Manners in the New Millenium

Not long after man first walked upright, he discovered how to create fire, bringing the first modicum of civility into the human household. Certainly there was still a great deal of grunting and squatting about the cave or lean to, but with warmth, light, and even crudely cooked meals came the necessity to hover together as a family or tribal unit over a meal rather than drag off one's kill into a bush somewhere to chow down. Yes, dating rituals remained awkward affairs with dragging by the hair and smacking lesser males out of the way on the route to conquest still in vogue, but the creation of fire had begun to set man on a path to civility that could not be reversed.

Some few years later the British Empire emerged and all about the world gentlemen's clubs and dainty tea rooms sprang up. It's not that vast cultures were wiped out and replaced with little Britains so much as that vast cultures were modified to include a little Britain. Even in America, where we revere cowboys and truck drivers, we also emulate the model of civility. Or, at least, we used to strive for civility.