is being addressed well. Thus I am putting forward the consideration that some methods used and some attitudes taken by some, in the teaching of manners, may actually be counterproductive. That some approaches to teaching manners may actually be teaching children to ostracize and bully those who display an appearance of abnormality.

The discourse on bullying at times puts focus on certain aspects, but can also fall prey to certain stereotypes. Some fall into buying the stereotype of the bully as one, or as mainly one who is anti-social (whether their using the term incorrectly to refer to the non-social, or using correctly to refer to people actually hostile to society), someone who is taking their insecurities out on others, negatively influenced and comes from a bad home. Indeed there are practitioners of bullying behaviors which fit this description. But the spectrum of those who have practices for bullying behavior is much more vast, including those who are average, normal, socially integrated and have attentive parents. The behavior of bullying likewise is diverse in its forms. Among these, there is a type of bullying where those who seem to occupy the social status of normal, act to ostracize, stigmatize and mistreat those who appear to deviate from the norm. There are those who decry a loss of decency and manners, or those who call for a greater teaching manners as a solution to the problem. But this seems to be rather banal, insufficient and somewhat misdirected.

In order to help explain this theory on how the teaching of manners can go awry, I’ll start with analyzing this instance of high profile parental action for the sake of manners. Pay mind that this is an analysis of an instance as it is understood to have occurred, and is not meant to cast aspersions on those involved. This instance is the story of Jaime Primak Sullivan throwing away her kids ice cream. She had taken her three children to dairy queen. The children did not use the manners she expected of them; since they did not thank the server, look at server in the eyes, or smile. Her response was then to throw away their ice cream and then told them that,

“if they were lucky, they would work a job like that young lady. And I would hope that people would see them. Really see them. Look them in the eye and say thank you. We are too old at 8/7/5 to move through our days without exercising manners and honestly basic human decency.”

She then places the story on Facebook, for it to then be picked up by news attention.

This instance, I would contend, illustrates a number of the ways in which manners can be thought of wrongly and taught in a misguided manner. To see why, let us look at the structure of mental implications. This treatment equates the expression appreciation to the holding of appreciation and treats these mannerisms as some inherent holder of them. That is, it treats the use of manners with caring about someone, appreciating what someone does and the user of the manners as being caring and decent. It treats the use of manners as if they held some sort ethical importance and as if there were some sort of ethical obligation to practice them. It seems to overlook that manners are of a social functionality and a formalization of expression. It involves the projection of one’s expectations of manners onto others, and using them to assume peoples mental states. It then uses these assumptions of people’s mental states to affect how the situation is considered and to discern their decision to act toward it. It acts in such a manner to try to enculturate the normalization of these manners. Furthermore, it relies on punishment to enforce them. These are things which are problematic with this instance, and these are the things which I will make the case that manners teaching can end up being conducive to bullying.

This mentality toward manners is misguided. The use of manners is not the same thing as caring about someone, appreciating them or being decent to them. There is no necessary link between what one expresses and what one thinks. A person could smile at a waitress, look her in the eyes and say thank you, but on the inside he may not care at all. He could even be thinking negatively about them and just be using manners because it’s what socially expected of him. Another person could be totally caring and appreciating of the waitress, but because they were reserved or expressed their gratitude in an abnormal way, they are misunderstood and perceived to be uncaring or rude. Likewise, teaching manners is not sufficient for teaching how to be decent, caring and appreciative. That is accomplished through a development of sentiment and awareness, not by mere manners and sociability.

This mentality toward manners misunderstands the status of manners. It confuses manners with ethics and treats them as if they are imbued by some sort of ethical obligation. Ethics and manners are not the same thing. Ethics is based on conceptions of morality. Since morality is an objective, existing thing, which manifests itself in the qualities of things, it can be conceived of and discerned rationality. Manners, on the other hand, cannot even be considered apart from their social function and the opinion of man (ethics can conceive of its own internal value, while manners cannot conceive of itself without a regard for others or a regard for the common opinion). But that is because of what manners are. They are a formalization of expression and behaviors to serve the social function of establishing a common set of expectations of what people are to expect for interpersonal expression and public behavior. On the one hand, it helps to produce common unity and culture, and it can help make it easier for some to predict where they stand with others and what is expected in social situations. But on the other hand, it can lead to a mentality of uncritically pressuring people to conform to certain expressions and behaviors without regard to whether there is actually a good reason for them. Quite often, the folkways practices in societies have no good reason for people to be expected to follow them. These mannerisms are often no more than socialized preference; that at one point in time, it was popular enough among the socially affluent that it was formalized into a standard of what society will teach as normal behavior. Manners are instrumental, they have no particular ethical obligation.

Now here is why I would contend the teaching of manners can go awry. If manners are taught to be uncritically followed, without regard for the actual sentiments and understandings they are supposed to be, it runs the risk of mal-forming the character development of the child and causing them to develop socialized obsessive compulsion. It runs the risk of producing blind obedience to the behavior without regard for the point of it. In teaching them manners they may get the message not only that manners should be followed, but that they should be spread to others. What happens when they see other children who are not acting like they do, who appear in some manner to be abnormal? Well, from the uncritical compulsion and ethical equating, it is not a leap to think that they would think that they would come to the conclusion that the abnormal elements are bad, that those displaying them are being bad, and that they might be bad people. These impressions can be seen in instances, such how there are people in America who think those who break their manner against slurping food are slobs, and those in Japan who think that those who break their manner in favor of slurping food are unappreciative. Now if a child has been heavily subjected to punishments in response for not following manners, they may get the impression that others who do not follow the norm deserve to be punished. Now when these kinds of inadvertent lessons combined with social pressures and dynamics, this could end up leading to these children holding negative attitudes and exercising instances of bullying behaviors against those who they perceive to be abnormal.

I would contend that there are plenty of instances of bullying behavior which would appear to support this notion. How many times have parents cautioned their children against looking and acting abnormally at school or in other social situations with their peers? And why? Because of the fear that their children will be teased, mocked, ostracized or even bullied. What do think would likely happen if a young boy or a transgendered child came to school dressed in traditionally female clothing? And we can predict what will probably happen, because we can tell how children often are intolerant of what differs from the expected norm. What I am suggesting is this intolerance isn’t just something natural, but is significantly based on social conditioning.

To help demonstrate how expectations of manners can tie directly to mistreatment, I will summarize a story told to me by William Stillman. In my junior year of high school I went to an autism lecture at Nazareth College. The speaker was William Stillman, an autism theorist, writer and counseling expert. Mr. Stillman himself has Asperger’s (a form of autism, which I also have). His lecture was about helping people to better understand autistic people and knock down misconceptions of it which get in the way of understanding our humanity and perspective of our lives. In part of it, he recounted the story of how as a child, he was resistant to looking people in the eyes. Many people who are autistic find eye contact unnatural and highly uncomfortable. Because of this, a number of people, including adults and relatives, would accuse him of being a potential sociopath and a potential serial killer. So basically because he didn’t follow some minuscule social gesture, people stigmatized him, and made it even harder for him to connect with people. He eventually forced himself to look people in the eyes, and now constantly stares into people’s eyes. Which is poetic, in the sense that now the doxists can be just as creeped at looking at him as he was looking at them. But beyond this one instance, the stigmatization and mistreatment of people for minor violations of manners is not uncommon. It is unfortunately too common and has its piece of the bullying pie.

This is the theory and consideration I am putting forward. By teaching manners improperly, we may be unintentionally teaching children that abnormality is bad and thus inadvertently contributing to the bullying environment. Now I am not saying that we totally get rid of manners and the teaching them. What I am suggesting is that it should be approached more sensibly. That is understood by recognizing manners as the social function of organized expression and behavior which they are, by realizing that manners are a social standard and not an ethical obligation, by seeking to understand others differences, by exercising critical thought toward social norms and by learning to judge things by their reasonability, moral status and other merits. Manners can be taught in a more reasonable manner, where the actual point of them is taught, where manners and other standards of normality are not treated uncritically, where actual sentiment, thinking and understanding is encouraged, where punishment is used for actual misbehavior and not for infractions of social form and where tolerance can be taught for those differences which are legitimately matters of preference. Now some these theories look reasonable and for others they may be resistant to the suggestion. But in either case I would hope that readers will both consider these ideas’ possibilities with an open minded consideration and analyze them with a critical mind, for gaining a proper understanding of the issue is key being able to effectively address it.