Those who read the Bible’s wisdom books know that they deal a lot with the quotidian: when to speak and when to shut up, how to conduct one’s self publicly, how to win friends and influence people. No surprise there, and sapiential literature was not unique to Israel. It was a regional phenomenon focused on how to make one’s way in life successfully.

But wisdom in Israel had a unique perspective, refracting its inspired focus through a lens peculiar to the Jews as God’s Chosen People. Its unique perspective was that living successfully means living on right terms with God. If you are not right with God, nothing else is right. But that unique center of attention did not subtract from advice on how to live well day-to-day, which included learning sometimes to “shaddap-a you face!”

That perspective recently came to mind reading “Social Q’s,” the New York Times’ “Miss Manners” column. (See here.) Three of the questions revealed a failure to move beyond “I.”

“Relative” asked what he should do after two other family members unilaterally and without solicitation dispensed advice to younger relatives. Grandparent told adult grandchild to lose some weight. Uncle told nephew he talks too much. Both advice recipients were “hurt” and asked that third relative how to process their feelings and what to do (note the action order).

The Times suggested that third relative avoid “triangulat[ing],” hitherto called “getting in the middle of something.” It then applauded the youth for “standing up for themselves.” If “Relative” still wanted to remain engaged, he could perhaps role-play with the young and offended how they might articulate their hurt feelings — and then just send them back to their offensive elders.

The advice badly misses the point.

Families are perhaps the one place where people get told the truth, often in unvarnished fashion. That’s what makes them both families and valuable. Once upon a time, telling a kid he should learn to talk less and listen more was Standard Parenting 101. It’s why a rabbi once observed that “God gave you two ears and one mouth — so you know proper proportions of using each.”

The next scenario follows. “Board Member” griped that he is fundraiser sitting on the board of a major foundation that supports the fight against a particular disease, one which also happens to afflict a relative. His friends often ask how his relative is doing, but they never ask with their checkbooks. “Board member” doesn’t know “what to do” besides be “upset” at his non-donors.

The Times reminds “Board Member” that asking about a friend’s health does not also encumber contributions to foundations fighting for that health. “No one is obliged to donate to your cause out of fealty to you.” (Do we really have to tell “grown-ups” that?) That said, “Board Member” can urge his foundation to host some fundraising events, and send invites to those folks “Board Member” thinks are pikers. It sounds like the part that mama once used to say — “you’re not entitled to a gift” — got lost somewhere in translation.

Finally, “Partygoer” went to a party and brought a little gift. The host kindly sent back thank-you notes but erroneously mixed up the presents of “Partygoers” A and B, acknowledging the wrong gift. “Should I correct this mistake?”

The Times said that most party gifts are tokens, so, ultimately, “what difference does it make whether you gave her a scented candle or a bottle of red wine?” But is the question one of the gift’s de minimis value or of intent? A gift is a gift, meaning it is given gratuitously and generously. Flagging “hey, you thanked me for the wrong gift” awkwardly shifts the emphasis from the host — whom you presumably wished well — to me, whose left hand generally should not know what his right hand is giving.

One reason parents and families taught their children “manners” was to make clear the world does not revolve around them. Etiquette begins with children learning to overcome their egocentricity. Yes, that runs against the grain of modern, therapeutic culture that coddles one’s inner child, “hurt” living in a non-egocentric universe. It’s not the advice my college president, Fr. Len Chrobot, used to dispense regularly: “Walk off a cliff and gravity will kill you. And gravity doesn’t care.”

Kinderstube is a German concept meaning “upbringing,” the proper raising of a child who knows then how to interact in society. Having Kinderstube is a mark of respect, adulthood, savoir-faire. In German circles, to say somebody lacks Kinderstube is a big put-down.

But parents, German and otherwise, once taught their children “manners” not just out of social polish but moral formation. Etiquette existed to train the young out of their native self-focus, to teach them that the world does not revolve around “I.” That twin goal — greasing one’s way through life and the moral formation needed to achieve that in a non-hypocritical way — is just what the Bible’s wisdom literature taught. What today passes for etiquette advice, however, increasingly serves the opposite purpose: it protects the self from discomfort, correction, and obligation.

Manners are not morality; salvation does not come from “being nice.” But, as commentators on C.S. Lewis observe, they are the prolegomena to morality, the “negative virtues” that are necessary to getting to real charity, driven not by “little ole me” but real love of the other, which means going beyond “I.” That’s what Israel’s inspired wisdom tradition gave Christianity to build on and Western civilization to cherish, something to which our three correspondents seem a bit dull. Just remember: the Book of Proverbs does not dispense counsel like, “The wise man role-playeth to voice the injustice coming from evil ones attacking his uncontrolled tongue” (Proverbs 32:1).