We the People: Minding Our Manners

The Constitution is the Law of the Land, but what it exactly says is a matter of debate. In Marbury v. Madison in 1803, Chief Justice John Marshall ruled the Supreme Court is the final arbiter when he declared, “It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.” Whether one likes it or not, it makes sense. After all, someone has to decide what the text of the Constitution and a law really says and means. Otherwise, we’d have a supreme ruler like they do in Iran, Russia, and China.

The Constitution was preceded by two other founding documents: The Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation. They were preceded in turn by England’s Magna Carta in 1215, the organizing agreement of the Dutch Republic in the late seventeenth century, and the Pilgrim’s Mayflower Compact in 1620. So there’s quite a history of formalizing governance through documentation.

Laws, rules, and regulations are one thing. How citizens conduct themselves in the public sphere in a self-governing state is another. That’s what makes it all work.

In the late eighteenth century, the English parliamentarian Edmund Burke spoke to that when he wrote, “Manners are of more importance than laws. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe.”

Burke wasn’t referring to manners in the proper etiquette, Miss Manners sense, although that’s a subset of the larger issue. He meant by our public decorum, comportment, and social interaction. How civil are we toward each other?

Over the past few decades, Americans have increasingly fallen into living a bi-polar existence. I’m not referring to politics—the red-blue divide—specifically, but the undercurrent of it in their social interactions. And I call it “falling” like it is with Christians and sin.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, author Harper Lee uses the mockingbird as a symbol for Tom Robinson, a Black man, who’s been framed for raping a white girl. Consider how “frame” has multiple meanings: framing a picture, framing an argument, and framing someone for a crime they didn’t commit. They’re different actions, but they all get at the same point: putting something or someone in a box.

The problem with putting someone in a box—framing them—because of a certain behavior or an opinion they hold is that it flattens them. And people aren’t flat beings. In fact, they’re more than rounded. They’re holograms consisting of a complex mix of attributes, predilections, tastes, and more. Generally, they’re becoming, but on occasion, unbecoming.

Think of the size of your social network, including family, friends, and professional service providers. How many can you name right off the bat? How many do you know intimately?

Research has shown the maximum number of an effective group is about 150. Public schools model that in the upper grade levels with class size and teacher load. Five classes of thirty students or six of twenty-five has proven to be workable. Beyond those numbers, the ability of a teacher to get to know and interact with their students on an individual basis declines. In college lecture halls where the student body can be in the hundreds, students often become a number, another face in the crowd.

Applying the 150-cap to larger bodies, like the House of Representatives and businesses, makes one wonder. They can not only see its effects, they feel them because they have experienced them. Applying it further to the nation, and one can appreciate the pickle we’re in.

In a large-scale democracy, there’s no way around the 150-cap, but there is a way through it. We do it naturally. I call it social cross-pollination. People mix and match their public activities. They go to religious services, volunteer at local food banks, join book clubs, work out at local gyms, travel on public transportation, shop for groceries, and so on.

When people do that broadly, it’s inevitable they’ll engage with others who look, think, and act differently than them. And when that happens, they appreciate more fully—even if it’s unconsciously at first—that most people they interact with are morally and ethically good despite their superficial differences, like race, political stances, and belief systems.

That’s what Burke meant when he talked about manners: It’s the manner we conduct ourselves in the public arena that’s populated by a diverse set of humanoids who can make life interesting.

Throughout the natural world, pollinators makes life grow and thrive. That’s true for a thriving society as well.