Good manners, of course, are about making other people comfortable in your presence. So how many of us feel comfortable in the presence of etiquette experts?
Seriously, on the subject of manners I have a pet peeve: aggressive rhetorical questions. Someone who says "How could you be so stupid?" isn't seriously interested in finding out why you were stupid; she's just getting in your face. Another example is Simon Cowell saying to some helpless AMERICAN IDOL singer, "What-the-hell-was-that??" (Of course, that's deliberate rudeness to grab the attention of scatterbrained TV viewers, which is contemptible.)
You know, some people are rude to everyone, and you really have to feel sorry for them. (How many friends do you think they have?) But what gets to me is the Eddie Haskell types, who will be perfectly polite to people they see as their equals, and especially to their superiors, but feel free to give rude treatment to those of lesser status. One example is servants. You hear these stories of Manhattan millionaires who chew out their servants in front of guests. Even if they don't care about their servants' feelings, you'd think they'd at least care about not making their guests uncomfortable. But maybe some of them actually do it to impress their guests! It's really not so hard to make an impression on people, if you don't care what KIND of impression you make.
Another example is children. I mentioned Eddie Haskell, and you often see teenagers being rude toward younger kids. Their attitude is, "I'm more mature than you, so it's up to YOU to earn my respect!" In other words, they're acting semi-mature.
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"Good manners, of course, are about making other people comfortable in your presence. So how many of us feel comfortable in the presence of etiquette experts?" You make a good point, and it's something I understand. I try to make other people comfortable around me, although it's not as simple as it seems.
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