The etiquette gap: From Newt and Mitt to Facebook and texting

Observers say manners and civility, in fact, form the core of an ethical life, one lived first with respect for others.

This can be easier said than done. Much of TV, after all, has become a freak show, with "real" housewives taking their relationship train wreck from coast to coast, where even debonair George Clooney uses his moment in the Golden Globe spotlight to joke about another actor's anatomy.

But the great unwashed seem to long also for the good. On TV there's "Downton Abbey" leading the civility pack. And while once the socially uncertain had just Dear Abby or Ann Landers or Mom to ask, an entire industry of manners consultants, workshops, character education classes, columnists, bloggers, books, books, and more books has mushroomed.

And why not? Grandma may have looked to Emily Post when seating the mother of the groom, but Mama may have had the stepmother of the groom to think about as well. And today, with sometimes more than one groom in a ceremony, there are yet more complexities to think about.

Everyone wants to do the right thing. And as Letitia Baldrige, adviser to first lady Jacqueline Kennedy and longtime Washington manners advocate, puts it: "Nobody wants to be mean."

While some instructors have but a weekend's worth of table manners training, other advisers are far more nuanced. Ninety years after Emily Post first published her "Etiquette," even her family carries on, with substantive updates of her book and online maintenance of the Emily Post Institute website.

The rules that set you free

The greatest threat to civilized behavior? Technology, say the experts – in particular, on-screen lives that get people out of the practice of the more socially demanding face-to-face relationship.

In spite of the "miraculous" way technology has made "our neighborhoods global," observes Mary Mitchell, communications consultant and longtime columnist on matters of manners, "when people are face to face they are baffled. They don't know how to advance a relationship."

The result is a generational divide especially evident in the workplace, says Ms. Mitchell.

"Millennials" in the companies she advises tend to be "more cynical about their communication, much more succinct, and much less attentive to the turn of phrase," she says. "There's a whole lot of name-calling. I can't tell you how many times I hear Millennials – if they're fortunate enough to have a job – say how everyone in the company is an idiot." Mitchell suggests that critiques be limited to observable behavior, and that modeling the good, being willing to apologize, and being free with pats on the back can head off mean-spiritedness.

So can good manners.

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