I am a journalist in the field of etiquette. I try to find out what the most genteel people regularly do, what traditions they have discarded, what compromises they have made.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Etiquette is all human social behavior. If you're a hermit on a mountain, you don't have to worry about etiquette; if somebody comes up the mountain, then you've got a problem. It matters because we want to live in reasonably harmonious communities.
If you're a good journalist, what you do is live a lot of things vicariously, and report them for other people who want to live vicariously.
Go to any bookstore, and you'll see thousands of books on etiquette, which suggests there's a lot of self-help going on. There is hope.
I am an old journalist, so I always do a lot of research and dive deep into people's character, who they are, and their motivation.
Etiquette means behaving yourself a little better than is absolutely essential.
I try to communicate in a way that allows people in on what's going on. What's better than references to popular culture?
I make a distinction between manners and etiquette - manners as the principles, which are eternal and universal, etiquette as the particular rules which are arbitrary and different in different times, different situations, different cultures.
A journalist enjoys a privileged position. In exchange for not being able to participate in the rough-and-tumble issues of a community, we are given license to observe it all, based on the understanding that we'll tell everyone what happens fairly and squarely. That's harder than it sounds.
What most people do is try to find a comfortable persona that they're in alignment with and the public likes and appreciates them for.
In general, I'm not much into etiquette and am a rule-breaker and rebel by nature.