DO two rudes make a polite?
Amy Alkon, a syndicated advice columnist and self-described “manners psycho,” certainly thinks so. Just ask “Barry,” a loud cellphone talker she encountered recently at a Starbucks in Santa Monica, California.
“He just blatantly took over the whole place with his conversation, streaming his dull life into everybody’s brain,” Alkon recalled in a telephone interview.
Among the personal details Barry shared that day — errands to run, plans for the evening — was his phone number, which Alkon jotted down.
“I called him that night and said, ‘Just calling to let you know, Barry, that if you’d like your private life to remain private, you might want to be a little more considerate next time,’” she said.
So there.
These days it seems that as the rudes have gotten ruder — abetted by BlackBerries, cellphones and MP3 players — the scolds have gotten scoldier. True, many people have grown complacent about having to endure others’ musical tastes or conversations — or more accurately, half of their conversations. But among the disapprovers, withering glances and artfully worded comments have given way to pranks and other creative kinds of revenge.
On Broadway, the actors Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman took turns breaking out of character during a September performance of their show, A Steady Rain, to admonish an audience member who refused to silence his cellphone. Patti LuPone, too, has recently garnered some of the most enthusiastic ovations of her career for stopping shows to publicly berate people for similar offenses.
Celebrities have also been on the receiving end.
Last month, the Argentine opera singer Gabriela Pochinki was arrested at a French bistro on the Upper West Side of Manhattan when she allegedly scuffled with the restaurant’s manager after several customers had complained about her loud cellphone chat.
Bravo, say people like Vinnie Bartilucci, a computer programmer from Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania. Among his methods for countering loud cellphone talkers is to place a small recording device he carries for work on the table next to the offender.
Bartilucci did just that last summer at a McDonald’s in Lower Manhattan, soliciting the logical question: What are you doing? (Which was punctuated by an expletive.)
“I said, ‘Well, since you obviously want me to hear your conversation, I’d better keep a copy of it,’” Bartilucci recalled.
The ploy worked: the man got up and walked away — but the victory felt Pyrrhic.
“We’ve learned so much about personal freedom that we sort of work under the assumption that everything we do is perfectly acceptable, and God help the person who tries to limit us in any way,” Bartilucci said.
Historically, great thinkers have offered suggestions for dealing with irksome people. Usually, they have advised leading by example.
“The test of good manners is to be patient with bad ones,” wrote Solomon ibn Gabirol, the Jewish philosopher, in the 11th century.
“Never express anything unbecoming, nor act against the rules moral before your inferiors,” advised George Washington in his Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and in Conversation.
But just as there is nothing new about rude people, so too is there nothing new about public shaming — or fighting rudeness with rudeness.
Shannon Stamey, an administrative professional in Washington, has dubbed herself the “etiquette vigilante” on her blog, Disaffected Scanner Jockey.
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