Is old school courtesy and etiquette still relevant?

"Get your elbows off the table"
"It's 'Dear' not 'Hi'"
"Hold the door open for her, will you?"
"Just stop being a teenager"

Much as it evolves, society stands as a multigenerational anchorage — receding to past and perceiving the world in monochrome rather than colour, in vintage terms rather than ours. Its asymmetric outlook, however, morphs into animated reproach, placing teenagers' modern behaviour under out-of-context headlights.

This often begs the question of whether teenagers still bear courtesy or if we are a generation "bruised by the causality of pop culture and brainwashed by the cardboard white letters of Hollywood".

However I ask, instead, if the so-called definition of courtesy is truly in sync with the world today. Are the encyclopaedic bouts of Emily Post (an American author famous for writing about etiquette) still relevant in the advent of post-modernism? Should teenage girls still nod in agreement because they were seen as the inferior sex? Should boys still bow to powers of chivalry, holding doors open and paying for bills in a world that otherwise propagates equality? Should teenagers refrain from speaking out simply because authority used to have the overriding word?

The simple answer is no. Etiquette is not static or firm, but transforming — adapting to the context that it is in. While, responding to, rather than accepting, the word of etiquette coaches and parents is stamped as 'disrespectful' or 'rude,' it falls, fittingly, in the queue of questions that society now demands. Today's neon-lighted population of 13 to 19 has witnessed as many triumphs as it has losses. It has watched — through the pixels on their phone and the headphones stitched to their ears – public outrage at corrupted governments, revolutions against self-serving authority and the tell-tale bruise of oppression that compliance brings you.

Therefore, it becomes automated for us to argue, for us to answer back, for us to voice our desires, and protest when we disagree with the values that are being thrown at us — because we have learnt that all authority is not correct, that we have the liberty to think for ourselves. We did not live in the era of the appeasement, but we know what it costs us. The oh-so-paramount courtesy we are pushed towards is, then, not courtesy at all but an out-of-date norm. In the world of a teenager, questioning the chants of those above us is a new kind of etiquette — one that is necessary and true to the context that we live in.

At the same time, we concentrate etiquette in gender segregated terms that while understandable in the era of 'The Donna Reed Show', are despicable in our new-found parade of equality. 'Courtesy' expects teenage boys to give up their seat and comfort for women, asks teenage girls to set the table for dinner while men 'rest' from a whole day's work and infuses in tomorrow's world that they must — on behalf of politeness — put their own needs away for both the strength and fragility of the opposite gender.

Any deviations from the more 'positive' strains of dated gender norms are, then, seen as unjustified rallies against basic courtesy. However, in a world that leans towards equality, these attitudes are distant. When a teenager chooses to stare into her laptop rather than cook in her kitchen, she is being unhelpful, yes, but not discourteous. The same decree carries for boys who hold the door open for themselves before they do for others. Their actions fall in line with the individualistic culture modern society upholds and demonstrates a measurable modern mind-set.

It is that idea of treating everyone as equal to us that exhibits courtesy — the idea that no one is superior or inferior to the respect you would request for yourself.

To argue that teenagers lack etiquette is too simplistic. We build — based on the dimensions around us — a new form of courtesy and manners that in the evolving world is more relevant than any other kind could be.

The author is a Class 10 student of Oberoi International School, Mumbai, who has found the importance of rhetoric, prose and information in countering social injustice.