Decline in Britain's "Main Export" - Manners!

By César G. Soriano, USA TODAYFri Oct 7, 7:10 AM ET

Once a major exporter of manners, Britain now needs its own infusion. The situation is so dire, Parliament has given police special powers to deal with anti-social behavior.

Britons' bad behavior is on display in nearly daily news reports about teens - known here as "yobs" (boy spelled backward) - who harass passersby. Ubiquitous businessmen push past others without so much as an "excuse me," and shoppers on cellphones shove money at clerks without a glance or word.

Several books on manners have been published this year. The latest, Lynne Truss' Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of Everyday Life (or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door), will go on sale Oct. 24.

Prime Minister Tony Blair and Queen Elizabeth II urged the country this year to foster "a culture of respect."

"We've lost our reputation for British manners," says the Rev. Ian Gregory, founder of the Campaign for Courtesy, a grass-roots organization that teaches manners in schools and has declared today the National Day of Courtesy. Gregory hopes Britons will take the day to reflect on their manners.

In advance of the unofficial courtesy day, Campaign for Courtesy has issued thousands of thumb-sized stickers across Britain imprinted with the day's theme: "Thumbs up for Manners."

In 1999, Parliament gave British police special powers to issue ASBOs (anti-social behavior orders) for drunk and disorderly behavior, noise, graffiti, littering, aggressive panhandling, riding bicycles on sidewalks and even failing to maintain a tidy garden. Such acts were deemed "likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress," according to the government's crime-prevention website.

Over the past six years, more than 4,600 ASBOs have been issued. Penalties for serious infractions such as multiple counts of harassment can reach up to $35,000 in fines or five years in jail.

Usually, offenders are temporarily banned from buses or pubs.

"Our aim is to reduce the fear of crime and anti-social behavior - whether it's creating noise, littering or graffiti," Scotland Yard said in a statement.

Colin Gill, a University of Leeds psychologist and manners expert, says manners are cyclical, a fad that comes and goes through the ages.

British courtesy - for example, referring to a gentleman as "sir," a lady as "ma'am" or simply saying "please" and "thank you" - developed in the late 1600s and flourished in Victorian England in the late 1800s as a way for people from different cultures and opinions to have civilized dialogue.

"The cult of being polite and mannered had an awful lot to do with the British Empire, the conception that Britain was on top and it had a mission to civilize the world. Manners were one of the things Britain exported," Gill says. "Manners are a code by which we can all live together and how we should behave."

Though the intent may have been to level the playing field across the empire, the codification of considerate behavior actually helped the upper class maintain its distinct identity and privileges. "It reinforced a social division between the ruled and the rulers. Manners became a way of identify who was in the ruling elite and who was common," Gill says.

After World War II, the British empire began to crumble - and so did the behavior that helped define its culture. With the rise of the middle class and the realization of personal freedoms brought about in part by American pop culture, manners were discarded as an antiquated system that reeked of elitism, Gill says.

"People (who) come here on holiday find that our behavior is no better - if not worse - than anywhere else in the world," Gregory says.

Penny Palmano, a mother of three who lives in Maidenhead, England, says she got fed up with "the general lack of respect from children." Her observations led her to write two books for children about manners including her latest for teens, Yes, Please. Whatever!

Palmano blames the loss of common courtesy on the more informal parenting skills that have developed in recent decades.

"Many parents think teaching manners is an option, like electric windows and a sunroof in a car. But manners are as important as the steering wheel. They are life skills. Children are terribly disadvantaged if they don't know how to behave," she says.

Humorist and author Simon Fanshawe agrees British manners are abysmal these days, but he separates himself from those who believe "civilization is coming to an end. Actually it's not that bad. Most people try pretty hard to get along, but when bad manners hit you in the face, you hate it."

Fanshawe, who explores the anthropologic and historic reasons for manners in his book The Done Thing, says Britons only recently have begun to explore the pursuit of personal happiness.

In other words, it's all about me, he says.

"We have overthrown a lot of authorities that we previously accepted unquestionably in British society," Fanshawe says. "We don't have confidence in politicians, the monarchy. We disagree whether there's a god, let alone whether we should obey him. We have a problem with authority."

Fanshawe distinguishes between the rejection of authority and the anti-social behavior that has become more prevalent.

"People say it's my right to do this or that. Well, no, it's not your right to eat kebab on the top of the bus or scream down your mobile phone or play your iPod too loudly. That's selfish behavior," he says. eirmanners