Courtesy

What Courtesy means in a networked world

A stranger confidently insists that the town’s old station opened in 1890. You have the dated opening notice: 1880. The group is ready for a demolition, and you have a sentence that would oblige. Instead, you post the notice and explain the date. The correction is complete without charging an embarrassment fee.

Courtesy addresses a mistaken stranger as a person capable of understanding. State the error clearly, give the reason for the correction and leave out the personal contempt that turns an answer into a spectacle. The other person’s confidence does not cancel ordinary consideration. Nor does consideration require concealing the mistake, decorating it with false praise or promising further attention. When a reply is appropriate, make it one the recipient can read for its substance.

Courtesy gives…

A clear correction can become part of a shared account. People have a way to amend what they said without first defending themselves against humiliation, and onlookers can learn the fact rather than rehearse the insult.

Finding the balance

In ordinary life

Instructions someone missed

Send a direct link without implying that asking proves incompetence.

A reply you decline

You can leave an exchange or decline further discussion without adding a parting insult. Courtesy does not require continued contact with abuse.

Nearby virtues, different work

Candor

Candor keeps the correction plain and truthful. Courtesy makes its form considerate without hiding the error.

Self-Command

Self-Command restrains the tempting personal blow. Courtesy supplies the ordinary consideration that shapes the answer.

Recognizing a counterfeit

Polished contempt counterfeits Courtesy when formal politeness merely wraps an insult. The test is how you address the person, not how ceremonious the sentence sounds.

How to cultivate Courtesy

• Put the correction and its support before commentary on the speaker.
• Use language you would accept from someone correcting you.
• Notice whether the audience has become the real recipient of your reply.

Try it today

In a correction you choose to make, state the point and its support without a personal jab. If replying would prolong harassment or abuse, leave the exchange instead.

Questions worth returning to

• Can the recipient find the correction without first absorbing an insult?
• Am I answering the claim or performing for the audience?

Choose your practice

These pages offer ideas for reflection and character practice, not professional advice. Choose practices suited to your circumstances and abilities. You may adapt, pause, or skip an exercise; putting yourself or someone else at risk is not proof of virtue.

Quotations and further reading

Seven selections to return to through the week. Follow a source link to read the surrounding passage.

1. To use too many circumstances, ere one come to the matter, is wearisome; to use none at all, is blunt.

   Francis Bacon, Bacon’s Essays
   Essay XXXII, Of Discourse, closing sentence

   Consideration includes enough context to help the recipient. Both a cryptic command and an elaborate preamble can leave someone working harder than necessary.

2. When another asserted something that I thought an error, I deny’d myself the pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing immediately some absurdity in his proposition; and in answering I began by observing that in certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, but in the present case there appear’d or seem’d to me some difference, etc.

   Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography
   Autobiography, learning a modest manner in argument

   Franklin notices the pleasure of an abrupt contradiction and changes how he responds. A clear correction need not collect a second reward in the other person’s embarrassment.

3. If a man is mistaken, instruct him kindly and show him his error. But if thou art not able, blame thyself, or blame not even thyself.

   Marcus Aurelius, Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius
   Book X, section 4

   The instruction joins correction with kindness. It leaves room to recognize that you may not be able to persuade the person.

4. I observed, too, that no man could ever think that he was despised by Maximus, or ever venture to think himself a better man. He had also the art of being humorous in an agreeable way.

   Marcus Aurelius, Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius
   Book I, section 15, Maximus

   Marcus admires humor that leaves people feeling respected. Wit can give pleasure without making a mistaken stranger its target.

5. When a disputant was desirous of throwing a doubt upon the veracity of his opponent, and getting summarily rid of an argument which he could not overturn, he uttered the word Quoz, with a contemptuous curl of his lip, and an impatient shrug of his shoulders.

   Charles Mackay, Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
   Popular Follies of Great Cities, the catchword Quoz

   A fashionable catchword does the work of a sneer while leaving the argument unanswered. Courtesy gives the mistaken claim an answer the speaker can use.

6. Men may oppose one another in some Particulars, but ought not to carry their Hatred to those Qualities which are of so amiable a Nature in themselves, and have nothing to do with the Points in Dispute.

   Joseph Addison, The Spectator
   No. 243, Saturday, December 8, 1711

   A disagreement need not spread into a judgment against everything about the person. Keep the correction attached to the point that needs correcting.

7. How far better is it to heal an injury than to avenge it? Revenge takes up much time, and throws itself in the way of many injuries while it is smarting under one. We all retain our anger longer than we feel our hurt: how far better it were to take the opposite course and not meet one mischief by another.

   Seneca, Of Anger
   Of Anger III.27

   A correction can help repair an error or become an occasion for another injury. Seneca directs the response toward putting something right.

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