In this age of epithets on the Senate floor and brawls on the basketball court, Steven Michael Selzer is a crusader for civility.
He wants you to slow down and think more about others. It will be good for you, he says, and good for all of us.
| Rule 1: Every action done in company ought to be done with some sign of respect to those that are present.
Rule 11: Shift not yourself in the sight of others nor gnaw your nails. Rule 22: Shew not yourself glad at the misfortune of another, though he were your enemy. Rule 23: When you see a crime punished, you may be inwardly pleased, but always shew pity to the suffering offender. Rule 35: Let your discourse with men of business be short and comprehensive. Rule 38: In visiting the sick, do not presently play the physician if you be not knowing therein. Rule 49: Use no reproachful language against anyone, neither curse nor revile. Rule 56: Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for ‘tis better to be alone than in bad company. Rule 70: Reprehend not the imperfections of others, for that belongs to parents, masters, and superiors. Rule 81: Be not curious to know the affairs of others, neither approach those that speak in private. Rule 90: Being set at meat, scratch not, neither spit, cough, nor blow your nose except when there’s a necessity for it. Rule 110: Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience. SOURCE: “By George! Mr. Washington’s Guide to Civility Today” by Steven Michael Selzer |
Selzer often seems formal, even a little stiff. He tends to keep his suit coat buttoned, and he smiles a lot. To all appearances, he is a mild-mannered lawyer from Rockville, Md.
But if your style is to forego politeness and consideration, you might want to make sure that Selzer isn’t in the vicinity. He is a nice guy, to be sure, but he also has a backbone.
This year he received a call from a lawyer who was “disrespectful, loud, out of control and then profane.”
Selzer waited a week, hoping the lawyer would offer an apology. When nothing happened, Selzer sent a letter to the lawyer, demanding one. “Your demeanor was despicable,” he wrote.
He sent a copy to the lawyer’s managing partner.
He cited the code of civility of the Bar Association of Montgomery County, Maryland. Selzer knows the code well because he helped write it. So did the managing partner, who called Selzer to apologize on the offending lawyer’s behalf.
“Cross the line,” Selzer said, “and you have to pay a price.”
Selzer, 57, who has been practicing law in Maryland for 32 years, does not want only lawyers to be nicer to one another.
“The whole country is hurting for civility,” he said.
In 2000 he published “By George!: Mr. Washington’s Guide to Civility Today,” a slim volume that reproduces 110 rules George Washington wrote out as a teenager about 250 years ago. Selzer likes to quote the final rule: “Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.”
Some, such as Rule 13, seem out of date: “Kill no vermin, as fleas, lice, ticks, etc., in the sight of others.”
A few are timeless: “Speak not evil of the absent, for it is unjust,” reads Rule 89.
In what some might consider a breach of civility among writers and publishers, Selzer’s version of Washington’s rules does not acknowledge that they had been previously published. The historian Richard Brookhiser put them out in 1997, in an equally slim volume titled “Rules of Civility.” The books are similar, with Brookhiser and Selzer each offering brief comments on Washington’s maxims.
Selzer said he is not sure whether he was aware of Brookhiser’s book when he published his.
Selzer also does not indicate that historians doubt that the young Washington wrote the rules. As etiquette expert Judith Martin observes in her 2003 book “Star-Spangled Manners,” “these rules … had been written by French Jesuits, and he learned them from a well-used schoolbook translation.”
Brookhiser writes that it is not clear how Washington encountered the rules.
Selzer observes that “no one can state with certainty” how Washington came to write the rules and says he believes they are a compilation of existing materials and Washington’s thoughts. In any event, he says, he was interested in publishing the rules as a contemporary teaching tool, rather than as a historical document.
Use them to teach, he does. In September he visited a bank in his county to tell its staff members how promoting civility might help prevent sexual harassment in the workplace.
“Please understand that civility ties in directly to what I’m talking about – which is a violation of the law,” he warned the bank employees.
His campaign for civility takes many forms. The book has led to speaking engagements and a few broadcast appearances. Last year he wrote an article in the Maryland Bar Journal promoting civility among lawyers. He has completed a manuscript on civility in business settings and is working on a new version of Washington’s rules, but with a better publicity campaign.
“By George!” is not his first book. In the mid-1990s he published “Life’s Little Relaxation Book,” a compendium of pithy, soothing instructions.
“Get in bed early on a winter’s night” is one. “Read to children and watch the expressions on their faces” is another.
In the book are the seeds of his civility campaign. “Let it go; be tolerant,” is a third bit of advice.
During a visit to a historical society in Charleston, S.C., in 1998, Selzer found a dusty parchment inscribed by George Washington containing the 110 rules. Even though Selzer has bachelor’s and law degrees from George Washington University, he had never heard of the rules.
A few weeks later he was using reference books in the Rockville library to clarify the meaning of Washington’s 18th-century English. The rules gave him the idea for his second book.
Selzer has experienced the absence of civility.
“I grew up in central New Jersey, a Mafia training ground, where I saw people basically extorting money from others or fighting with others on a daily basis,” he said.
One day, when Selzer was 14 or 15, a bully with a knife asked him for his lunch money. Selzer said no, and was cut in the ensuing scuffle. But the bully emerged from the fight in worse shape. It was a lesson in the need to match a principled stand with toughness.
In what is certainly a civil act, Selzer donates a share of his earnings from “By George!” and “Life’s Little Relaxation Book” to cancer research.
Civility takes time, Selzer said.
When he asks you how you are, he pauses. He wants to hear the answer.
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