What’s happened to good manners in the South? The New York Times reported that while good manners have always been part of a Southerner’s identity in some sense, they are no longer a priority. Men are less apt to give up their seats for ladies, people are less openly friendly or deferential, and terms of respect when addressing others have all but disappeared. As school teacher Dana Mason pointed out, “parents who move South tell her they don’t want their children to learn to say ‘yes, sir’ or ‘yes, ma’am.’ Too demeaning, they say.”
A number of reasons have been offered to explain the decline in manners in Southern culture. Some posit that “strict rules regarding courtesy and deference to others have historically been used as a way to enforce a social order in which women and blacks were considered less than full citizens . . . Read more: The South Sees Manners Decline: So What? - Dr. Paul J. Dean Christian Blog
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