Manners

Manners
Name	Manners
Type	Social norms

Manners are culturally informed patterns of behavior governing interpersonal interactions that guide expressions of respect, deference, and consideration in public and private settings. Scholars, commentators, and institutions have analyzed manners across time through sources such as Confucius, Plato, Aristotle, Molière, Jane Austen, Charles Darwin, Émile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Michel Foucault while courts, parliaments, and academies enacted codes echoed by Royal Society, Oxford University, Harvard University, United Nations, and UNESCO.

Definition and scope

Manners encompass prescriptive and descriptive rules articulated by authorities like Confucius, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, Adam Smith and implemented in institutions such as British Museum, Eton College, Versailles, White House, and Buckingham Palace, affecting behaviors in contexts like weddings, funerals, diplomacy, parliamentary procedure, and courtroom procedure. Definitions appear in legal and literary sources ranging from Magna Carta debates to etiquette manuals by Emily Post, Amy Vanderbilt, Francesco Algarotti, and guides circulated by Vogue and The Times. The scope spans verbal forms, gestures, table practices, dress codes, and rituals regulated by organizations including International Organization for Standardization, European Union, World Health Organization, and Red Cross.

Historical development

Manners evolved from rituals recorded in ancient texts such as Analects, Iliad, Odyssey, Mahabharata, and Book of Rites and through institutions like Roman Senate, Byzantine Empire, Ottoman Empire, Tang dynasty courts, and medieval Catholic Church. Early modern transformations occurred during events like the Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment, French Revolution, and Industrial Revolution, influenced by figures such as Erasmus, Machiavelli, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Adam Smith. Colonial and imperial encounters—incorporating actors like British East India Company, Spanish Empire, Portuguese Empire, Ming dynasty, and Qing dynasty—reshaped manners through contact zones exemplified by Columbus expedition, Magellan voyage, and treaties such as Treaty of Tordesillas.

Cultural variations and norms

Cultural variation in manners is evident across nation-states, cities, and communities—from protocols in Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Beijing, Seoul, Mumbai Municipal Corporation, and Istanbul to practices in Paris, London, New York City, Los Angeles, and Rio de Janeiro. Religious traditions such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism influence norms, as do legal codes in jurisdictions like France, Japan, United Kingdom, United States, and India. Regional customs—visible at festivals like Diwali, Hanami, Carnival, Eid al-Fitr, and Thanksgiving—intersect with class-based manners tied to institutions like The British Aristocracy, Nobility of France, Gilded Age, and Meiji Restoration elites.

Social functions and psychology

Manners perform social functions cited by thinkers such as Émile Durkheim, Sigmund Freud, Jean Piaget, B.F. Skinner, Erik Erikson, and Herbert Spencer by reducing social friction in settings like markets, theaters, parliaments, universities, and hospitals. Psychological research at centers such as Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, and Yale University links manners to reputation management, signaling theory developed by Amotz Zahavi and Michael Spence, and game-theoretic models used in John Nash analyses. Manners also mediate power relations examined in studies involving Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, Pierre Bourdieu, Judith Butler, and Michel Foucault across workplaces like Goldman Sachs, BBC, CNN, and The New York Times.

Etiquette in specific contexts

Etiquette protocols vary in spheres such as diplomatic circles exemplified by Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, royal courts like Buckingham Palace and Imperial Household Agency (Japan), academic ceremonies at Cambridge University, Harvard University, and Sorbonne, and corporate settings including Fortune 500 firms and startups in Silicon Valley. Table manners appear in culinary traditions represented by French cuisine, Italian cuisine, Sichuan cuisine, Mughlai cuisine, and institutions such as Le Cordon Bleu. Digital-era etiquette has grown around platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, GitHub, and LinkedIn and intersects with laws and policies from entities including European Court of Human Rights, United States Supreme Court, and General Data Protection Regulation.

Criticism, change, and contemporary debates

Critiques of manners arise from intellectuals like Simone de Beauvoir, bell hooks, Cornel West, Noam Chomsky, and Angela Davis who link etiquette to exclusionary social hierarchies visible in debates over practices legislated by bodies such as Civil Rights Act (1964), Voting Rights Act (1965), Equal Pay Act, and challenged in social movements like Civil Rights Movement, #MeToo movement, Black Lives Matter, Suffragette movement, and LGBT rights movement. Contemporary debates engage technology companies like Google, Apple Inc., Meta Platforms, and Amazon (company) over norms in algorithmic moderation, while policymakers at United Nations, European Commission, and national parliaments weigh cultural preservation against change. Academic and public discourse at forums such as TED, World Economic Forum, The Hague Academy of International Law, and Brookings Institution continues to interrogate the role of manners in pluralistic societies.

Category:Social norms