And from your last post, you've met some real horrors, who I would find it hard to be courteous to. The upper class, and those who aspire to it tend to use manners and "politeness" as territorial markers and a way of identifying their tribe. When I come across I remember quietly to myself that they are operating on a very basic hardwired level which they share with dogs and even lower parts of the animal creation. (It's probably because they know that they are endangered, and are behaving defensively.) Then I amuse myself by watching them showing everyone else how incapable they are of rising above the brainstem level. But I gather it's not just in this country - America has class, too, doesn't it, or so I gather from some of the remarks made by the new regime about Clinton's bunch.

Penny