The next four cards all fall under the heading of “Conformity”. Here we go. Let’s get this deed done.

You will not be shocked to learn that I can be quite an impolite person. I have that capacity. But in truth, as I sit and reflect on what on Earth to write about this idea, I do think I am quite as polite as I can be. It’s a learned behavior, maybe for all of us, but certainly for me. My mother taught me the value of politeness.

When I was young we were but simple country folk. Still, my mother taught us which fork to use in the correct order. She taught us to use our napkins efficiently and sparingly, to keep our elbows off the table.

I was apparently the last human being to address my elders by Mr. & Mrs. and I did so until I was a teenager. Sometimes I still do, and it really seems to weird some people now. Not a very polite practice at my age I suppose, actually.

When we answered the rotary phone on the wall we’d say “Hello, Walton residence, this is Nick speaking”. What a nerd.

I did grow up with a value for politeness, but I think it’s one I easily trump with other values. It didn’t make it very far in my sort because, much like the last card, it can feel, (in today’s society), cloying and inefficient. And that bothers people. It bothers me.

It feels like politeness can also be weaponized and used as a blunt object with which to subjugate others. To put oneself on a morally superior footing. “At least I wasn’t rude about it”.

If we’re not vigilant and watchful, politeness can cover all manner of sin. Politeness can even cover abuse or in the worst cases crimes. I am thinking of a crime now in my head, covered up for years and hidden under the guise of politeness. I am gratified that this seems less common now than it was when I was younger. Politeness often demands silence. “Don’t make a scene”. Many people today are more willing to make a scene. Perhaps not enough people.

I think the complex part of politeness to me is that it seems to often fly in the face of kindness, a value that does not have its own card but is nevertheless among my own personal central values. Politeness uses the correct fork and then quietly slips its sharpened handle between your ribs. Kindness shoves over and scrapes half its food onto your plate–there’s enough to go around. Polite is nice. Kind is kind.

In the end I find politeness suspicious at best. It does feel too-often antithetical to kindness and in a binary choice I know where I land. I know I land with kindness and it alarms me to feel like I’m in a world where not everyone shares this hierarchy of values. I will be polite until it is untrue. Until it is unkind or harmful. And then I will let the chips fall.

I will try to be polite. But I will not be silent.

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