“Incline thy ear to me; answer me speedily in the day when I call!” Psalm 102
Forms—let’s call them for the moment manners, little rules of protocol, the observance of ceremonies—are the heart and soul of civilized life. And that is why the conservative, pre- or post-modern, is so solicitous of them, for he/she knows that civility is what keeps the wheels of social intercourse rolling. It is a fine thing, therefore, to have these little rules. I know, for example, that when I see a colleague, whatever I may think of him/her (or whatever she/he may think of me), I am supposed to offer a greeting. It is a convention that often helps me get past the moment.
The opposite of forms is captured by the wonderful democratic phrase “let it all hang out,” which I think—meaning the internet told me—originated as a lyric with a rock group called the hombres. Letting it all hang out, excluding any of its more graphic connotations, means, according to various dictionaries, “saying or doing exactly what you want” (generally a poor idea), or “being yourself” (a worse idea still). I recall a wedding I attended many years ago, in which the ceremony, dictated by centuries of careful thought and adjustment—a “form”—was going very nicely; but then, alas, the presiding member of the clergy took it upon himself to step outside of the rules and add something of his own. Following a ten-minute soliloquy on why the congregation should support the president (it was Bill Clinton at the time) and urge our congresspersons to support his wife’s healthcare plan, we returned to the couple at hand, standing before their Maker, ready to pledge their vows till death do us part. Somehow the little ethical interlude did not quite measure up to the solemnity of the occasion.
But what happens when there are no forms to guide us, when some new situation or circumstance occurs that is unregulated by any previous rules? Technological innovation is often the source of such situations, which is reason enough for some staunch conservatives to be opposed in principle to technology itself. Take some of my friends sitting on their front porches in their little communities. There is a whole protocol of communication that is built up around this little idyllic setting. If you place yourself and your family on the front porch, unprotected by any kind of hedge, you announce that you are fair game. Someone strolls by on a hot summer evening—that is what people are supposed to be doing—and if they call to you, you are obliged to respond. You have signed away your privacy. And if they persist in chatting you up, all tiny signals of resistance notwithstanding, you have no alternative but to oblige. Form demands it.
Which brings me to the problem of email. Just what are the forms, especially—for my specific concerns—between teacher and student? I have no choice but to list my email address at my university, at pain of not knowing of upcoming lectures (thus sacrificing my intellectual well-being), or of department meetings (thus relinquishing my civic rights), or of social events (thus forgoing all social intercourse). But my address being “out there” in cyberspace, does it follow that I am supposed to respond to an inquiry from any student? Have I been placed, willy-nilly and without my consent, on the proverbial front porch, so that when the message arrives, invariably beginning “Hello Professor,” I will break conventions and commit an act of rudeness by a quick deletion? Certainly, this is how students see things, no doubt especially students at small liberal arts colleges. An email message is not like a telephone call without an answering machine. It has arrived and there is no denying it. It is like a letter, but how often would a student in the past have sent a letter, which imposed the costs of paper, thought, envelope, a stamp, and a trip to the mailbox? For the students today, the matter is all but settled: incline your ear and answer me speedily in the day that I write. I am still resisting, applying this principle only in regard to my occasional communications to them.
I agonized over this dilemma with a couple of post-doctoral fellows the other day. They listened bemusedly, as if the whole issue were passé. Their response? Just wait till you are on Facebook! To paraphrase a lyric of Metallica, May that day never come.
February 16th, 2010 | 9:17 am
I, for one, can’t wait until you discover Facebook (aka FB). Yes, of course, you must decide whether to be “friends” with a person, but beyond that you must also submit to those people’s ideology, e.g., JOE has joined the group I BET WE CAN FIND 1 MILLION PEOPLE WHO SUPPORT SAME-SEX MARRIAGE. Imagine if that neighbor walking by, instead of just exchanging niceties about the weather or your flowerbed, decided to jump right in with a conversation about BOYCOTT CANADA: SEAL CLUBBING. I’ll take the actual porch, thanks.
February 16th, 2010 | 9:41 am
I, for one, tell students on day one (with syllabus confirmation) that there is no web-based dimension to this course and that you have no right to expect me to answer your emails. I admire people, such as he world’s greatest theologian, who try to preserve all the formalities of the letter in email exchanges. But I join jwc in appreciating that email formality is necessarily an oxymoron, and so in email (as in blogging) I just splatter out the first thing that comes to mind with no regard to form. I’m often told (in confidence) that I should exercise more caution and circumspection: Emails and blogs last forever. Even in a time when we believe that nothing human endures, more of each of us is going to stay around than ever.
February 17th, 2010 | 12:10 pm
Hello Professor,
I dissent from Lawler and Ceaser. I answer emails promptly and formally because that is the polite thing to do (unless it is an email forward featuring cute kittens, in which case justice dictates that it be deleted quickly and forwarded it to no one). Professor Ceaser should be pleased that his students give him any salutation whatsoever. Many of mine just burst into the email body, as if they have right to demand my attention. But consider student email, improper salutations, abominable grammar and all, as a teachable moment. Yes, email currently lacks sufficient form; so we have to opportunity to teach students (and colleagues sometimes) that form matters. I for one do not hesitate to tell students in my replies that email is used professionally, thus they should adopt professional language.
Sadly, I am told, email is becoming a thing of the past for our students, to be replaced by Facebook. In this I see Prof. Ceaser and raise him: over my dead body.
February 17th, 2010 | 1:31 pm
Well, there is a guilty pleasure for me in emailing students when I’m very busy and know that means I’m saved from a more protracted visit. However, I generally encourage visitors and the entire experience of personal, face to face conversation so, like Peter, I make it clear on my syllabus that the only certain way of getting a response from me is to ask me something in person. I virtually never answer emails from students who aren’t in my classes (lrequesting to add a future class, for example). I should add, just in case this all seems way more principled than it is, that I have entire friendships that are largely conducted blackberry to blackberry on a daily basis.
February 17th, 2010 | 2:03 pm
You guys should appreciate your students a little more and not only because their parents are bankrupting themselves in order to educate MacKenzie or Rashad. Most of my emails are from people who want me to start an internet business or certain friends of mine from Nigeria.
February 17th, 2010 | 3:31 pm
Well maybe I’m selfish to limit access to my teachable moments. One problem is that I get 40 or more real emails a day, including usually a few very complicated questions about Tocqueville or Percy or life or the 14th A that are above my pay grade to answer in 2 or 3 minutes from people I barely know. I don’t begrudge these emails, but it’s not my duty to answer them. Nonetheless, at any particular time I feel guilty not to have answered heartfelt and complicated emails from people I actually know and like. If you write offering to pay me pay a lot of money to do something easy, I do answer immediately. I also do usually answer emails from students if they are reasonable and simple. And Berry students are polite enough to email with a plausible excuse if they are going to miss class, and that’s a formality I can believe in. Ivan is right that a pithy email can fend off a protracted. Like Bob, I also have millions and millions of dollars that I’ve won in Nigeria that I can’t get around to do what’s required to pick up. Nobody over 30 should spend any significant amount of time with Facebook.
February 17th, 2010 | 3:59 pm
Peter, I always knew there were benefits from living in well earned obscurity. Nobody, even the unimportant, cares what I think. That leaves me plenty of time to answer emails such as one I just got from a delightful young lady informing me that she cannot come to class on Friday because she has “family afflictions.” Don’t we all.
February 17th, 2010 | 7:57 pm
Lancelot Lamar may not be one from whom one wishes to take advice regarding the general economy of human relations in terms of forms and formalities, but I always like his statement in Walker Percy’s novel Lancelot–
“More or less automatically I held out my hand—not that I wanted to shake hands with him, but we know in the South that the real purpose of manners is to make life easier for everyone, easier both to oneself and to avoid the uneasy commerce of offense and even insult. Either one shakes hands with someone or ignores him or kills him. What else is there?”
The impersonality of email and facebook and blogs (etc.) probably exacerbates the issue. Netiquette becomes an issue beyond whether one should answer annoying emails. For instance, WRITING IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS MAKE YOU SOUND AND LOOK ANGRY. Eccentricity becomes a threat when one knows who one is speaking to, and consequently internet correspondence requires incredible artifice for which there has not been a guide of Austenian sobriety–let alone a Miss Net Manners.
February 17th, 2010 | 8:07 pm
BTW–Perhaps there need not be a Net Jane Austen because to confuse email, etc., for community is a serious category mistake that is corrosive to a good life. The net provides places for excellent dialogue (such as PomoCon), but it surely falls short as a simulacrum of the real thing.
February 18th, 2010 | 1:51 am
Firstly, I feel your pain with the preacher interrupting the form of the wedding with his political affiliation which is at best corrupted in some way by the fact that no one cares about his political affiliation. Secondly, your bemusing prelude into the problem of email highlights the fact that you don’t really understand the importance of “it arriving and knowing its there” the student doesn’t really care if you respond, its the idea that you got it and know you got that matters. Email or electronic mail is something that should and is often ignored, it is trivialized by its medium and everyone is aware of this fact. Thirdly, the fact that you have a moral dilemma about whether your example and your instinct to respond cordially despite a clear lack of interest is more a reflection of your own identity and not the identity of emailer’s in general.
February 20th, 2010 | 2:19 pm
Mr. Kenneally is on the right track; the e-mail in this case is replacing neither the snail mail letter nor the telephone call, but the visit to the office hour. (Or maybe it is more equivalent to a student’s stopping by your office not during the official office hour. If you heard a knock on your closed office door when you were secretly inside, would you open it or keep it shut?)
If a quick and concise reply can answer the student’s question, I don’t understand the principle behind refusing to answer.
I am also surprised how many posters above have inadequate spam filters – their complaints on that subject seem dated 2002.
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