Etiquette and ethics: related but different

Though they are very different, ethics and etiquette go hand in hand. You can’t necessarily have one without the other. Ethics lie in one’s conscious—the inner drive to do the right thing.  In what could be described as both parallel and perpendicular to ethics, etiquette is the standards—or expectations—that society emplaces in an attempt to come off as more sophisticated and well mannered.  I say parallel because both ethics and etiquette can seem to be related to “the right thing”; however, the flip side of the coin can be argued because, while ethics is completely internal, etiquette is an external force. Coinciding with this idea also lie the problems with both. Because ethics is an internal drive it tends to change—though often in just slight ways—from person to person. The same can be said for etiquette only on a much larger scale. Etiquette, being an external set of manners or customs, can vary drastically depending on the culture.

                One thing that has made me respect the sport of soccer is the unwritten etiquette. When a player is injured—and I mean actually injured, not just trying to get a penalty kick—the opposing team could just continue to play. Every other sport I can think of would continue play. However, soccer is different. The competing team more often than not kicks the ball out of bounds to stop play. Of course, the team that had the injured player gets to throw the ball in. From what I have seen, they usually throw the ball in to their own teammate who, in turn, boots the ball far down field—thus returning the ball to the team who first had possession. Despite a game being very competitive, between two rivals, or even a championship, the etiquette always seems to take priority.

                Now, this may seem like a way to avoid typing these twenty-nine examples out, but I assure you it is not. Taking notes is certainly in line with etiquette in the class room. By showing you my annotations of Death of a Salesman, I can kill two proverbial birds with a single stone. Here I will show my example of exemplary etiquette while also giving numerous examples of utter unethical behavior.