Being Considerate

My interest in the gentlemanly ideal began just under two years ago. I was visiting a friend in Santa Barbara and finding myself with a great deal of free time for research, contemplation, and media consumption. During this time, I listened to a sermon by the somewhat infamous Seattle pastor, Mark Driscoll, entitled “Humble Christians.” The entire sermon is here, but YouTube has a nice excerpt of the part that really struck me:


As it happens, Driscoll's IPod Idol example is especially uncomfortable for me, as I used to do this quite frequently. In fact, one time I did it in the early morning while everyone was asleep in the home of friend of a friend, whom I was visiting in Texas. (This post is going to make me sound like a perpetual vagrant, which is not entirely accurate; the relevant events just happened to occur while visiting various friends.) More gentlemanly than I, this friend found me a new place to stay, citing some other reason for the required departure. I didn't then know how embarrassed I should have been, but I do now.

Returning to the subject at hand, however, I was particularly struck by Driscoll's assertion that "we live in the most inconsiderate age. People are unbelievably inconsiderate" but that humble people "recognize, hey, there's other people and some of them have needs; I'm not the center of the universe. I should be attentive to them." When he asked "How considerate are you?" and said not to rate yourself, but to ask your friends, etc., I didn't have to contact anyone. I knew my roommates would not give me a very flattering score.

After mulling over this realization for a few days, I was visiting another friend in L.A. Among the other books on his shelf were a few volumes of the immensely influential "Gentleman" series by John Bridges and Bryan Curtis. I opened up "As a Gentleman Would Say" and read the following lines from the introduction:

Gentlemanliness goes deeper than mere nice manners, it requires preparation, so that, whenever possible, a gentleman can do his part to make the world a much nicer place in which to live.

Driscoll and Bridges/Curtis proved to be a powerful combination. They were communicating the same message: Most people are inconsiderate, but no one should be comfortable with it. The answer was clear: We need more gentlemen.