This is a truly worrying development as it undervalues the necessity of having people working to ensure that there is an effective understanding of other cultures, partners, enemies and allies. You need these to not only ensure success in your own countries endeavors, but also to avert potential misunderstandings that can lead to catastrophic consequences.
Living in the modern world, where there are fluidly interacting groups from diverse ages, cultures, perceptions of class, occupation and local workplace or region, personal diplomacy is a constant undercurrent in our lives. The difficulty each individual has is in deciding what and when is appropriate in any given location or social environment.
We had a rather heated exchange today within the family as both differences in perception and belief in what were good manners or not varied considerable across three different generations and close but still different cultural backgrounds. The one thing that it revealed is that we are all carrying within us, a set of beliefs on what we think is acceptable and what not. This can be so ingrained into our psyche from our own personal path through life, that we are firmly convinced that we are in part right and the other party definitely in the wrong! I am sure others reading this can relate to situations where Jim said something to Aunty Ethel twenty years ago and they now have to be seated at opposite ends of the room in any family gathering because the relationship has turned positively glacial and remained so over the decades.
Numerous books have been written through the ages and in different cultures, from Ptahhotep in the 3rd millennium BC, who wrote The Maxims of Ptahhotep, via Confucious in China, to the Knigge begun in 1922 in Germany and Debrett's in the UK, the latter two still adding to their modern advice in the internet age to their respective demographics of aspirants. They are products of their culture, era and class. All are regarded as essential guides for their particular audiences.
Which comes to the interesting question of why we have good manners and etiquette in most cultures? Anthropologists, sociologists and philosophers all have their unique perspectives - see Wikipedia article on etiquette. Manners and etiquette seem to be a natural development in any society where people have to get on with each other, avoid being exploited, and also mark out their identity compared to other social groups. Human ingenuity simply means that even a meal can be a nightmare: Eating all the food given on your plate can be considered polite in one location as it shows you appreciated it; whilst in others, you should actually leave something on your plate as otherwise you offend the host by indicating that there was not enough food.
And what is the difference between good manners and etiquette? That is another can of worms because of the unspoken underlying assumptions made by those aiming to give solutions.
In our complex interconnected world, perhaps this is all a complicated dance where the objective is to offend the smallest number of people the least amount of the time. But whatever you do, the only certainty is that you will put your foot in it big time sooner or later. You just have to hope that Jim and Aunty Ethel don't hold nuclear weapons when it happens.
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