Manners are a way to express altruism in daily life. Either that or manners are a way to screw people over without their knowing it. Anyway, manners are what your mother always wanted you to have. Whether your mother is a noble idealist or a scheming bitch is something that must be decided by you.
Good manners are a combination of intelligence, education, taste, and style mixed together so that you don’t need any of those things. Good manners have a number of distinctive qualities. First, they can be learned by rote. This is a good thing; otherwise most rich men’s daughters could not be displayed in public. Secondly, manners do not vary from culture to culture or place to place. The same polite behavior that makes you a welcome guest in the drawing rooms of Kensington is equally appropriate among the Mud People of the fierce Orokaiva tribe of Papua New Guinea—if you have a gun. This is the advantage of Western-style manners. Citizens of Westernized countries still have most of the guns.
Another distinctive quality of manners is that they have nothing to do with what you do, only how you do it. For example, Karl Marx was always polite in the British Museum. He was courteous to the staff, never read with his hat on, and didn’t make lip farts when he came across passages in Hegel with which he disagreed. Despite the fact that his political exhortations have caused the deaths of millions, he is today more revered than not. On the other hand, John W. Hinckley Jr. was only rude once, to a retired Hollywood movie actor, and Hinckley will be in a mental institution for the rest of his life.
Manners exist because they are useful. In fact, good manners are so useful that with them you can replace most of the things lacking in modern life.
Good manners can replace religious beliefs. In the Episcopal Church they already have. Etiquette (and quiet, well-cut clothing) is devoutly worshipped by Episcopalians.
Good manners can replace morals. It may be years before anyone knows if what you are doing is right. But if what you are doing is nice, it will be immediately evident. Senator Edward Kennedy, for instance, may or may not be a moral person, but he is certainly a polite one. When Miss Kopechne seemed to be in trouble, Senator Kennedy swam all the way to Edgartown rather than run up a stranger’s phone bill calling for help. You should be the same way yourself. If you happen to be on a sinking ship with too few lifeboats, take one and slip quietly away. There’s going to be a terrific fuss among the drowning passengers, and it’s rude to deliberately overhear an argument which is none of your concern.
Good manners can also replace love. Most people would rather be treated courteously than loved, if they really thought about it. Consider how few knifings and shootings are the result of etiquette as compared to passion.
And good manners can replace intellect by providing a set of memorized responses to almost every situation in life. Memorized responses eliminate the need for thought. Thought is not a very worthwhile pastime anyway. Thinking allows the brain, an inert and mushy organ, to exert unfair domination over more sturdy and active body parts such as the muscles, the digestive system, and other parts of the body you can have a lot of thoughtless fun with. Thinking also leads to theories, and theoretical correctness is always the antithesis of social correctness. How much better history would have turned out if the Nazis had been socially correct instead of true to their hideous theories. They never would have shipped all those people to concentration camps in boxcars. They would have sent limousines to pick them up.
Thinking is actually rude in and of itself. Manners involve interaction with others. You cannot, for instance, think and listen to what other people are saying at the same time. And what most people have to say doesn’t merit much thought; so if you are caught thinking, you really have no excuse.
As a result of thinking’s innate rudeness, thinking people are not often popular. Although the Curies were extremely famous, they were rarely invited out socially. They were too thoughtful. Also, they glowed.
The fact that good manners require interaction is finally their most useful trait. Manners force us to pay attention to the needs, desires, and hopes of other people. If you have good manners you will never become narcissistic and self-obsessed. A self-obsessed person is to be pitied; there are so many interesting people in the world, and while he’s not paying attention to them, they will probably rob and cheat him.