1. Nan Somasundaram
December 5,
2009
English 111/DL06
Essay #3 – Summary and Analysis
Stephen L. Carter, in “Just Be Nice”, begins by recounting some of the lessons in
etiquette that he learned as a child attending a Washington, D.C. grade school in the nineteen
sixties. Some are esoteric points of instruction (i.e., which way to place knife blades when
setting a table) but probably applicable to a child of privilege living in the nation’s capital.
However Carter bemoans the disappearance of such classroom instruction in manners. He cites a
magazine article, published two years previously, about “the decline of civility” in America and
a unique classroom where there is instruction in manners, as support for his thesis that we are
adrift in “a morally bereft age” with no societal “rules of civility” to guide us and only the courts
of law to steer our course.
Carter then relates an anecdote about a black student at a Connecticut high school who
was disciplined for wearing “droopy pants” which exposed his underwear. He uses this anecdote
to support his claim that we live in a “self-indulgent age” where “self-expression” has been
elevated over “self-control”. Carter deplores the boy’s defense of his behavior as a “right”; a
word which he believes has been subverted from its original meaning. He condemns the black
community leaders who protested this perceived violation of the boy’s “rights” and hinted at
racism. Carter uses these incidents as examples of the demise of civility in America and asserts
that its root cause is the collapse of trust which, according to him, is integral to civility and has
been swept away by an unhealthy tide of cynicism. He asserts that this lack of trust in people
and institutions, which was never there in his parents’ day, has lead people to place their trust in
the amorphous language of “rights” instead.
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2. Carter continues his analysis of “the decline of civility” by contending that in today’s
“self-indulgent age”, the belief that “desires” are equivalent to “rights” is insidiously spreading
amongst the population. He states that this dangerously appealing but illusory belief is another
reason why people are now abusing their rights and failing to use them responsibly. He uses
three news items to establish a context for this claim: the boy with the “droopy” pants, a waitress
who has been fired for piercing her face with numerous studs and rings, and a woman,
interviewed on television, who has asserted her “right” to become as fat as she wants. Carter
uses these characters to illustrate his point that people in today’s society are confusing their
“desires” with legally recognized rights, such as the vote and an unsegregated education, which
were fought for at great cost and have long histories behind them. He observes that the “rights”
these three people are claiming have been violated have no history behind them and are in reality
their “desires” which they have wantonly clothed with legal grandeur.
Carter next traces the progression from a past in which civility was practiced to a present
in which respect for rules of conduct has been lost. He points out that even an important right
like freedom of speech, with “a grimly instructive history”, can fall prey to being abused in an
age where self-control is not practiced, vulgarity is acceptable, and the lessons of the past are
forgotten. Carter uses the 1971 Supreme Court case Cohen v. California to illustrate his point.
He laments the use of the courts to protect a young man who decided to wear the legend F---
THE DRAFT on his jacket and parade this in public. He implies that this young man was
irresponsible in his use of language and oblivious to the sensibilities of others, even though his
actions were protected by the Constitution.
Carter then opens the annals of history and uses examples from different periods to show
the responsible exercise of the constitutional right of freedom of speech. He points to the model
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3. offered by John Locke and concludes that the framers of the Constitution “almost certainly
imagined heated disagreements against a background of broadly shared values” when they
drafted the First Amendment. He opines that they probably didn’t imagine the First Amendment
applying to a society like ours where vulgarity is an acceptable public language. He writes that
he concurs with the opinion in Cohen but he warns about the dangers inherent in resorting to the
courts when a person has confused his “desire” with his “right” and is not governed by society’s
“moral norm of civility”. Carter elaborates on this point and states that constitutional rights are
bounded in their exercise by the tradition which stands behind them. It is this history behind the
right which dictates its responsible use, even though irresponsible use is also protected under the
Constitution.
Carter next illustrates the responsible use of the right of freedom of speech by pointing to
the tradition of public insults in the 19th
and early 20th
centuries. He lauds the witty, pointed,
sometimes cruel language used by the various politicians and public figures of the day. He
contrasts the “restraint and forethought” necessary to speak cleverly, even in insult, from those
days with the laziness about language which prompts today’s conversationalists to produce
“animal-like” sounding obscenities. He again turns to the young man in Cohen and the fired
waitress and uses them to underscore his point that even though an action or language is
constitutionally protected, that does not mean it is being used responsibly, and so the first arbiter
for these individuals should be society and its moral norms of conduct and not the courts of law.
Carter explains that the difference between American society of the past (time of the
framers, 19th
and early 20th
centuries) and American society today is that back then people were
willing to follow the lead of others in the community who modeled the responsible use of the
“right” to say or do something. In the past, people believed in “the idea that we have such things
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4. as obligations to others.” In the past, people were willing to curtail their “self-expression” and
follow moral norms such as “the moral norm of civility” in order to avoid hurting or offending
other members of the community they lived in. Carter illustrates this point by citing examples of
the morally “wrong” way to exercise a right: singing during a train ride, which was decried by
Isaac Peebles in the 19th
century; racing our cars through the streets with stereos blaring; Cohen
wearing his jacket with the obscene emblem on it; racists burning crosses; the waitress serving a
dining public uncaring of their reaction to the rings and studs piercing her face; the WABC radio
talk show host Bob Grant making racist remarks on the air. He contrasts the past social censure
from society for these methods of “self-expression” with our present celebration of talk show
heroes of “shock radio”, and surmises that this change might be due to “a certain loss of moral
focus.” Just because speech is constitutionally protected does not mean that today’s society
should be celebrating it when its use is actually an abuse of a precious right.
Carter then notes the dangers of allowing the government increasing power over how we
conduct ourselves in our daily life. He observes that so much governmental interference in our
private lives is obviated when people are willing to follow rules of civility and allow society to
police itself. He focuses on the right of free speech and writes about the “terrible damage” to
other members of society when “people are unwilling to adhere to the basic precept of civility,
that we must sometimes rein in our own impulses – including our impulses to speak hurtful
words – for the sake of those who are making the democratic journey with us.” He concludes
with his final point that even though the courts of law have ruled that offensive speech is
constitutionally protected, this does not mean that society should sanction such dangerous use of
words as “words at their worst can wound [and] fester.” If today’s society is not controlling its
members with rules of etiquette and civility, the way society was doing in the past, then we are
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5. left with a dangerous situation in which government becomes all-powerful and dictates how we
behave and treat each other in our daily lives.
Carter is a law school professor who obviously favors limiting the power of the
government and allowing individual members of society to police each other and themselves,
rather than turning to courts of law as a first resort. He makes many noteworthy points in his
essay but his argument is ultimately not as effective as it could have been.
Carter writes the essay from a third-person, subjective point of view and reveals
numerous biases in his writing. He is a law school professor at an Ivy League law school and
grew up in the nation’s capital in what appears to have been a privileged home. He attended a
grade school where the students learned rules of etiquette geared to living in high society. He
first wrote this piece for the Yale Alumni Magazine in 1998. From this vantage point, he is
addressing a select audience of highly educated people who probably came from similar
backgrounds, are probably all high achievers, and probably boast handsome incomes. These are
not people who know what it’s like to be the sole black person in an all-white high school in
Connecticut, as was the boy with the “droopy pants”. These are not people who know what it’s
like to work in a low-paying job in a restaurant as did the fired waitress who worked at a
restaurant near Yale. These are not people who allow themselves to become fat as did the
woman on the television program Carter watched. It is these people he is addressing in the essay
in which he uses such characters as the black boy with the “droopy pants”, the fired waitress
pierced with studs and rings, and the sadly overweight woman on television, as evidence to
illustrate the points he is making. He wrote the essay for this select audience as he knows that
they will probably be completely in accord with him. However, this piece was republished for
the general public, and it fails to be a persuasive argument for most people as they lead lives
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6. which are more akin to the characters Carter derides than to Carter’s privileged life. When
Carter criticizes the panoply of characters he uses in his anecdotes and examples, most readers
feel like they too are being criticized, and they emotionally withdraw from Carter and the
argument he makes. This lessens the effectiveness of his argument even though many of his
points are insightful.
Carter uses faulty logic in his argument and hence fails to convince the reader that his
views regarding modern-day society are accurate. He bases his argument on numerous
statements of opinion which he delivers as if they are generally accepted social beliefs and
therefore truisms. However, statements of opinion cannot stand by themselves to prop up an
argument. They need to be supported by good reasons or evidence, which can be facts or
fundamental values held by society. For example, Carter makes statements such as “[r]espect for
rules of conduct has been lost in the deafening and essentially empty rights-talk of our age.”
This is a statement which needs to be defended in order for the reader to accept Carter’s claim
that “[w]e suffer from what James Q. Wilson has described as the elevation of self-expression
over self-control.” However, Carter does not defend his statement. He simply leaves it as an
unsupported claim and so the rest of the argument is not convincing. He tries to use the device
of induction to make his argument persuasive. He begins with the conclusion that we live in a
“self-indulgent age” where “self-expression” has been elevated over “self-control”. He then
proceeds to give examples to back this up. He uses the examples of the boy with the “droopy
pants”, the fired waitress, and the fat woman on television. However, these are isolated cases
picked out from a vast general population and are too few in number to be usable for grand
generalizations about today’s morally declining society.
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7. Carter does not address the other side of the issue in his argument thus reducing its
validity. This is a grave error, especially coming from someone who has been formally trained
in the law and is a law school professor to boot. He refuses to acknowledge any opposing
viewpoints and does not even attempt to refute any opposing views. This makes him appear
somewhat arrogant and lacking in objectivity and fairness. It also undermines the strength of his
argument. In addition, his tone in the essay is condescending and disdainful. He reveals feelings
of what is almost contempt for the people he uses as examples of wrongdoers in our society.
This can only antagonize members of the general public and cause them to completely reject his
argument even if they were to believe that some points are valid.
Carter’s essay is well written though his methods of argumentation are faulty and his tone
is disapproving and superior. He uses figurative language throughout to add life to the words
and create vivid images. He rightfully warns society about the dangers of using the courts as a
first resort in governing the behavior of its people. However, the essay is not well reasoned and
emotionally appeals primarily to members of the elite. Carter seems to believe that the moral
norms governing society are constant and unchanging. He thinks of the rules of morality and
etiquette as things which are immutable and grounded in the past. He looks at the world from his
professorial perch at Yale and judges it according to standards set long ago. He doesn’t
acknowledge change as a constant in human society, even though this has been acknowledged by
the courts of law. This is the reason why he uses standards of behavior from the past to judge
society today. Carter should not have re-published his essay for the general public to read. It
should have stayed in the pages of the Yale Alumni Magazine where it will find a more fitting
audience.
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