Decorum

 

Decorum is probably not a word we give much thought to, especially in a day and age where people prefer to live without structure. For many, prescriptive process just seems to get in the way; often viewed as an encumbrance to getting things done.

Scottish historian, Sir Walter Scott, considered the greatest practitioner of the historical novel, appears to have held a certain disdain for decorum. Writing in The Waverley Novels, a long series of novels that for nearly a century were among the most popular and widely read novels in all of Europe, Scott asserts, “One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action, and filled with noble risks, is worth whole years of those mean observances of paltry decorum, in which men steal through existence, like sluggish waters through a marsh, without either honor or observation.”

While there’s an element of truth to what the first international literary superstar had to say, decorum, originating from the Latin: “right or proper,” helps to establish a disciplined framework for getting things done.

There are, no doubt, more than a few of you out there, nonetheless, for whom the word decorum is likely to summon up the smothering niceties of a Victorian-era etiquette manual.

Five years before Queen Victoria ever donned a crown, however, the precepts of social decorum as we’ve come to understand them today, were consciously set by a British statesman, Philip Stanhope, better known as Lord Chesterfield. Chesterfield, a noted man of letters and an acclaimed wit in his time, happened to be looking for a translation of the French les moeurs: social norms that are widely observed within a particular society or culture. Chesterfield concluded, ”Manners are too little, morals are too much.”

The Cook County Board of Commissioners tackled the issue of decorum at their recent March 17th Committee of the Whole work session. In drafting revised by-laws, the County’s Attorney recommend the board “carefully think about the level of formality of procedure it would like in future meetings,” suggesting, “ the foundation for Rules of Order lies in the basic and enduring principles of rights. Specifically enunciated, these rights include the right of the majority to rule, the right of the minority to be heard, and the right of the individual to participate in the decision making process.”

If drafting revised by-laws can both ensure and enhance “the right of the individual to participate in the decision-making process,” it will be a good thing. Let’s just hope the exercise doesn’t spiral into a “wordsmithing” maneuver suggestive of manipulative hypocrisy.

Should there be those that find this a rather harsh statement, let’s just say there is plenty of history to support such an allegation.

One of Rome’s greatest orators and prose stylists, Marcus Tullius Cicero, wrote extensively on rhetoric, orations, philosophy, and politics. Cicero gives us the best sense of decorum’s richness. He certainly did more than anyone in ancient Rome to develop the concept, and it sits at the heart of his ethical and rhetorical theory. Cicero’s most important work of rhetorical theory, the dialogue De Oratore or On the Orator, portrays decorum as a flexible, dynamic concept. Cicero, who as a lawyer became famous for taking risky cases and winning them, went to great lengths to caution against using the term decorum to silence the political speech and action of the marginalized.

That would be us folks, those treated as insignificant or peripheral.

Introducing the concept of decorum provides a language for the responsiveness involved in good political communication– the ability to speak to an audience, rather than at it. The decorous orator, according to Marcus Antonius, commonly known in English as Mark Antony, the Roman politician and general who played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic, is someone “who with keen scent can track down the thoughts, the feelings, the opinions and the hopes of his fellow citizens and of those people whom he wants to persuade.” Most everyone, I imagine, would endorse this kind of public empathy as a top qualification for a politician.

If anything, decorum serves as a sober reminder that when we speak, we are accountable to our listeners.

Former Cook County Commissioner Garry Gamble is writing this ongoing column about the various ways government works, as well as other topics. At times the column is editorial in nature.