Most days, the pleasant young Russian fellow will stop by the coffee shop where I work for an espresso. He is absolutely adored by all the employees. When he comes in, everyone smiles and tries to have his drink ready before he pays. Initially, I thought it must be the typical love of foreign accents and foreigners in general. However, upon repeated observance, it became obvious that it was merely because he is so much nicer than the hundreds of extremely demanding, uptight caffeine guzzlers that precede him every day.
However, he never goes out of his way to be pleasant and he never really engages in conversation beyond pleasantries. What makes him stand out against the droves?
Simply put, he knows his manners. Each time he approaches the counter, he smiles and greets the employees. When his drink is ready, he thanks us and wishes us the best for the day. This never requires a huge effort, but it means a world of difference in terms of how people view his presence.
Unfortunately, this is actually a very disturbing discovery, because it means that etiquette is so depleted that when someone actually exhibits the smallest bit of decency, it comes across as extremely friendly, rather than the norm.
It would be too difficult to try to classify Americans in general as rude or polite, because then we would have to be classified against other cultures, where the rules of etiquette are different. However, it can be said that within our society, particularly at universities, there is a huge lack of basic manners and politeness.
At UCSD, general rudeness can be easily observed from nearly every type of student. No one seems to be much better than the others. Some of the more obvious, however, include brochure distributors on Library Walk that actually follow you to class despite the fact that you don’t know them and you are probably in a hurry.
There are acquaintances I wouldn’t walk to class with if I were in a hurry because there is no time to actually converse. Why would I want to make a Œnew’ friend whose sole reason for accompanying me is to recruit me to his or her cause? With only 10 minutes to walk from York to Warren Lecture Hall, it’s rude to expect the full attention of someone who you don’t know and don’t care about ‹ as long as they sign your petition or club charter.
There is also, of course, the tired and generalized, but resoundingly accurate cliché of loud sorority girls sitting behind you in lecture. It’s bad enough that they jabber on forever about the next party while you try to listen and take notes, but they use the worst possible verbal method: the strained voice that tries to sound like a whisper, but clearly the voice’s owner has no real intention of speaking any softer than she would at their parties. This fundamental disregard for everyone around them as well as the professor is, quite frankly, staggering.
Worst of all are the academic elite, who were accepted into UCSD for the reason that we all should’ve have been accepted: intelligence. These people are by far the rudest of the students. Due possibly to their overwhelming desire to succeed in school, they have never developed any social skills, much less a notion of manners. They are often shy, but aware of their intelligence, and thus come across as both inept and yet ridiculously smug.
There are many reasons for lack of basic manners. One obvious reason is that students were not taught the words “”please”” and “”thank you”” when they were younger.
This is not the fault of the student; however, if we plan on being competent adults, it would be wise to start learning now to appreciate those around us. Unfortunately, the university doesn’t embrace this at all. On campus, students have no need of basic manners because the university system, when governing our lives in loco parentis, actually encourages conformity to the university bubble, which is a far cry from the reality of life. Our world consists of studying inside this bubble. If the only interactions we make are either to ask a question during lecture or asking for another beer at a party, there is clearly no room for etiquette, and students exemplify this.
Many will say that etiquette is a relative and pointless convention ‹ a product of a stuffy society. When many think of manners, they think placing the fork and spoon on the correct side of the plate. This is indeed stuffy, and though it would be useful for everyone to know how to do this, it would be much better if students could merely remember to say “”I’m fine”” when you ask how they are doing, rather than staring blankly and moving on. And while it is a convention limited to our American culture, which is a very vague notion itself, it is the small pleasantries that can make another person’s day turn around for the better.
When society speaks of random acts of kindness and being nice to fellow human beings, it doesn’t require saving someone’s life or giving them all your money.
While those are indeed “”nice”” acts, it would be better if we first could learn to be polite on even the smallest level. It’s a shame that so many of us are incapable of even this small form of respect for each other.