LLT 180 Lecture 30 1 - Missouri State University 180 Lecture 30 1 ... LLT 180 Lecture 30 2 ... not...

LLT 180 Lecture 30 1

A couple of things we want to try to accomplish. First, to try to get through the

rest of Perceval in some kind of efficient manner. Not a lot left there. I want to go back

and rehash a little bit. And then there's really kind of a couple of purposes of why I'm

wearing my tux today -- or a tux today, and that is that -- you know, in a sense, it's the

armor of today. It's your fashionable attire of the day. And also it's gonna tie in with

some other things we talk about later in the class, about civility and manners and

decorum, which is obviously part of what courtly society is about. It's being civil, it's

being courtly.

We stopped last time over on page 427. We had just gotten the damsel who he

had jumped on and kissed seven times and stolen her ring. He had just restored the

relationship between her and the Haughty Knight of the Heath and sent them off like he

sends everybody else off to Arthur's court to tell the maiden who Kay slapped in the

face that he'll be back. He'll be back and restore her honor, and prove that she is

correct.

So they're off to Arthur's court. We stopped, I think, on 427 where we were

talking about the small scale of Arthur's court. There were only 3,000 knights there that

particular day, reflecting this general grandeur -- extravagance of size, perhaps,

anyway.

Arthur wants to find Perceval, you know. He said almost from the beginning, "I

knew there was something special about this kid," and he wants to find him. So they set

out in this kind of grand train of wagons and stuff, trying to find him. In the meantime,

unbeknownst to them, they've been moving toward each other. Perceval's moving


toward where Arthur is.

And Perceval -- like maybe tomorrow morning there's a fresh snowfall and, what,

was it a goose, I think, was hit by a hawk and dropped three drops of blood, and he is

taken by these and he is lost in thought, looking at these. And we'll know later that they

remind him of his distant love and that's why he's in deep thought.

People see him, first Sagremor. And if you ever have a chance, if you ever want

to see something that's kind of humorous and kind of interesting in the same way, you

can borrow it from me 'cause I have it, Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. The

thing, by Mark Twain, was made into a movie in the '50s, starring Bing Crosby. And his

big friend there, when he goes back in time and ends up in King Arthur's court, is

Sagremor. So kind of interesting his name is mentioned here. He's one of the guys,

one of the guys.

And so he first goes off and tries to get this guy out here -- and they don't know

who he is -- to come in. And it's not nice, you know. It's not nice, if somebody's in deep

thought, to bother them. It's not polite. And so he knocks him off his horse. He goes

back. Kay says, "Well, I'm gonna go get him." So Kay goes out, he again is disturbed,

and so finally this prophecy is fulfilled. The prophecy that, you know, has been going on

for 50 pages, or whatever. Over on line 4315 on page 431,

He dislocates his collar-bone and breaks the bone between his right elbow and

armpit like a dry twig, just as predicted by the fool, who had often foretold it. The

fool's prophecy had come true.

So the next one that's gonna go out is Gawain. And again, you know, Kay just


bad-mouths everybody. "You can go out now because everybody else has softened

him up and stuff." But Gawain goes out in the sense that they want to bring this person

in, this person to meet Arthur. And it's a fortuitous time to go because the snow's

melting and the blood drops are disappearing, and so Perceval is kind of coming to.

They meet, they figure out who each is, they want to be friends, and they return

to Arthur's court and everyone's happy. So at this point it would seem that everybody

lives happily ever after. But now -- you know, I've always thought what I'd like to do on

a final is have people draw the hideous damsel. You know, I'd even give you the

description. You know, it sounds like a blind date I had one time. Anyway.

It says here, about two-thirds of the way down on 435,

On the next day, they saw a damsel approaching on a tawny mule, holding a

whip in her right hand. The damsel's hair was plaited in two twisted black

pigtails; and if what is said and related in the book is true, there was never any

creature so completely hideous, even in Hell. You have never seen iron as block

as were her neck and hands, and yet [you lose your ability to try to imagine this,

or at least I do] that was the least part of her ugliness. For her eyes were two

holes as small as those of a rat; her nose was like that of a monkey or cat and

her lips like a donkey's or bullock's [I know I dated her -- just once], whilst her

teeth were so yellow that they looked like egg-yolk; and she was bearded like a

billy-goat. [Sweet, huh?] She had a hump in the middle of her chest, and her

spine was crook-shaped. Her loins and shoulders were splendid for leading a

dance! [What does that mean? I mean, I'm serious. I don't even know what that


means. Is she like pre-twisted or something? I don't know.] She had a lump on

her back and hips twisted just like two osiers [osiers? Willow trees]; splendidly

made for leading a jig!

She greets everybody -- like you'd want her greeting. She greets everybody but

Perceval, and what does she do? She denounces Perceval. She denounces him. She

says, very bottom of 435, about line 4643 maybe, "For when you met Fortune, you did

not welcome her: you entered the Fisher King's house and saw the bleeding lance. But

you did not ask." And so she repeatedly, you know, stresses that he screwed up. She

says,

It is unfortunate for you that you remained silent; for had you asked, the rich king,

now in distress, would at once have had his wound quite healed [so that is the

goal or the task of the questor] and would peacefully rule his land, of which he

will now never hold any part.

So it's like this was his chance. This was his chance.

Every -- all these evils, everything bad happened as a result of that, is what? It's

Perceval's doing. So he's denounced. Then she mentions this other great adventure

people could undertake and everybody takes off to undertake this -- Gawain says, "Hey,

you know, I'm going to the proud castle. I'm going for these adventures" -- except

Perceval. And what's Perceval? Perceval is now, if anything, is on a new quest. He's

on a new quest. And where does this quest lead him?

We read over here, very bottom of 436, about line 4722,

Then Perceval spoke quite differently, saying that as long as he lived he would


not spend two nights in a single lodging, or hear news of any adventurous

passage without going by way of it, or of any knight worth more than one or two

others without going to fight him, until he discovered who was served from the

grail and had found the bleeding lance and been told the certain truth as to why it

bleeds. He will not give up, whatever the hardship.

So this is his goal.

So then we leave him. And, as I said earlier, we leave him because he simply

has to mature and it's gonna take him awhile. It's gonna take him awhile. And so when

we run into him again, we kind of have the story about Gawain and what he's doing --

one, to show us in a way it's not as important what Perceval's doing and also to give

time for Perceval to grow up.

We read then over on 456, picking up at line -- oh, gosh -- 6215 maybe,

At this point the tale says no more about my lord Gawain, but begins to speak of

Perceval.

Perceval, as the story told us, had been so forgetful as not to remember

God. April and May passed five times, that is five whole years, without his

entering a church or worshipping God on His cross.

It's unbelievable. The one thing he's been told repeatedly by everybody is go to church.

He thought he went to church once, but it turns out it was just a tent. So, as far as we

know, he's never still been in church.

So he's riding along. He's got -- you know, he's beat up all these knights -- about

60, you know -- and sent them to King Arthur's court. And he's traveling along and it's


Good Friday. And he bumps into these three knights with a bunch of ladies, doing

penance, and they tell him it's wrong to be armed on Good Friday. And he doesn't even

know it's Good Friday.

He now seeks the aid of a Holy Hermit who lives in the forest. And remember

the instructions of his mother. His mother said what? Speak to worthy people and learn

from them. And so he's gonna try to learn from the hermit. And Perceval must learn

that he sinned against God, he must repent, and he has to confess. We read, about

line 6360 maybe, "The good man bids him make his confession, for he will never have

remission unless he has confessed and repented."

His problem -- he refers to him as "my brother" here. Don't let that confuse you,

you know. "A sin of which you knew nothing of has caused you not to ask at the castle,

and that is that your mother died of grief." And so he has to do penance for these sins,

ask for forgiveness from these sins.

We find out everyone is interrelated in this little intersection here, interior section,

over on page 459, line 6425,

The person served from it [the grail] is my brother [so the hermit's brother]: your

mother was my sister and his [so the Fisher King is his uncle]. And the Rich

Fisherman, believe me, is the son of that king who has himself served from the

grail.

So evidently the responsibility or the task, the honor of being the grail king, is passed

within this family.

He's been in the present condition for 12 years. And now for the third time, the


hermit this time -- his mother told him, Gornemant told him, and now the hermit's gonna

tell him, "Go to church." And he's gonna tell him, "Go to church every day."

One of the things he has to learn is what? Humility. And that's of course on one

of our lists which I want to revisit, so I don't want to spend too much time on the book.

And Perceval receives communion at Easter, as we break this section off again and

leave him in Chrétien's version because it is a fragment. Over on page 460, about line

6515,

Then at Easter, Perceval received communion in very worthy fashion. -- At this

point the tale speaks no further of Perceval; and you will have heard a great deal

about my lord Gawain . . .

Blah, blah, blah.

I can give you a little idea of how it ends if we go over to Wolfram. And again,

you know, as far as any kind of testing and stuff, you wouldn't really be held responsible

for this and I'm not sure exactly how smoothly this will work out. Perceval tells him that

his great concerns are for the grail and for his wife. The hermit is upset by this because

he doesn't know -- for he knows that only the chosen can attain the grail and Perceval

has not related about his previous visit to the hidden castle.

The hermit reveals a great deal more about the grail than Perceval had learned

up until now. He tells him that the knights who lived at the castle are called the templers

and they are sustained by the power of the grail stone, the stone in Wolfram, and also

has the power to rejuvenate men and causes the Phoenix to rise from the ashes. The

men chosen to serve the grail are named by the stone itself. Their names will appear


on it. The angels who took sides neither with God nor Lucifer were the original

guardians of the grail. It is not known whether God forgave them or not, but now

chosen men guard it.

The hermit repeats the information that he already knows, that his mother is

dead, and that he himself -- the hermit himself, we just read in here, is the grail king's

brother. He speaks of the Fisher King, of his nature, the circumstances -- I mean of his

injury, the circumstances -- I'm sorry. This is the German version. I'm trying to

summarize as I look at this. The circumstances of his injury.

We jump back and forth in this version, too, between the story of Gawain and

Perceval. Leave some of this out. To make a long story short, he has some more

adventures. He returns to Arthur's court yet again, and the ugly one, the rat-eyed,

monkey-nosed one, shows up. And this time, instead of denouncing him, tells him that

his name has indeed appeared on the grail and he is to be grail king. It tells Perceval

that his name has appeared on the grail and that he is to be grail king.

So he goes off to the site and his wife shows up, everybody lives happily ever

after. And then in a romance, the formula of a romance, Wolfram then again recites his

source in saying this indeed was the one and only source. And so, you know, the first

time the grail material appears.

I wanted to save some time, not to say that we can summarize, but just to go

back and just to refresh memories. I want to go back and put the qualities on that we

consider important qualities of knightly or characteristics of the courtly, knightly

individual. Then kind of go back and read you some excerpts out of a couple of year old


article in U.S. News & World Report -- this was the cover of it -- "In Your Face: What

Ever Happened to Good Manners?" And they really tie back into how manners relate to

civility, how all this stuff is interrelated.

And so if you remember as we go back, as we tried to work through those

qualities -- and I'm not putting these up in any particular order, either, that they're

generally listed or that I necessarily particularly put value in. But certainly some of

these overlap.

In other words, one of the values is to honor or show respect to those weaker

than oneself. Obviously, that's tied in with generosity, too. Helping people who are less

fortunate than you. And I think sometimes we do a better job teaching some of these

characteristics than maybe we were representative of them. I know both my daughters

are much better at generosity than I am, so I feel maybe I'm a better teacher than I am a

doer.

Loyalty. But again, remember one of the overriding things is what? We should

not let any one quality dominate our action, you know? I think I told you earlier in the

semester that my mother used to kid that my dad would give away all the money he had

to cure a sick horse. And, you know, in an ideal world, that's probably true. But that --

because in a sense, that's who my dad was. But, at the same time, he would never do

that to his family. I mean, he'd never give away everything 'cause he knows the

ramifications. You gotta have -- I don't want to beat up the word "balance," but you

can't let any one area dominate.

So Gawain, really kind of a great character but a lot of time he let loyalty to his


family, you know, be too important and make him act in ways that he shouldn't.

Courage. A word that -- you know, it's like I said -- you know, it's just so misused in our

society, so overused. It's just lost a lot of its meaning.

Good bearing. You know, which is obviously tied in with manners. Good

bearing. Know when to wear your tux. Persistence. You know, a key to success as a

student or whatever is persistence. Self-restraint. Certainly within the latter part of this

romantic period within knightly culture, with the material about love and stuff, this had

more to do with sexual restraint. But I think, you know, it also had generalized

importance.

We already mentioned honor those weaker, weaker than oneself. You know, so

that obviously can mean physically, maybe mentally, economically. And honor? I

guess show respect, you know. Show respect. Show humility. And again, we don't let

any one of these dominate.

And if we can bring all this stuff together, you know -- you know, if we can show

all these qualities and bring them into some harmonious condition in France, in

Germany -- at this period we have what we call hohen muot, you know. And so it's

almost -- you know, not to compare it to religion, but it's almost like, you know, sitting in

a corner and maybe chanting om that you are raised to some higher level. Maybe in the

sense of how people perceive you or respect you.

If we go back, then -- if we go back to this article -- and, you know, as I look

through this, I don't want to leave certainly on -- for the TV course on a note that, you

know, I'm some kind of negativist about society. Because I'm not. I don't think other


people -- you know, you should not let other people or movies on TV or anything affect

how you behave or how you act.

At the same time, you know, it's really hard to a certain extent not to let that stuff

affect you at some point. The nineteenth car that cuts you off on your way to school or

something -- you know, it starts putting you in a little bit of a rage. And so it's hard to

bring yourself out.

Anyway, the title of this, on the face of it -- let me pull it back out -- "In Your Face:

What Ever Happened to Good Manners?" Inside it's entitled "The American Uncivil

Wars: How Rude, Crude and Obnoxious Behavior has Replaced Good Manners and

Why that Hurts our Politics and Culture."

It starts off talking about a sixth grade teacher who's had to post signs forbidding

the use of profanity and gum-chewing in class. And it talks about a guy who's taken

upon himself the role of troubadour, traveling around to elementary schools in Ohio,

singing songs about good manners and courtesy, and how he is not well received.

Popular culture -- what do we find in popular culture? We find displays of violence, sex,

foul language, and puerile confession.

A vast majority of Americans -- I'm kind of just skipping through this -- feel their

country has reached an ill-mannered watershed. Nine out of ten Americans think

incivility is a serious problem and nearly half think this is extremely serious.

It was kind of funny, knowing I was gonna talk about this today. I was listening to

my country music station on the way in this morning, and somebody called in to talk

about -- it was the first time ever she hadn't been working on the Friday after


Thanksgiving so she went shopping. And she had never seen -- she was at work. She

said, "I'd never seen such a lack of civility and good manners in my life." She said, "It's

like, you know, people have Jekyll-Hyde personalities. Somebody comes up and says,

'You know, I was looking' -- real politely to the salesclerk -- 'you know, I came up looking

for that -- I was looking for that item that was in your circular and I can't find any of

those.' 'Oh, we sold out of those by ten o'clock.' And all of a sudden this person goes

into some kind of ballistic monster, just screaming at the sales clerk." And, you know, I

think sometimes you just have to stand aside and just -- you know, sometimes you're

afraid to say anything.

Incivility -- there's evidence that incivility is leading to a profound social

breakdown. On the one hand, it makes a point that we as a nation are addicted to the

pleasures of an unruly society or to conveniences of an unruly society. Seventy-six

percent of Americans think adults' willingness to keep their kids under control has

weakened in the past decade. Seventy-six percent.

Incivility says what? Incivility says I'm right, you have no hearing, you know.

How I think I should perform, what I do is okay, and I don't care about you. The fact that

-- you know, I'm so important that I'm gonna leave my Range Rover running right

outside Dillard's door because my life's so important. And the poor handicapped person

who's coming across the street has to walk around it somehow and step up on the curb

because you're blocking the ramp. And those people have no concern about this.

What does civility mean? It can mean, among other things, good breeding,

politeness, consideration or courtesy, but it may also refer to a polite act or utterance,


according to Webster. I kind of kid -- I give students a hard time 'cause I just, you know,

was so conditioned growing up that I hold doors. I can't help myself, you know. It's so

involuntary. And so if I'm walking to Carrington or something and some nice coed

happens to hold the door for me, I -- you know, if I'm in the wrong mood -- not in a bad

mood, but just kind of in a flippant mood -- I'll say, "God, I must really be getting old.

Girls are holding doors open for me now." And they go, "Oh, I'm sorry." I say, "No, no,

I'm just kidding. You don't know me. I'm just kidding." And so, you know, I think it's

nice when people hold doors. I think it's good.

And I think -- you know, we were talking before class. Some schools have gone

to uniforms. And I'm not fostering uniforms, but I think to a certain extent -- you know,

when we get back to the manners and stuff -- that dress does affect -- I know I'm a little

different when I dress different. Probably if you went to your junior prom or senior prom,

maybe your boyfriend never held a door open for you in his life, never opened the car

door, but all of a sudden he has a tux on and he says, "Oh." He runs around and you

think, "Who the heck is this? Do I know this person?" All of a sudden some social

graces came out that you didn't even know existed in the poor slob. And so, you know,

we act differently, to a certain extent. Can't escape who we are.

The problem is this -- you know, they were talking -- what were they talking

about? I guess they were talking about violence or something in society the other day.

And somebody just did a study and it said -- you know, economics, class, race has

nothing to do with it. And certainly with regard to civility and lack thereof, when they've

done studies, it cuts across this lack of civility, it cuts across all classes and all racial


lines.

One of the problems in arresting the lack of civility is the fear of violence. You're

all so pathetically young and -- gosh, maybe our director or producer remembers this.

What, was it ten, fifteen years ago, there was a case in Cleveland where somebody had

taken their kids to see Santa Claus in some big department store, and somebody tried

to cut in line. And they said, "Don't cut in line," and the person pulled a gun and shot

'em dead.

I was in -- it doesn't exist anymore in Springfield, but it's maybe eight, ten years

ago. I was going to the new Consumers in southwest Springfield and it was set up

weird. Where the express lanes were made no sense. But I'd been in the store several

times and so I came in, I picked up my couple of items. I'd like ridden my bike over.

And I'm walking this way and I saw this woman, you know, who looked pretty tough,

coming the other way, kind of pushing between lines of people with baskets, headed the

opposite direction with maybe like two grandkids behind her. And I went down and got

in the express lane line -- there was only one open -- and, out of the corner of my eye, I

saw her coming back, pushing back the other way. And I don't know about you. When I

stand in line, I don't need to smell the person in front of me, you know. And so I was

probably back this far from the person in front of me. But by this time there were four or

five people behind me. And so she pushed back through baskets and she stepped right

in front of me. And so, you know, I just went "Ahemmm," and she turned around. And

this isn't how she said it, but what -- the essence of what she said was, "Well, did I get

in front of you?" I said, "Well, as a matter of fact, you did." And she says, "Well, I guess


I could move." I said, "Whatever." And so she said to her kids something like, "He's

rude." And I said, "You know, you're really strange." She said, "Don't call me strange.

I'll stick you." And at that point I think, "Larry, shut up."

And so, you know, the most simple thing. And what happens? I mean, aren't we

affected by that? Aren't you affected by the fact that if you see somebody changing

their kid in a car in a parking lot down by Best Buy, and they throw the throw-away

Pamper or whatever in the parking lot, aren't you afraid to go over and knock on their

door and say, "You know, you really shouldn't do that." Because, boy, they'd pull out a

shotgun and blow you away.

And so what happens is, you know, those who are not civil get their way. Did I

tell you about my daughter's door getting kicked in in Columbia? Did I tell you this? My

older daughter's a law professor. She was driving to work one day and I guess she

wasn't driving fast enough, and she has a very nice car. And she came up to a

stoplight. The lady behind her got out of her car, came up and kicked in the door panel

of her car. And, you know, what's that? What she did was -- you know, we talked about

it afterwards 'cause she'd taken down her license plate number and stuff. And she

thought -- you know, I mean, she knows the legal process. But then she said, "You

know, I don't want this person to know who I am. I don't want this person to find out

where I live. Obviously, they're nuts."

And so, you know, out of self preservation, you let this kind of bizarre behavior go

by and it's totally understandable. So the only way something like that is gonna get

fixed -- you know, you all read recently -- if you're from the Kansas City area, up by


Bannister Mall where that -- people shot each other or something, where there was like

road rage and one person pulled off and the other person pulled up and got out of the

car -- I think it was a guy got out of the car, wasn't it -- to yell at this woman. She pulled

a gun and shot his ass. It's like, "Yell at me -- blammmm!" It's like, "Okay. Bye." You

know, we were scared -- at least I am. I'm scared, you know, unless people look really

puny and obviously don't have weapons.

[Inaudible student response.]

Why don't you just run 'em over, run 'em down -- you know, track 'em across the

field or something.

They just talk about areas that have lost respect. It's a general feeling that this

change in behavior will take at least a half a generation to fix. And again, we're not

talking about everybody, obviously. I would think those who choose to take this course

-- you know, it's kind of like preaching to the choir or something. It would seem that

you'd have some interest in this type of topic. But, you know, we're talking about the

majority of behavior.

Historically, Americans have alternate cycles of ugly behavior with those of

admirable decorum. So we're back to that cycle thing. If you wait long enough,

however you want to behave. If you want to be ugly, your time will come. You'll fit in

and everybody will say, "Man, you're just on the cutting edge."

One of the things that's happening now is a lot of people -- you know, they're not

selling suits anymore. In fact, there aren't really many black tie things anymore.

Probably most of your high school proms didn't require people to wear tuxes, did they?


You know, couldn't you just wear a suit? No? Yes? Yeah, just wear a suit. Which, you

know, I understand. I mean, part of what brought the change was an economic factor. I

don't even know what it costs to rent a tux anymore. What, seventy-five bucks or

something?

[Inaudible student responses.]

No dress code at all? Kind of like the maiden with rents in her dress and stuff?

Boy, they let her in.

So anyway, you know, these things are cyclical. They did a poll for this actually

and they say those who think incivility has worsened in the past ten years: 80 percent.

Those who think that the way Americans speak to each other has gotten better in the

last ten years: 20 percent. So 80 percent think the way we speak to one another has

gotten worse.

Obviously, in America it's really difficult because we've always, in a sense,

admired the rebel. We admire the cowboy. We admire the jet fighter pilot. We admire

anybody, on the one hand, who pushes to the limit, whether it's Elvis Presley on TV

where they won't show his hips moving. You know, and so people who want to

challenge the norm, we admire. But at the same time, we want that to be somehow

viewed as acceptable, but we don't want it to be the dominant position.

What's happened with movies? I don't think it's happened quite as much in the

last couple of years. A lot of movies are now like Enchanted April and stuff are on TV.

But we went through a period about five years ago where we went away from MTV type

inspired movies where it's assumed your attention span is one millisecond, into things


like Enchanted April, these movies that went on forever, generally called chick flicks,

because of the idea that guys don't have the attention span to watch 'em. So the only

reason they'll go to 'em -- I have to admit, the first one of those I saw, my daughter was

in town and she dragged me to it. She said, "Ooohh, we've gotta see this movie." And

I'm going, "Okay." But then -- you know, then I could say, "Yeah, I saw it," you know.

Kind of like Jay Leno -- you know, I saw that movie.

This is kind of germane to exactly where we are. And 73 percent of Americans

say mean spirited campaigns are a reason people are less civil. You know, and they

can argue that like the chicken and the egg, but I think when you see people in, you

know, leadership positions or people who hope to be in leadership positions, who you

know are just flat out lying -- you know, they're flat out not telling the truth, they're flat

out misrepresenting their opponent, and we're taught what? You know, what do we

learn as an example? We learn that's the way to get ahead, you know. Not to be

honorable, not to be just, not to be fair -- those things really don't matter.

The poll for U.S. News & World Report suggests that people are worried about

the impact of a coarsening culture on others. Oh, I know what I started to say before

and then somehow my brain jumped somewhere else. Into a void, I'm sure. You know,

we've gone to these casual Fridays at work and a lot of places have just gone so

casual, that now places are concerned that people don't even know how to dress

anymore. We kind of kidded at the beginning of the class about, you know, how wide

your tie should be. And somebody said, "Well, how do you know that?" I don't know.

You learned that in the air when I grew up.


Guys would've gotten a real laugh out of me this morning. That day I wore my

black striped suit and I had a blue and a black sock on. Somehow this got back in my

drawer. The matching ones aren't there. So again, I was putting out my clothes last

night, in yellow light, had those socks out again. So I get out of the car this morning. I

was on campus about seven-thirty. I swing my feet out of my car and I go, "Oh, shit."

And I said, "No way am I going through another day like this." So I turned around and

drove home, and I had so artfully dodged out of the house. And we have two dogs.

The smaller dog weighs about 105. I have a St. Bernard puppy that's about 15 months.

She weighs about 140. And it's just a total hair machine. And I stealthed out of the

house so I didn't get totally hair covered, and I come back in and I hear these eight

footsteps bearing down on me. So I run for the bedroom and slam the door, and I hear

these large monsters bash into the door. And so I'm thinking, "I'm gonna pick a pair of

socks, at least a pair, and I know they're black."

See, guys were always taught that you're always supposed to wear socks darker

than your slacks. Darker than your slacks. And it drives my wife nuts because I have

summer shoes. And they're like -- she says, "Why are they summer shoes?" And I say,

"Well, they sell 'em in the summer. They're summer shoes."

Etiquette. If the content of civility is respect -- if the content of civility is respect.

And so if we're being civil, we're respecting one another. You know, it's not like -- you

know, I kind of used to kid about the philosophy of manners of the '80s. And I used to

say this, which was "I'm okay, you're okay." Well, really what the philosophy was, "I'm

okay, you're q piece of shit." And so whatever I do is okay and you don't matter. You


know, this is all gonna get cut out. Don't worry. You know, when that was all going on -

- I'm okay, you're okay -- people are really buying into it. And then later when we get

into the early '90s, then all of a sudden people are saying, "Yeah, that really was the

philosophy" -- you know, what I said, not what they were saying. So respect. Respect.

Then its form might be manners. And so respect and manners tie together.

Saying please and thank-you, opening doors for others and allowing an elderly person

to have your seat on the bus may seem like little things but they amount to a physical

recognition of the dignity of the other person.

You know, probably a lot of you will be married someday. You know, I do it so

automatically and my wife does, too. You know, if somebody picks up the kitchen, I say

thank you, you know. You know, if one of us does the laundry, the other one will say,

"Hey, thanks for doing that load of laundry." And we're not doing it, you know, to the

other person. It's just so much who we are. And it's saying that you, you know, respect

what the other person has done for you. And it just -- it sets the tone of how people

interact.

Etiquette seems to be making a comeback. And so it would seem, then, that the

larger aspects of this: people want to know how to dress, people want to know how to

set a dinner table, people want to know how to eat. In fact, a lot of businesses are

running courses for this stuff for their executives. Because their executives -- these

people have grown up in a period where those things aren't important.

I know I mentioned before my daughters told me that -- you know, not politically

or intellectually, but as far as some of these social mores, I'm a dinosaur. That among


their friends, even when they were growing up 20 years ago, that very few of their

friends' families sat down for dinner every night. Very few. And I don't know how many

of yours did but, you know, it's hard. I mean, how do you learn to pass food, how do

you learn to eat properly or converse at the dinner table if you never have any practice?

And so a lot of this stuff is a product of our society. It's not your fault. If it's

anybody's fault, it's your parents' fault or society's fault for ingraining people with the

concept that I have to live in such a way that your parents have to hold down nine jobs

between them to live -- no, I'm serious -- to live in the way that they think they want to

be perceived by society. Not that I have an opinion.

Incivility does what? Incivility makes a bad situation worse. So if somebody runs

into the front of your car and you jump out and start saying things that we all want to say

in such situations, is that gonna make the situation better? No, it's gonna make it

worse, all right? Especially if the person's bigger than you are.

They liken -- you know, I think this is way too negative for me, way too negative.

But this guy who's out there, giving away t-shirts, singing songs in an elementary

school, he feels like Don Quixote tilting at windmills and most of the time the windmills

do not even say thank-you.

I think -- you know, last spring, I guess, right after I got Arnold, the gifted program

in Springfield, their theme for last year was the Middle Ages. And so I got a call if I'd

come talk about some stuff, talk about Arthur and bring Arnold along. Actually, they

wanted Arnold. They wanted me to come along. And so I did that and I did it for a

whole week. And I got really nice thank-you notes. And I don't know what your


experience was, growing up in elementary school. Whenever we had somebody come

in, we always had to write thank-you notes to them all. And, you know, all those things

are good practice. They kind of form you up the way you are.

Anyway, I'm not pessimistic. I think we need to be aware that this is out there

and we need to proselytize for good manners. You'll not see me wear my tux again on

campus. Well, maybe I'll need to. I feel kind of bad about hanging it in the closet even

though it's long since paid for itself. Have a nice day. See you.

LLT 180 Lecture 30 1 - Missouri State University 180 Lecture 30 1 ... LLT 180 Lecture 30 2 ... not...

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