Ben Chrisinger protests the Civility Project (“Cultural differences,” 3/16/2009), an effort to provide students with behavioral guidelines for the twenty-first century, because he fears that such a project will “alienate” foreign students. He says that “the value that an individual places on a behavior or custom is so utterly dependent on their background,” that to impose those values on others is illegitimate.
Chrisinger is wrong on both accounts. First, he insults foreign students by suggesting that they are so sensitive. We all know better. Students from abroad are frequently the most resolute among us. They are brave; otherwise they would not travel so far from home. Further, students study abroad partially so that they can learn about foreign cultures. Chrisinger would deny foreign students what they come all the way to Virginia for.
Chrisinger also errs in his assessment of the moral legitimacy of imposing manners. Manners are an expression of inestimable human worth from one person to the next. They give order and meaning to our daily interactions. The goal of maintaining manners is uniform across a wide variety of cultures. Even if the expression of human worth differs from place to place, its justification remains the same.
So surely we are justified in maintaining a system of manners. Such a system must be uniform within a given community, or one person will not be able to know what another is trying to express. Suggesting that we should not ‘impose’ manners on foreign students, then, is akin to suggesting that we should not ‘impose’ language on them. What right have we to tell foreign students that they need to speak our language?
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