MANNERS, EDUCATION AND INTELLIGENCE

I believe the three pillars of a successful life are manners, education and intelligence. In that order. 

Manners outrank education and intelligence in their superior effect on a life. Poor language skills, lack of knowledge and generally slow wits can be overcome by simple and sincere courtesy. Manners entail understanding one's basic relationship to other human beings in society. 

Young children can be taught manners easily. It simply requires consistent reminders of etiquette in daily life. Adapting routine personal hygiene, maintaining a neat personal environment, respecting the space of others with noise and other behaviors. These are the basics that young children must be taught. 

Children are not social geniuses, no matter how intelligent. In fact, I would argue that high intelligence may often track along with poor social behaviors. Many young parents today display an abysmal lack of understanding this. They allow their children to behave badly in public without any notice. This sabotages a child's future social success.

Teaching a person manners is an educational activity. When approached creatively, teaching manners can inspire a child to become curious about observing social relationships.  One of the most basic lessons in life is learning one's place in society relative to everyone else. Role learning is a very important social skill. Differentiating role from identity will eventually bring social success and success in work situations. 

Education seems to flow relatively easily from the adoption of mannerly habits. The mannered child has been trained to think before speaking or acting. The mannered child has also been taught to listen and visually observe.

Self-education by the student is the product of successful teaching. This is ages-old wisdom. Working from the baseline of etiquette, a young person can understand what he/she knows or does not know. In other words, mannered children attract intelligent conversation with adults. They soon seek out adults who can teach them things which gain their interest.

The quality of public education in the U.S. resulted from the shameless encouragement of high intelligence and the provision of a practical education for the less intelligent. Members of my parents' generation, survivors of The Great Depression in their childhoods, were universally literate and conversant in basic subjects, no matter what their eventual vocational path. 

My parents' blue-collar friends spoke correct English. They read newspapers ever day. They were adept at basic math. And they could tell you where countries were located without squinting at a map or running a search engine. Lawyers of that generation spoke the same English as plumbers. This promoted a more socially egalitarian society among the working and middle classes, a society not segregated according to annual income.

Today's raging identity contagion is symptomatic of our bad-mannered age. Crassness has replaced cordiality. Fake intelligence, represented by instant answers from machines, has replaced knowledge, earned from thoughtful study over time. Anonymity in public spaces has replaced social interaction with strangers. Virtual friendship has replaced a general sense of belonging to a greater American community. Tribalism has had a big comeback. The individual is encouraged to see himself/herself as the sole nucleus of his/her world. 

This can all be remedied. The cure begins with teaching children good manners by modeling them as adults.