Flackmoth On Etiquette

When it comes to rules of etiquette be warned: Flackmoth’s easily upset. Most rules are arbitrary, he insists, promoted by the bored and idle rich who see themselves as haute bourgeoisie with a rigid predilection, you see, for behavior they deem uncouth and boorish, vain, shameless and even Neanderthalish. Whereas he says with pride, nowhere as yet has Nature laid down a rule of etiquette! Every thing behaves and acts for its own pleasure whether as a seedling or full grown. And that, he says, is as it should be, for Nature tolerates no artificiality. Moreover, we humans should be resigned to act as nature in her wisdom designed. For all etiquette at best is superficial, at worse, elitist and hypocritical. Knives, forks, and spoons, he readily admits, have advantages, yet all have limits. Eating should be a fun experience, not a rule-burdened inconvenience. Besides, flatware compares miserably to hands and fingers for dexterity! (Who eats barbecued ribs or chicken unaccompanied by finger licken’?) Humans ate that way for millennia without incurring any opprobria. Only within the space of recent times have bad “manners” been charged as crimes. One of the worst is flatulence, denounced for its stench and attendant sound pronounced. That so natural a relief has incurred stigma status, Flackmoth finds absurd. Even science has saved many a lady her reputation from ignominy by inventing pills that dispels gas before it dares escape to embarrass! (Next they’ll have a pill to eliminate the mortifying need to defecate!) Flackmoth believes all rules of etiquette reduce and corrupt our most human habits into silly dandified straitjackets. Imagine sipping soup without a slurp, or holding back a loud but harmless burp? And who hasn’t dared to release at table a quiet tweet with a face respectable? (Your guests may not detect the culprit but its odor have no doubt who did it. Of course, says Flackmoth, not all gas should be condemned as foul or crass. Consider the effect when yeast in dough is placed in a hot oven: it creates a gas build-up it has no choice but to release or pass thus causing the dough to expand (some would say flatulate) and double in size –think of it as farting without foul odors imparting. But more as an appetizing aroma released around fresh bread like a corona.