Posted on 09/15/2025 9:56:31 AM PDT by CIB-173RDABN
Manners are often dismissed as superficial — just a list of rules about saying “please” or chewing with your mouth closed. But at their core, manners are much more than that. They are the quiet architecture that holds a civilized society together. They are the social grease that allows people to live near one another, work together, share space, and not come to blows over every disagreement.
It’s my belief that societies create manners not just to promote politeness, but to control human emotions — especially the more destructive ones: anger, resentment, jealousy, and cruelty. Manners teach restraint. They teach deference to others, not because we are weaker or less important, but because we recognize that other people matter, too. And they evolve with time, adjusting to the needs and pace of the society that creates them.
But what happens to a society when manners disappear?
Over the past 20 or 30 years — and especially with the rise of the internet and social media — something strange has happened. It seems that younger generations are no longer being taught the manners that once helped shape decent behavior. And online, where there's little direct human interaction and even less accountability, the unwritten rules of courtesy have been thrown out completely.
People now post things — casually and publicly — that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. There’s no eye contact. No discomfort. No peer pressure. No family watching. No teacher correcting. No elder raising an eyebrow. And without those subtle social reinforcements, the filter is gone.
Why bring this up now? Because something happened after the murder of Charlie Kirk that offers a striking case study in what happens when people have grown up without any meaningful concept of manners — or moral restraint.
In the hours and days following his death, tens of thousands of people posted videos and comments online celebrating it. Laughing. Mocking. Making memes. Singing. Dancing. Calling for more deaths of people like him. These weren't private conversations or edgy jokes among close friends. These were public broadcasts, shared proudly with the world.
But what happened next surprised them.
They were fired. Not all of them, of course — but many were. Employers, coworkers, and communities responded with outrage. For the first time, these individuals were told, in no uncertain terms, that they had crossed a line. They had gone too far. And here's what’s most telling:
They didn’t understand what they had done wrong.
Not one of them — at least in the videos they later posted — seemed to grasp why people were angry. They didn’t understand the disrespect they had shown for the dead. They didn’t grasp the pain they had caused the family. They didn’t recognize that celebrating a killing — even of someone you dislike — shakes the moral foundation of any civilized society.
They had done this sort of thing before, and no one seemed to care. But this time, the reaction was loud, clear, and swift.
What we’re witnessing here is a crack in the social order that comes from generations not being taught manners — and not learning that freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences.
When manners are gone:
People forget that manners aren’t just about being “nice” — they are a form of mutual disarmament. They allow people to coexist even when they disagree. They keep the social temperature low. They remind us that behind every name is a person, behind every screen is a life.
Take that away, and the results are what we’re seeing now: public celebration of violence, and genuine surprise when the rest of society recoils in horror.
Perhaps this moment can be a wake-up call. Perhaps these firings and the outrage that followed can serve as a long-overdue civics lesson — that even in a digital world, real-world values still apply. That cruelty is not courageous. That shouting into a camera doesn’t make you wise. That just because you can say something doesn’t mean you should.
And perhaps — just perhaps — we can begin again to talk about manners. About restraint. About decency. Not as old-fashioned ideas, but as essential skills for living in a world full of other people.
Because when manners disappear, civilization doesn’t just weaken — it begins to rot from the inside out.
And a well written essay at that.
The assassination of Charlie Kirk is itself a lesson in the breakdown of civil society and the cheapening of human life.
Charlie Kirk always championed civil dialogue over violent rhetoric and literal violence. Leftists found that their ideology and beliefs didn’t stand up to civil dialogue and reasoned debate ... so they resorted to violence.
Not to mention, they celebrated a school shooting.
“Well, in the first place an armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life. For me, politeness is a sine qua non of civilization. That’s a personal evaluation only.” ~ The Great Robert A. Heinlein
I’ve been saying this for years. Bring manners and etiquette back.
When I was growing up in the 1950s, it was not only acceptable — it was expected — that any adult could correct a child who was acting out in public. If a kid was rude, disrespectful, or misbehaving, a neighbor, a shopkeeper, or even a stranger at the bus stop might step in and say, “Hey now, that’s not how we behave.” And you know what? Most parents would thank them for it.
That kind of gentle, shared accountability helped reinforce a common set of values. It taught children that manners and decency didn’t just exist inside the home — they were expected everywhere. The world didn’t revolve around them, and adults were united in making sure they learned that early.
Fast forward to today, and that kind of interaction would be almost unthinkable. If you correct someone else’s child — even kindly — you risk being shouted at, filmed, or worse: having the police called. People keep their heads down, avoid eye contact, and let bad behavior slide — not because they approve of it, but because it’s safer to say nothing.
The result? A generation raised without social reinforcement. Without the pressure of adult eyes in the room. Without the feeling that they’re part of something bigger than their personal wants.
We used to call that community. Now we call it “overstepping.”
Bring back spanking
It reminds me of this exchange from the movie Blast From the Past:
EVE
Or have perfect table manners.
TROY
(sitting up)
You know, I asked him about that. And
he said that good manners are a way we
have of showing other people that we
respect them. See, you’d eat like a
slob if you
were alone, but since another human
being is present, you show that person
respect by going to the trouble of
having proper manners. I didn’t know
that. I thought it was a way of
appearing superior.
(then)
Know what else he told me?
EVE
(sitting on the bed)
What?
TROY
He thinks that I am a gentleman and
that you are a lady!
EVE
Well, consider the source. I don’t
even know what a lady is.
TROY
Exactly! I thought a gentleman was
somebody who owned horses. Turns out,
the short and very simple definition
of a gentleman or a lady is: someone
who always attempts to make the people
around him or her feel as comfortable
as possible. That’s it! If you don’t
do that, nothing else matters. The
cars, the clothes, the houses...
EVE
Where did he get all that information?
TROY
From the oddest place. His parent’s
told him. I don’t think I got that
memo.
First EBH’s essay and now yours. FR has some excellent writers here. Laz is another great one. Thanks
So very true, thank you.
So, where's the [Vanity] tag in the title?
So, where’s the [Vanity] tag in the title?
—
I did not see anywhere in the instructions when I posted that that demanded a “vanity” tag. So there is none, and unless the admin of this site instructs me differently I will not add one.
It is an open forum, I clearly state that I wrote the article, I don’t consider it to be a “vanity” piece.
I have been on this site since 2001, and rarely posted anything now that I am retired I have time to do so.
I wish you well.
There are a lot of things on FR that are more or less unwritten courtesies or user-generated expectations. Being able to see at a glance that a post is a vanity without having to read the fine print is one I appreciate as I scan through the Forum front page.
While the FR “help” page doesn’t spell it out, it does mention vanity posts, as if we all know what that term means. It isn’t an insult; it’s a term commonly used in the last century after WW2 to denote a self-published work, as opposed to a major publishing house. Now in the digital world, lines are blurring; but in 1998 when FR began, that’s what the [Vanity] tag meant and how its meaning carries forward — the poster wrote it, and it’s not from a wide-circulation news source.
Here’s the FR Help page:
https://freerepublic.com/help.htm
Thank you for your nice explanation. However, I posted in the “BLOGGER AND PERSONAL” section. That means my post is either a blog or personal. I don’t see the need to add “vanity” to the post. If I was posting in “BREAKING NEWS” or any other one of the forums, then perhaps it would be different.
I appreciate the effort to help and the feedback and I assure you I will take your advice under consideration.
Wishing you a very happy day.
Sadly, I think that manners in person and on-line have degraded over the past 20-30 years.
It seems more and more people on a variety of mediums including X, media discussion boards, other sites threaten, use profanity and racial, sexual, and ethic slurs and innuendo to make their point, as they often can’t argue the point.
I talked to someone last Friday at work who was joking about Charlie Kirk’s death. In private I told them that if word gets out that he was laughing at Charlie’s wife and kids seeing him get killed that I believed he would be terminated and escorted out of the building that day. I never thought this person felt this way.
I’ve always regarded the need for the inclusion of (Vanity) in the title for lighter subjects or inconsequential brief posts. When the post is of substance, especially superior to a lot of the material from outside sources, in my opinion it is not necessary. I greatly enjoyed your post.
What the left’s position, after the murder of Charlie Kirk, is, amounts to this:
We believe we should have the right to call anyone a Nazi.
We believe we should be the only ones who decide if the charge is true.
Nobody who is friends with someone accused of being a Nazi is allowed to defend them — they’re Nazis TOO!
Then, if we decide someone really IS a Nazi, we get to shoot them.
And then the world owes us a Gold Star for killing a Nazi.
Also, we’re against the death penalty, so nobody else gets to kill anyone. Especially nobody gets to kill us.
But we still get to kill anybody.
And finally, if you disagree with any of this, you’re a Nazi.
What if I just want lobster bisque?
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