As with the personal letters that have largely disappeared with the advent of computers and email, the lack of common courtesy seems increasingly less common today; and I sometimes ask myself why those that should know better do not do better in respect to courtesy? Perhaps the difference is due in part to the difference between Harper Lee’s book and the film, a question of actual good breeding leading to unfeigned good manners.

The anonymity of blogs does provide much latitude for mischief and ill manners, and the worst offenders are quite obviously ignorant and illiterate in many instances. But there are also the demons of arrogance and presumptuousness with which to contend. I once asked my daughter Karen for her opinion of some of my writing and she answered, “Just keep writing the way you are dad.” That was high praise from my little girl. But it would be the height of presumptuous and egotistical arrogance for anyone, and especially anyone young and unqualified to tell me “Just keep writing as you have and you will do well.”! This is an absolute insult! And one that should never cross the mind of anyone supposing themselves to be well-mannered! The youngster feels he is qualified to tell me if I follow his advice in my writing I will do well? I should have his crystal ball or inside track with the Almighty! Talk about the lack of any sense of the proprieties!

To comment on someone’s writing is one thing; to make such a pronouncement by someone young and unqualified to do such a thing is at the least very bad manners. But it is one of the things that prevents me from giving my opinion of someone else’s writing in many instances. Rather than the presumption of being an expert I much prefer the sincere and unfeigned “I just like it” by Ginny in Some Came Running. But I can’t imagine her telling Dave if he kept writing the way he did he would do well.

It would have been unthinkable to have one of my high school pupils say, “Just keep teaching as you are and you will do well!” But that age gap does not diminish with time, and I can only be grateful I was raised better and understand the difference. How many of you my companion oldsters have had to remind some youngster, “I have been young, but you have never been old.” There is a solid line between the liberty of familiarity and license, but only unfeigned good manners together with genuine sincerity knows the difference. But there is always the demon of familiarity breeds contempt to which those without a sense of the proprieties often succumb.

It would never have crossed my mind to refer to my spiritual mentor Dr. Charles Lee Feinberg as Charley. I may as well have called my grandfather Johnny rather than grandad. But the blogs offer opportunity to those without any seeming sense of proprieties to show much disrespect in this fashion, especially to the elderly. But I also recognize the kind of liberty that is taken on blogs not intended to insult, but being the nature of the medium. Among fellow posters on The Bakersfield Californian and some other sites I am Sam, whereas among my colleagues and peers I am Dr. Heath. I do not take such familiarity amiss since it is a part of the blog way of doing things, yet I do believe the kind of informal familiarity on blogs has a part to play in the increasing lack of courtesy and good manners among some, and the price we pay for the informal blogs is in part one of the causes along with the loss of handwritten correspondence of the downward spiral into the loss of the proprieties in general.

Harper Lee was prescient in her novel concerning this downward spiral of good breeding and good manners, the difference between civilized good manners due to good breeding and those for whom it was only an affectation. She was correct pointing out in To Kill A Mockingbird “Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed.” But to really understand why this was the case you would have to understand the historical accuracy of D. W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation and have read Professor Claude G. Bowers’ definitive work The Tragic Era covering the years immediately following Lincoln’s assassination. Since it is unlikely people will trouble themselves to really study the basis of Harper Lee’s declaration concerning the injustice surrounding the case of Tom Robinson and too many haven’t even read her literary masterpiece, the novel of the century, the only knowledge many have today is the film version of the book.

What too many people seem not to understand, including some of the teachers of literature in the universities and schools is that the film version of TKM was a product of the 60s; however, the whole story Harper Lee told in her novel was not. But due to the era of Civil Rights and Hollywood being Hollywood the producers of the film took that one incident of the book surrounding the injustice perpetrated against Tom Robinson and centered their attention on that; but to have made a film covering the whole story Harper Lee told would have required a film of epic proportions several hours long. And pointing out Jews could be as prejudiced as anyone else and the phrase “the smell of clean Negro” could have found no place in the film.

Nevertheless, nothing can detract from the film being a cinematic masterpiece but it is unfortunate the makers of the film could not have known at the time they were actually producing such a masterpiece, otherwise they would not have made some of the blunders they did. And for those of us so familiar with both the book and the film we cannot help but cringe at these blunders. But once it became obvious the film was much more than they realized some like Gregory Peck were quick to seize the opportunity to aggrandize themselves after the fact out of all proportion to their just deserts while Harper Lee simply left off writing in not a little disgust with Hollywood.

Despite some of her kind words about the film there was no doubt about Ms. Lee’s disaffection with the liberties Hollywood had taken with her story. The world she had recreated in her novel was one with which I am very familiar, having been born in Weedpatch and raised among the very kind of people she describes. And while we expect license to be taken by Hollywood, historians should be far more circumspect in their opinions.

There is nothing profound in pointing out the obvious that we are all ignorant, just about different things; but willful ignorance is the most injurious. Scripture has it that those who are willfully ignorant twist some things to their own destruction, and so this has proven to be many times over. As revisionists rewrite the history of America race relations became more of the film version of TKM and the actual facts of Birth of a Nation, The Tragic Era, and Harper Lee’s story recede.

It took me many years to get past the prejudices of my own education in American history and finally admit the seed of America’s destruction may well have been sown in slavery; that the Founding Fathers may have in fact bowed to the interests in profits rather than the fine words “All men are created equal.” Then too, the Founding Fathers true to the times in which they lived did not include women in those fine words. Nor, considering their era would it have been possible for them to do so.

I remind myself I did not live in the time of our Founding Fathers, and I cannot honestly say how or if I would have done any differently. Perhaps I would have sided with Benjamin Franklin in opposing slavery, but perhaps I would not have; I don’t know. I do know with the benefit of hindsight the failure to exclude slavery by our Constitution brought about the attempt at national suicide from which our nation has never recovered. But now revisionist history and political correctness has put its own spin on things and few people bother with primary source material and the soul-searching that often accompanies such studies.

But there is something else at work today that confuses people, the lack of good manners and civility that I knew as a child and grew up with and Harper Lee describes. This lack of civility and good manners especially toward the elderly today is a kind of willful ignorance too often seen among those you would at least think if not hope knew better.

Now wouldn’t that be something, if America should finally be doomed not only because of being sold out and betrayed by our leadership, but the lack of civility and good manners, the loss of any sense of the proprieties of a civilized society?