How can we get close to others without sharing pathogens? That’s the job of manners (Image: Richard Kalvar/Magnum Photos)
YOU wake up in the morning. Your partner burps and drags on a smelly dressing gown. You can’t find your toothbrush so you use his, and then wipe some muck off the floor with it. Leaving the house, you step over a turd deposited by a neighbour, then drive into a traffic jam caused by everyone ignoring the lights. In your office, everyone interrupts each other until a spitting match breaks out. Leaving work, ill-groomed strangers press up against you in…
