From the Easy Chair

Manners

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 122-214

Genre: Speech

Track:

Dictation Name: RR161CL164

Year: 1980s and 1990s

Dr. R. J. Rushdoony, RR161CL164, Manners, from the Easy Chair, excellent colloquies on various subjects.

[ Rushdoony ] This is R. J. Rushdoony, Easy Chair number 274, September the first, 1992.

Otto Scott, Douglas Murray and Mark Rushdoony and I are going to discuss now manners.

Manners are not very commonly discussed in this generation. When Otto and I grew up, of course, they were very strongly stressed. And historically they have been important. Whenever a culture has made great steps forward.

One of the things that interested me greatly when some years ago a did a great deal of reading in the life of George Washington and, in fact, read his collected works, was the fact that as a boy George Washington copied, word for word an entire little book on rules for behavior, manners. Unlike others of his day who came from good families, George Washington did not have the opportunity for a good education. He was the son of a second marriage. He had half brothers older than himself who were going to inherit everything so that, unlike other Virginians of note, Washington never had the opportunity to travel, to go to Europe, to have all kinds of education at home and aboard. And so he educated himself self consciously. And it was his intention to be a Christian gentleman.

As a result, he copied every maxim in this book of manners and apparently memorized them all, because he felt it was so important to his life as a man of character, as a Christian gentleman. All his life he was notable for his courtesy and for his manners.

Well, that seems a remote world. But it still existed to World War II and, to a lesser extent, through the 50s. The 60s went out of its way to trample underfoot everything connected with that world. But when Otto and I, for example, were young, it was strongly stressed.

I recall once when I was a boy as an incident that had a powerful impact on me. We had, as guests in our home, a widow and her son who was, oh, about four years or more older than myself. And my parents were helping them out until she could find some kind of housing, another child, a daughter, was looking for work which she subsequently found and they moved and lived together. But the boy, Willie, was a stinker, an absolute stinker. And he finally overstepped himself with me. He went into my stamp collection and took out some stamps he wanted, some choice ones. And I found out just before we sat down at table so I came there and told him he was a thief, that he had stolen my stamps. And at once my father beckoned to me and took me out to the barn and he said, “Until you are ready to behave like a gentleman, you stay here with the cows. But when you are ready, you can come back in.”

Of course, I had to go back and say I was sorry. And Willie’s mother made him turn the stamps. But that little episode could reproduce a dozen times over from incidents that took place among the boys I grew up with. Manners were expected of all of us. We got clobbered if we were out of line too far in our behavior. And the boys I am talking about in this particular context were all farm boys, very good workers with their hands who had to do a man’s job before they were in their teens, but manners were expected of them. And this is now gone.

I know that in the 70s I was insulted a number of times when I automatically held a door open for a woman who was coming in to a bank or a store just behind me. That was treated as insulting behavior by these Feminists. I am glad to say that hasn’t happened for some time. But for a while it was commonplace. It was a deliberate contempt for mannerly behavior.

Well, I could go on. But, Otto, what would you like to say in a general way on the subject of manners?

[ Scott ] Well, manners are essential if you want to get along in the world. They provide a sort of a safety zone between yourself and other people. Now I found them ... I was given the very strict upbringing in that direction. My father was quite formal and my mother also was very rigid. The best manners, in my opinion, are those that don't show because if they show they are obviously artificial and you are putting it on and it doesn’t quite work. But you have to be courteous towards the other fellow if you want to neutralize your relations.

I was on many, many water fronts and before I went to sea, for that matter, in the war, I was in a number of very rough situations, some very rough people. They didn’t talk rough. They were rough. And it was a very good smart thing to be courteous because you could get into very serious trouble very quickly if you weren’t. And I think I talked once about Caracas and my ... one of my cousins asked me if I had gone and I said no and he went over and opened the bureau and pulled out a pistol and gave it to me and said, “Carry a gun.”

Now the men in Caracas, at least at that time in the 50s, were invariably courteous. And it paid to be courteous because otherwise they would shoot you. And they literally would shoot you and they would not only shoot you, but if they shot you because you had insulted them, the police would not charge them with any crime. This was a very old Latin American situation.

I remember that when we were in Brazil, there was a general {?} who would seduce the wife of a common journalist and some weeks alter ran unexpectedly into the journalist in a corridor in one of the office buildings and {?} immediately pulled out his pistol and shot the journalist dead. And he was, of course, arrested. And they asked him why he did it and he said, “Well, of course, you know that I took his wife and I assumed that he would shoot me as soon as he saw me.” So he said, “I shot in self defense first.” And they let {?} off.

Well, that is an extreme example of manners in another part of the world, but manners here have come under considerable attack with the rise of people who were raised in other cultures. And their ideas of manners were different the traditional American ideas or English ideas of manners. My father’s ideas of manners were both Latin and English and there was an interesting combination.

I found that to use the other man with courtesy was to set up a safety zone in all relations. It avoided unnecessary arguments and it made everything easier. In New York City, on the other hand, I kept running into people in fairly recent years, let’s say a couple of decades back in the 30s especially in the post war II era, who regarded manners as a sign of weakness, as a sign of inferiority that you were being polite because you were ... felt inferior to them and then they would get a little bit insolent. And that, of course, you would respond to properly. I... I ... I do agree with the English... Englishman who said a good gentleman is never offensive accidentally.

[ Rushdoony ] Douglas?

[ Murray ] Well, at .... it seems to me... I don’t know, maybe I am wrong, but that the decline in manners seems to parallel the decline in morals in our society.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Murray ] And it would interesting to do a study of past cultures, empires that have gone through their cycle of rise and fall cycle and see if that parallel exist, because it is a warning to ... to the future that that is the litmus test of the declining civilization.

[ Rushdoony ] That is a good point, because when you go back and study Roman literature, you find that as the empire became particularly strong and decadent, the literary figures seem to indulge in perpetual putdowns on everyone, pornographic putdowns very commonly so that they resembled very much our comedians today to whom humor is to try to degrade and embarrass some.

[ Scott ] Well, that is from a sub cultural group that specializes in sarcasms and put downs and sneers in general. It is not really the traditional American way. The traditional American way was in humor was a... a rather elaborate long stories, jokes with a setting and so forth, a punch line and characters, little playlets almost.

The... I... the changes that I noticed came after World War II. Now we were—despite what is said now—raised to be extremely careful of other people’s sensitivity, especially if they came from a different background. I mean, it was understand that you were especially careful then not to offend in any way. But ... and especially not to offend anyone’s religion or ancestry. I mean, on the other hand it was a ... there was a lot of wit and there was a lot of humor exchanged. There were an awful lot of ethnic jokes at which everybody laughed, because they were told generally with a... with a... without malice.

[ Rushdoony ] True.

[ Murray ] It is the {?} yes.

[ Scott ] So it was strange that the language was in some ways freer than. And relations are more harmonious, but yet today whereas certain words and terms are forbidden, there is a lot of hatred in the air.

[ Rushdoony ] In terms of what you said about guns, P K O’Rourke in his book on The Parliament of Horrors a book about Congress says that when people carried arms it made everybody very courteous.

[ Scott ] Well, it does. And it would. And that was true in rough company, too. If you knew that the company was rough you were especially careful.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, one of the things that I have heard said about manners a few years ago this was, was that just as a car without oil would see its motor burn up very quickly, so, too, a society without manners would see communication very quickly destroyed. And that is a comment I have never forgotten, because I think it sums up exactly what the function of manners is. And this is why we have a divided society today. We have never in American history been a more divided society than we are now.

[ Scott ] That is true. And look at all the efforts that have been made by the social scientists to improve us.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] The ... it... it ... it is a strange paradox.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, we talk about the terrible things that happened in the pre war American culture, the lynchings and what not. The lynchings were not that many. They have been exaggerated and they were lynchings not only of blacks, which is what people have trouble understanding, but of whites. Certainly in California that was true. And yet we have more violence in a week in the streets of America, I am tempted to say a day and it would probably be true, against innocent people than would happen in an entire year in the pre war days.

[ Scott ] We had 23,000 murders a year and the number of injuries, physical injuries from physical violence, I... I don’t know the number, but it is in the tens of thousands. You have so many robberies and burglaries that the metropolitan police are overwhelmed. And we also have something else going back to the manners thing. We have people who seem literally to have been without manners, whose parents, apparently, never told them that the lack of manners is a very perilous, very perilous thing to have. Manners are your protections.

The most ... I remember interviewing some members of the Chicago Capone gang, {?} amongst others. And {?} was an older man and obviously nobody to take liberties with. And I called him sir, because when I was young I did say sir to older men. And he responded very well. He liked that. When I ran a liquor store in San Francisco on the edge of the tourist district on Sixth Street there were... there was large cheap hotels across the street and a lot of winos. And the winos would come in and ask for a fifth of wine, 50 cents a fifth. I gave instructions that 49 cents wouldn’t do. It had to be 50 cents. But each time he put it in the bag and hand it to he man and say, “Thank you, sir.” And that one trick had them lined up along the street for us to open in the morning although there were all kinds of liquor stores in competition with us. They all made a bee line for that store to be told, “Thank you, sir,” which was their right. They were spending their money and I was amazed, though, with the effect. And also it was a sad sort of thing, because it showed the ... the lack of respect with which the poor are treated, whether the poor are winos or not. The idea that you can be insolent to people in a bad situation is one of the worst aspects of, I guess, all life. Everyone deserves courtesy.

[ Murray ] Would you...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Murray ] You don't see much courtesy displayed in film or television nowadays.

[ Rushdoony ] No.

[ Murray ] It is almost a veil of brutality in inner personal relations. The ... the safety zone that you spoke about earlier is an important aspect because it creates... it gives you time to find out what you have in common with the other person and once you find a common ground, then you can build on that for a personal relationship. But without manners people don’t even try. There is no bridge there. There is nothing to bridge the gap.

[ Scott ] Well, I notice that when the highway patrol stops you on the street on the highway, they are very polite. May I see your license, sir? And so forth and so on. And that is a safety device. I am sure they are taught to be very careful how they talk to the citizenry, because it keeps matters calm. And I ... I remember that one of the things I disliked most as a boy and the periods that it went to public school was the lack of courtesy on the part of the female teachers toward the boys. They spoke sharply. They didn’t speak nicely. They ... they came at you as though you had committed an offense and it was just an ordinary exchange and they didn’t permit you to have an opinion of your own. And it ... it is one of the reasons, I guess, that I didn't take to continued schooling is that of all places the school, which it should be a place where manner are instilled, the school, the public schools, at least, that I went to did not show any.

And I... I look at the teachers today when they go out on strike, which is the only time I see them. They are dressed in bizarre ways and they don’t strike me as being very mannerly people.

[ Murray ] Well, you see this in courts nowadays. The decorum in the court has ... is declining. We have a female attorney here in this county who has been reprimanded by the state bar association for ... for unmannerly conduct in... in just local courts. She wears chartreuse stockings and bright leather boots and just anything to create a shocking appearance. And, of course, the judges can’t say anything about it, because that is discriminatory. But apparently her ... her lack of manners, her lack of decorum in the court earned her a ... a reprimand from the state bar association and the state bar association is not exactly a paragon of ... of virtue as far as behavior is concerned. Their... their... attorneys, trial attorneys tend to be very aggressive and very abrasive towards police officers. They try to impeach the testimony and veracity of police officers routinely, just tear them down any way they can.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, one of the things that has helped the Christian school movement in this country is that the children learn manners. They not only are better educated, but they learn manners. In one of the most important court cases going back into the 70s was in a state where the law was very severe. This Christian school was not only going to be shut down, but the parents were told that if they resisted, they would have to come to court with their children’s suitcases packed because they would be taken from them at the conclusion of the hearing.

The parents met and were about ready to give up an to pull their children out and to put them in the public schools. The resistance was created by the one non Christian in the group, a father. And he said, “No way. My boy is calling me sir and he is polite.” And he said, “I never expected to see a boy in our community as courteous as he is, let alone mine.” He said, “I am going to fight for that school.” And all the Christians in the room were abashed and agreed to go along with it and they fought and they won. It was a landmark case, the Wisner case.

And again and again I have seen that parents who are non Christian have been impressed by the school after being unwilling to put out the tuition simply because of the difference the school made in their child’s life.

[ M Rushdoony ] Well...

[ Rushdoony ] Have you found that to be true, Mark?

[ M Rushdoony ] Yes. The ... in fact, the most common comment we get about people who visit our school is not what they are learning. It is the... almost the universal comment is how do you get them to behave so well? And the only way to do it is you expect it of them.

[ Scott ] You expect it of them and....

[ M Rushdoony ] If you don’t expect good behavior and you don’t follow up on demanding that behavior, then you don’t get good behavior.

[ Murray ] How... how can you even attempt to teach children manners at home and not have that reinforced in the school? It doesn't work unless you have both working for the same goal. It is not going to happen.

[ Rushdoony ] One of the things that helps in teaching them that is if uniforms are required of them so that the boys aren’t trying to out do out do each other in being slobs. The girls aren’t trying to out dress one another. They come there on the school’s terms. That is an important fact in setting the temper of the children.

[ Scott ] Well, that is an interesting side light, because when I was a boy I wanted to be well dressed. And I was. Not elaborately, of course, but I wanted to be neat and I can’t understand the young men today who go unshaven and in lousy clothes. It seems to me that if you let yourself slide to that extent to look like a bum, you begin to act like a bum.

[ Rushdoony ] And they do.

[ Murray ] Well, their... their role models are rock stars. They...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Murray ] They try to pattern themselves after the people that they see in these videos, MTV and so forth and they are just... they are... they are... they look like mutants to me.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Murray ] They don't even look like human beings. And ...

[ Scott ] Well, when I went to sea I wore dungarees. I worked in Levis. At the end of a trip I used to throw them in the harbor. I went ashore in pin striped suit and a fedora.

[ M Rushdoony ] Now they... now they sell used blue jeans that are faded.

[ Scott ] Can you imagine?

[ Rushdoony ] Well, all you have to do, Otto, to see what has happened is to go buy a state high school during a recess or the noon hour and see what the boys and the girls look like. It is continual shock to me.

[ Scott ] Well it is a shock to me to run into young women that have no respect.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] I remember when somebody of... of... of my venerable age was ... they opened doors for.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] And it is... it is certainly not true today.

[ Rushdoony ] No.

[ Scott ] And to be called by my first name. We used to call servants by their first name. And it was always the ultimate put down and it is a strange reversal of fashion that the first name now is... is used on all levels even on all corporate levels. And you go into the CEO’s office which really looks like a yacht or something and he says, “Call me Nolan.”

I say, “Well, that is very nice.”

It is an odd thing, because although the manners appear impersonal or... or rather manners appear personal they are actually very impersonal. They are more impersonal than they used to be.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] Because there is an underlying coldness to these meetings and discussions and so forth of which I was not previously aware. One of the things that was conveyed to me—and I am not sure just how it was conveyed—was that when you entertain people they shouldn’t feel as though you were going out of your way. I mean, it was all supposed to be as natural as possible. You are supposed to ... there is a certain... a certain amount of grace involved. And none of the... no... no formality beyond ... well, it was inherent, but it wasn’t in front.

And now there is a certain amount of formality in business offices and ... and on certain professional levels.

I attended, you know, a number of seminars and what not and I have known some of these people for years and I don’t know anything about them. And over a long period of time, 10 or 16 years, I have finally realized that this is, too, a form of discourtesy, to keep everything on such an official level over such a long period of time is, in effect, not to teach you as another peer.

[ Rushdoony ] Earlier I referred to manners as the lubricating oil of society, that which makes life livable, community possible, because it establishes ground rules for human relationships. This is why community now has to a great extent broken down in many areas. There is no common courtesy, no sense of decent behavior. The result is that people are at odds with each other. They withdraw from one another. We have more people coming together to watch games and sporting events and that sort of thing and far less activity that people share together.

I think this is quite odd. One of the things I know that even in the 50s was not uncommon was that even men in their 30s and early 40s would sometime at a church picnic or an organization’s picnic play games of volleyball or softball and there was community and play. There was community then in singing together. This continued until the latter part of the 50s. All this was possible because there was some kind of community.

Now one of the things that marked the games then, whether it was the children playing or adults, let’s say a softball game, was that it was not taken so seriously that there would be anger if somebody made a mistake. And today it is a major problem for boys and girls who are playing in little league that if they make a blunder all the parents on their side including their own parents are upset and angry. Courtesy has given way to hostility to anything less than perfection at every point. We have a highly imperfect society that is intolerant of imperfections in others. And I think that, the lack of manners is responsible for it.

[ Scott ] Well, do you remember when it was customary to congratulate the winner in a tennis game?

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] And Mc Enroe lying down there cursing and pounding the pavement and so forth.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] And so on... Can you... open gloating of an athlete when he makes a point or scores a point.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] Unthinkable.

[ Rushdoony ] If that had had happened in the 20s and 30s the person doing that sort of thing would have been...

[ Scott ] ...banned for life.

[ Rushdoony ] Banned for live and disqualified, the victory taken away from them.

[ Scott ] Yes.

[ Murray ] Well, look at the behavior during the Olympics. You know...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Murray ] ... it is routine to play to the crowd. And the crowd gets hostile if the athletes don’t play to the crowd.

[ Scott ] Well, now...

[ M Rushdoony ] But there is something in the crowd. The crowd expects that. They... they... they enjoy that. They enjoy violent hockey games. They... they enjoy the... these tennis players who throw tantrums, because they can be stopped over night. All they have to do is say any arguing with the officials’ decision and you forfeit the match. You are thrown out of the game.

[ Scott ] Right away.

[ M Rushdoony ] If it... it could stop it over night.

[ Scott ] Yes.

[ M Rushdoony ] They are... they are... they are catering to the fans who enjoy that type of behavior.

[ Murray ] Blood lust

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Murray ] It is just like the soccer games in Europe where they have giant riots and the people are killed, trampled.

[ Scott ] Well, what about the disorder in schools and public schools, whether it is sass the teacher or where kids sass their parents? And you use on television the word sass, for instance, this comes out of a memory hole. I am sure that it is not... it is no longer used.

[ Murray ] Yeah.

[ Scott ] On television they show the most obnoxious children in the world.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. It is very difficult to watch television now. In fact, I don’t watch it very often, because even flipping channels it is a horror to see these brats that are part of all the series.

[ M Rushdoony ] And children don’t write those lines.

[ Scott ] No, they don’t. No, they don’t. But they are taught.

[ Rushdoony ] But they learn them.

[ Scott ] ... {?} that way.

[ Murray ] Yeah.

[ Scott ] In effect.

[ Murray ] They... they are like midgets, you know, they are really...

[ Scott ] Sharp.

[ Murray ] Too sharp, too adult.

[ Scott ] They don’t look happy.

[ Murray ] Yeah.

[ Scott ] I ... I don’t see kids laughing and joking and sporting around the way they did when I was a boy. This crowd seems very long in the face and solemn. If... if you speak to one, say hello or something, you are lucky if they say hello back.

[ Murray ] Well, our society is celebrating the bottom of the totem pole with rewarding with Emmys such television programs as Rosanne where the kids routinely are sassy and irreverent and the parents are to... don’t offer any role model, because they do the same thing to each other and to other people.

[ Scott ] It is difficult to talk in polite terms about Rosanne.

[ Rushdoony ] Did you see the cover to the TV Guide this week?

[ Scott ] No.

[ Rushdoony ] With a picture of Rosanne and then the question: An Emmy for me, moi? In other words, a take off on Miss Piggy.

[ Murray ] Yeah.

[ Scott ] Oh, yes. Well, she didn't get one.

[ Rushdoony ] She didn’t?

[ Scott ] No.

[ Rushdoony ] Oh. I didn’t know.

[ Scott ] And I ... she may sue. I don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised.

[ M Rushdoony ] {?} comparison between low class family... that is all I can think of when I see Rosanne it is just a horribly low class...

[ Scott ] Right, right.

[ M Rushdoony ] ...family versus something like The Honeymooners who were dirt poor, but there was a dignity to them that they dressed neatly and their apartment was always neat and... it is a far cry.

[ Murray ] Of course, it is an indication of the contempt that that producers and writers of these programs have for American society.

[ Scott ] Especially in the blue collar. And that came in with the Vietnam War when they began to refer to our soldiers as drunks. And that was really a very difficult period to live through. This was a ... a trader, treason on a broad scale and Mr. Johnson... President Johnson went alone with that by exempting college students from service. I mean, you talk about class warfare. None of the so-called Humanists protested against that open discrimination against the poor. That was taken for granted.

[ Rushdoony ] Otto, do you remember Emily Post?

[ Scott ] Oh, of course.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, most people today would not know who she was, but she was the arbiter of manners in the 20s and 30s and before that as well. And her big fat book on etiquette was a book for ...

[ Scott ] For all occasions.

[ Rushdoony ] For all occasions and it assumed that you had some means, because the kind of entertainment she talked about required a servant or two.

The interesting thing is that Emily Post’s Etiquette was in school libraries, because it was a kind of dictionary. And maybe in 99 cases out of 100 if not 999 out of 1000 the children would not come from homes where the kind of entertaining that Emily Post talked about was possible. But the presence of the book was due to the fact that here was a standard and you were expected to meet it. And it was surprising how often the book was taken off the shelf because someone would have a question in mind and would look up as they would in any reference book a particular point. That was how important Emily Post was in those days.

Then after her came Amy Vanderbilt, but I don’t know who writes now in Etiquette or whether there is any book of any consequence.

[ Scott ] There is a Miss Manners. There is a columnist now.

My father used to take to me to lunch ever so often to a restaurant and you... many... several times he took me down to the Seville, which was a hotel lower Manhattan, a very nice old fashioned hotel. {?} table clothes, potted ferns and a small stringed orchestra. And I didn’t care for it because the food was Spanish and he liked it because it was. But his idea was that I should grow up to learn how to handle myself in a public place. And also to tell the difference between good service and poor service. And I still do and I still know the difference. He would not pay a tip for poor service. He would say there is no tip because the service was poor. And that was that.

And I have never quite had that much nerve. I have left something out of a sense of guilt or some sort or, you know, for having been stupid enough to go in the place. But it was his theory that one should know how to handle himself in a public place.

Now what can we say? We go to a restaurant today. We see families and some of them are very well behaved and some are pretty horrible. So it is a mixed bag. There is no standard.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] As you were talking earlier about the time when there was standard things that were accepted on all sides. I am confounded today by the dress code. At the Greenbrier I met a fellow from the oil company that I knew who has a home there. And I was all dressed up attending a meeting and he was in golf clothes. He invited me over to his place the next day and I got into casual clothes and went over and everybody was all dressed up because it was Sunday. And I... I... I am always off base now.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, that is because there is no standard such as we knew when we were young and you automatically knew what you were expected to do at a particular time.

[ Scott ] Right.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, I think the question of manners, even though it is a remote one in our time is very, very important because without a return to manners we are not going to return to a Christian culture.

[ Scott ] The women are making a big point about male manners, about what men, how men treat them, how... how men talk to them, how men speak to them and so forth. I mean, don’t forget the famous Clarence Thomas case where bad manners 10 years previously were brought up if... if they existed or not is pretty hard to say after 10 years. But the reverse... you never hear anything about the duty of women to behavior courteously towards men.

[ Murray ] Well, they are encouraged in the universities. They are encouraged to be discourteous.

[ Rushdoony ] I understood why Paul forbad women to speak at services when I was lecturing at universities which I did extensively in the 60s. Paul said that women were to keep silent if they had a question to ask they were to ask their husbands to ask it.

Now the services in those days were very often they would limit the number who could attend because if too many attended it would attract the attention of authorities and could lead to an arrest, because you were not allowed to have any kind of meeting without a license.

Well, there would be in these meetings after the elder in charge expounded the Scriptures, an opportunity to ask questions. And since some of those in such meetings were usually strangers who were new to the faith or did not even believe, but had been invited, naturally they would not know how to react, but the men, by and large were more or less unwilling to be offensive. But women could be very offensive at such meetings, very offensive, because they could presume on the fact that they were women. This is what I found when I went to the universities. And the professors who were women were the worst offenders. They would get up and interrupt and deny that you had the right to continue speaking, an absolute absence of manners, a feeling that they had the right to dictate to any man because he was a male and an oppressor.

So I think we have a very serious problem and I think men have created it because they haven’t taught their daughters properly.

[ Scott ] Well, you hear this in interviews on radio and TV. You know, the ... I heard Sunday snatches of some woman journalist interviewing the Vice President. She interrupted not just once or twice, but she interrupted persistently through all his answers. And I find that this isn’t limited, however, to female journalists. I listen to Cross Fire and this fellow {?} not only interrupts people...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] ...but he tries to outshout them. He raises his voice. He... he when they answer... they do manage to answer, he will say, “Oh, so that you really mean something else.”

[ Rushdoony ] He should be given a national award for being a boar.

[ Scott ] He really is. But he went to very expensive schools. And I am amazed at that. In general it is difficult... you hardly ever hear a conversation on the electronic media where people are allowed to make their point.

[ Murray ] The ones on PBS that this routine. Judy Woodruff and Charlene Hunter Gault they are very tough, very hard and they try to put words in the mouths of the people that they are interviewing and they are just very abrasive, just as unmannerly and as abrasive as they can be, because they want to show that they are in control. That is the whole game.

[ Scott ] I remembered hearing {?} being interviewed by what is his name? David Frost. And Frost was nagging him and Powell said, “Just what is it you are trying to force me to say, Mr. Frost?” Which threw him back a bit.

[ Rushdoony ] The most evil, unmannerly and ungodly interviewing I have ever seen was what Margaret Thatcher was routinely subjected to by the British journalists. It was appalling. They couldn’t hardly wait to out do one another in their discourtesies.

The remarkable thing was the calmness and serenity with which she took it all and was able to put them down in a magnificent way.

[ Scott ] Well, the English can be the most offensive people in the face of the earth if there is nothing they can get from you. If they want something from you they can talk the birds out of the trees.

[ Rushdoony ] Spoken like a true Irishman and Scott.

Well, I do believe that an important aspect in the revival of manners is the Christian school. It is creating a different type of person. And while no doubt there are schools across country that are not ideal, on the whole it is easy to spot the Christian school children when you are traveling because they represent a totally different perspective. They have a respect for their elders. They are mannerly. They know how to sit still and listen. They don’t tear the place apart. They are simply different.

[ Scott ] It must help in teaching, doesn’t it?

[ M Rushdoony ] Oh, yes.

[ Scott ] I don’t... I don’t... I don’t see how a public school teacher could teach.

[ M Rushdoony ] I... I don’t either. I don’t see how it is possible. In a lot of... they don’t teach to part of the class, the class that is not paying attention or is rowdy doesn’t get taught to. Others who are well behaved can’t concentrate so they don’t get out of it and they are really teaching to a minority in anything they do.

[ Murray ] They become circus ring masters. Well, they just take the roll and shuffle the papers. It is sad.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. I was told by one teacher that it takes better than half the hour to take the roll and to get the class settled so that you can tell them what their assignment is.

[ Scott ] New York has had a bad effect on the rest of the country.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] I remember working for a photo reporting service, photo and industrial recording service and the head of it, Al Roberts, was a former second string catcher for the New York Giants at that time. He was a pretty husky fellow. And I ... Al... I was a reporter under him and he ... I was in his office one day going though the files. Al was not a likable fellow. And he didn’t want to be. He didn't work at it and he wasn’t. I was going through some file looking something up and he was looking at me, watching me and he said, “You know, Otto, you are not bad,” but he said, “You are not aggressive enough.”

And it struck me at a wrong moment and I turned around and said, “Would you like me to get aggressive?”

And he said, “Well, that is not the way I meant it.”

I said, “That is what it means. And do you have any more comments?”

And he said, “No.”

[ Rushdoony ] Well, one of the thins that struck me as a good sign was in the news this evening when they were asking various people how they felt about Canseco being traded by the Oakland Athletics to Texas and there were those who felt it would be a disaster for the future or the Oakland Athletics. There were one or two who were ready to welcome it out of the four or five they interviewed, because they found him to be obnoxious, bad mannered and a poor sport.

Now I was very interested in that, because it indicates that even though this man has been a sensational player, there are those who are saying that is not enough. An that is a health sign.

[ Scott ] Yes, it is. No, if he is a poor sport then it would mean that he would be hard to work with.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] ... hard to play with. And he... I saw a statement that he made or I watched him making a statement in which he expressed some bitterness, but he also said that it was obvious that he was being treated with such disrespect, it was really time to move on.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, he...

[ M Rushdoony ] In northern California there are probably 10 Giants fans for every one Oakland Athletics fan, because Oakland has a reputation of being a team of prima donnas, just spoiled brats, unsportsmanlike. The Giants have more of the traditional aura of an old fashioned team. And Oakland just doesn’t have that.

[ Scott ] I see.

[ M Rushdoony ] And... and lots of fans just won’t have anything to do with Oakland players. That is why they are so disappointed that it is the Giants that are leaving town.

[ Scott ] Right.

[ Rushdoony ] Well...

[ M Rushdoony ] So there... there... there is... And... and Giants’ fans are not known, as far as the ones in the stadium, are not known for being polite fans. They are... they are some of the most ugly fans.

[ Scott ] Do they make any decent fans any more, I wonder?

[ M Rushdoony ] No. I think the best fans and the well behaved ones avoid going to the ball park in many cases.

[ Scott ] Ah, yeah.

[ Murray ] Don’t you think that looking back time wise it seems to me that from about the 1950s on when the ... the big push, the liberal movement in the universities to ... to destroy the status quo and attack all of the existing institutions that manners was one of the things that was methodically attacked ...

[ Scott ] This... this really, the destruction of the dignity of the president, no matter who he is, after all, the president is a unifying symbol, unifying office of the country. The dumping on to Lyndon Johnson, the dumping on to Goldwater, the dumping on to Bush right now, this is horrible.

[ Rushdoony ] I think this is almost getting into another subject, but an example, a very bad one was set for the student generation by President John F. Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy. After their assassinations a lot of the well known stories of their arrogant and rude behavior tended to be pushed into the background. But they were routinely discourteous. They were contemptuous of those around them. They were bad mannered as only those who have been brought up with wealth and have learned to treat everyone without wealth with contempt can be. So I think their role in the setting the temper for the 60s has been to a great degree neglected.

[ Scott ] Well, Lyndon Johnson... I had a... a... a columnist on the magazine that worked for me who was over in the White House talking to a friend of his. And this was the White House, not the executive office building. And Johnson came in and called this man every name in the... in the language and a few that he invented for the occasion and then went on out the other door. And the columnist said to the fellow, “How can you stand that? How can you put up with that?”

Oh, he said, “It is routine. You get used to it.”

I mean, Lyndon Johnson wasn’t raised to wealth, but he was absolutely the bottom.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. Well, the Kennedys, Johnson and then Nixon all set examples for bad manners, in Nixon’s case, foul speech.

[ Scott ] That is true. Nixon was always trying to be one of the boys and never succeeded.

[ Rushdoony ] Well our time is just about over. Thank you all for listening and God bless you.

[ Voice ] Authorized by the Chalcedon Foundation. Archived by the Mount Olive Tape Library. Digitized by ChristRules.com.