Why Do Table Manners Exist?

In class, Eben discussed “the idea called Darwin” and the consilient consideration of the strata of the thing that is here that is a social process. As strata, Eben listed philosophical, historical, cultural, material, structural, ecological, functional, and organic. One such thing that is here that is a social process is, I think, table manners.

Of the ecological or functional strata (which, for me in this instance, are also quite personal strata) of table manners:

When I was young, if I chewed with my mouth open at the dinner table, my parents sent me to bed without dessert. Their proffered justification, far less important than my punishment, was, of course, that chewing with one’s mouth open is poor table manners. Also, they told me that it is disgusting.

My legal education enables me to critique my parents’ rationale as “begging the question.” Thurman Arnold enables me to observe their rationale’s “rhythm and beauty and its complete lack of descriptive meaning.”

I searched the phrase “chewing with mouth open.” Google’s top five results, three message board threads, an editorial, an advice column, and a parodical “How to” article, show, on a cultural stratum, a creed likely not chosen, seemingly not "highly tailored to the realities of the group," but nonetheless “regard[ed] as the ultimate in spiritual and moral perfection.”

1. Why Open-Mouth Chewing Makes Us Crazy (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/05/open-mouth-chewing_n_2618340.html)
2. Manner Matters: Help, My Friend Chews With Her Mouth Open (http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/06/manner-matters-friend-chews-mouth-open.html)
3. How do people not realize they are chewing with their mouth open? (http://www.yelp.com/topic/san-jose-how-do-people-not-realize-they-are-chewing-with-their-mouth-open)
4. How to Chew With Your Mouth Closed (http://www.wikihow.com/Chew-With-Your-Mouth-Closed)
5. what cultures chew food with their mouth open (http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2343292)

In short, why do table manners exist? On a certain stratum or level of analysis, they exist because people who were once children were once sent to be without dessert. This is, I think, part of Chris's point. On another level or stratum, they exist because without them, parents would have less to teach, editorialists and advice columnists would have less to write, and forum posters and "How to" writers would have less to scorn.

-- MattBurke - 26 Feb 2015