‘Etiquette is a pact,” writes New York Times critic Wesley Morris in a brilliant recent reflection on the show Curb Your Enthusiasm. “In a functional society, it’s also an offering of goodness, decency, forbearance and respect, a flavor of the social contract, in which we all pay a small personal freedom tax so that everyone feels accommodated.”
This “social contract” involves all the things we do, not because a law or rule directs us, but because these behaviors are necessary for society to function. Call them “courtesy” or “norms” or “etiquette” or “customs” or “mores” — they are the unwritten rules that lubricate the political and social machine, allowing people of different opinions, backgrounds, and incentives to coexist. (As Morris notes, the genius of Curb Your Enthusiasm is Larry David’s curmudgeonly ability to dismantle and examine our ideas of etiquette. Why do we tip? How many buttons are you allowed to push in an elevator? Should you pick up a prostitute in order to use the carpool lane?)
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