This damn site is turning into Miss Manners today for some reason. Oh well, let us carry on.
It’s important to know about social rules in our society because if you violate those rules, you are in for a heap of trouble. Mostly excessive violations of these rules in the more egregious ways is an excellent way to make yourself persona non grata everywhere you go. It is also interesting to post about American manners, in particular the White middle class college educated liberal Protestant culture that I grew up in. The culture I was raised in is a lot more finicky and mannered than you might think. You would be amazed at the sort of things that were considered social violations in my family.
Nevertheless, I agree with some of my parents manners and lessons on how to be a polite and decent person.
Justin: I don’t know if it’s well liked but it’s common. I have a section of my family that does this – outright in person and subliminally via social media posting. I mean, how can you not hate another photo about a ski trip – when you can’t even afford to travel 100 miles but once a month?
Yes, you can post about your fancy ski or whatever vacations. That is acceptable or at least common.
However, we used to get Christmas cards from some of our relatives, and some of the younger ones were these crass, materialistic, professional, Yuppie Donald Trump-rich types with no noblesse oblige who could not help reminding people all the time of how rich they were.
Their Christmas cards were always about how much money they had, how they bought a new house, all the new expensive gadgets they bought, the kids at the private school, endless fancy ski and European vacations, flying on planes all the time.
My Mom thought those cards were disgustingly rudee. She felt that they were showing off and bragging about how rich they were. She almost wanted to rip those stupid cards to pieces. We kids noted her reaction, and at least I ended up agreeing with her that making crass Christmas cards or Facebook posts that more or less crow about how rich you are is in extremely poor taste. Bottom line is that people who do that are assholes. It is very rude and boorish behavior. I would wager that a lot of Americans from my background would probably agree with me too.
