“Let thy carriage be such as becomes a Man Grave Settled and attentive to that which is spoken. Contradict not at every turn what others Say.”-- Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation (1595)
Stuart Weisberg’s Barney Frank: The Story of America’s Only Left-Handed, Gay, Jewish Congressman mentions that the Massachusetts Representative posts in his office one of George Washington’s 110 “Rules of Civility”: “Be not tedious in Discussion, / make not many Digressions.”
I have my issues with some of Frank’s positions, and his flip nature puts him in daily violation of this particular rule. But give him credit: he knows a good role model when he sees one. Moreover, as a bit of advice for any walk of life, not just politicians, this guideline is not bad.
After I read about this rule, I wondered what the other ones on the lengthy list were.
Well, in the first place, Washington didn’t create the rules himself. He copied them out as a teenager, probably at the behest of his schoolmaster. They were conceived in 1595 by a group that Washington, like fellow Virginian deists like Thomas Jefferson—and, indeed, the great mass of Protestant-dominated America of colonial times—actively distrusted: French Jesuits.
Like certain injunctions in the Book of Leviticus, a number of those assumptions, wrenched out of the context of their times, might strike moderns as quaint, petty, even ridiculous (“Kill no Vermin as Fleas, lice ticks &c in the Sight of Others, if you See any filth or thick Spittle put your foot Dexterously upon it if it be upon the Cloths of your Companions, Put it off privately, and if it be upon your own Cloths return Thanks to him who puts it off”).
And, despite his posthumous reputation, Washington, like Representative Frank, had his problems adhering to at least one of the rules: in his case, “Use no Reproachful Language against any one neither Curse nor Revile.” Though, after years of struggle, he usually managed to keep his temper in check, it could burst out when provoked unduly, as General Charles Lee learned early on at the Battle of Monmouth, when his insubordination nearly lost that battle—and Washington confronted his subordinate about it in no uncertain terms.
Still, the rules could be helpful, and not just for an ambitious young man who hoped at first to make his way into the British military, then into colonial society. Benjamin Franklin created his own 13 rules to live by, which, in one way or another, planted the seeds for the maxims scattered across his Poor Richard’s Almanack across the years. (Ben, too, had trouble living up to all of his rules, especially the ones about humility and chastity.)
What concerned Washington and Franklin remains a live question in America today: the matter of moral formation. Undoubtedly, the rules copied by Washington had an ethical rather than strictly sectarian component (making it easy to transfer from French Jesuits to Virginian Anglicans), but they were often taught in unabashedly religious schools.
In rather bastardized form, these types of rules degenerate into rules for success—the kind of thing parodied in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, when Nick reads the Franklin-like maxims that the young James Gatz set for himself. But, though it’s easy to condescend about the admonitions that Washington and Franklin copied or conceived for themselves, surpassing them is not necessarily better.
Character formation is considered a worthwhile goal by state education departments, but their method of achieving it can be abstruse (try getting kids to learn the fine points of comparative religions—understanding their own faith, let alone anybody else’s, is often beyond them). Sometimes simplicity, as Washington and Franklin could tell you, works best.
Washington certainly did adhere to one rule he copied: the one I quoted above. Part of the awe he inspired among his contemporaries derived from the gravitas he conveyed. He took a long time to say anything, but once he had, according to Jefferson, his judgment was impeccable.
Sure, many people today would regard him as a big stiff, but to contemporaries he was, in the words of biographer James Thomas Flexner, “the indispensable man,” the one who would not be sidetracked by trivia from whatever mission he set out for himself, and the one he would not be swayed by considerations of power or personal profit. And, as a general rule, more than a few of today’s politicians could try to live better by the rules of etiquette that guided him.
Come to think of it, today’s Congress—and cable TV news shows of the left and right--could do with a lot less “thick Spittle” during debate.
Stuart Weisberg’s Barney Frank: The Story of America’s Only Left-Handed, Gay, Jewish Congressman mentions that the Massachusetts Representative posts in his office one of George Washington’s 110 “Rules of Civility”: “Be not tedious in Discussion, / make not many Digressions.”
I have my issues with some of Frank’s positions, and his flip nature puts him in daily violation of this particular rule. But give him credit: he knows a good role model when he sees one. Moreover, as a bit of advice for any walk of life, not just politicians, this guideline is not bad.
After I read about this rule, I wondered what the other ones on the lengthy list were.
Well, in the first place, Washington didn’t create the rules himself. He copied them out as a teenager, probably at the behest of his schoolmaster. They were conceived in 1595 by a group that Washington, like fellow Virginian deists like Thomas Jefferson—and, indeed, the great mass of Protestant-dominated America of colonial times—actively distrusted: French Jesuits.
Like certain injunctions in the Book of Leviticus, a number of those assumptions, wrenched out of the context of their times, might strike moderns as quaint, petty, even ridiculous (“Kill no Vermin as Fleas, lice ticks &c in the Sight of Others, if you See any filth or thick Spittle put your foot Dexterously upon it if it be upon the Cloths of your Companions, Put it off privately, and if it be upon your own Cloths return Thanks to him who puts it off”).
And, despite his posthumous reputation, Washington, like Representative Frank, had his problems adhering to at least one of the rules: in his case, “Use no Reproachful Language against any one neither Curse nor Revile.” Though, after years of struggle, he usually managed to keep his temper in check, it could burst out when provoked unduly, as General Charles Lee learned early on at the Battle of Monmouth, when his insubordination nearly lost that battle—and Washington confronted his subordinate about it in no uncertain terms.
Still, the rules could be helpful, and not just for an ambitious young man who hoped at first to make his way into the British military, then into colonial society. Benjamin Franklin created his own 13 rules to live by, which, in one way or another, planted the seeds for the maxims scattered across his Poor Richard’s Almanack across the years. (Ben, too, had trouble living up to all of his rules, especially the ones about humility and chastity.)
What concerned Washington and Franklin remains a live question in America today: the matter of moral formation. Undoubtedly, the rules copied by Washington had an ethical rather than strictly sectarian component (making it easy to transfer from French Jesuits to Virginian Anglicans), but they were often taught in unabashedly religious schools.
In rather bastardized form, these types of rules degenerate into rules for success—the kind of thing parodied in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, when Nick reads the Franklin-like maxims that the young James Gatz set for himself. But, though it’s easy to condescend about the admonitions that Washington and Franklin copied or conceived for themselves, surpassing them is not necessarily better.
Character formation is considered a worthwhile goal by state education departments, but their method of achieving it can be abstruse (try getting kids to learn the fine points of comparative religions—understanding their own faith, let alone anybody else’s, is often beyond them). Sometimes simplicity, as Washington and Franklin could tell you, works best.
Washington certainly did adhere to one rule he copied: the one I quoted above. Part of the awe he inspired among his contemporaries derived from the gravitas he conveyed. He took a long time to say anything, but once he had, according to Jefferson, his judgment was impeccable.
Sure, many people today would regard him as a big stiff, but to contemporaries he was, in the words of biographer James Thomas Flexner, “the indispensable man,” the one who would not be sidetracked by trivia from whatever mission he set out for himself, and the one he would not be swayed by considerations of power or personal profit. And, as a general rule, more than a few of today’s politicians could try to live better by the rules of etiquette that guided him.
Come to think of it, today’s Congress—and cable TV news shows of the left and right--could do with a lot less “thick Spittle” during debate.
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