Justice & Law Quote by Judith Martin

Judith Martin’s genius here is the way she weaponizes etiquette against the very people who think manners are just lace doilies and thank-you notes. She starts with a prim, almost schoolmarm certainty - anonymous letters are “despicable” - then detonates the room by dragging in “law” and, abruptly, a hired hit man. That escalation is the point: anonymity isn’t a cute loophole, it’s moral outsourcing. You don’t get cleaner hands by using a longer stick.

The intent is corrective, but not gentle. Martin is calling out a particular modern habit: saying the most vicious thing you can think of, then hiding behind procedural distance. The anonymous note, the “someone should tell you,” the unsigned complaint to HR, the tip slipped under the table. She treats it like the social equivalent of contracting violence: you may not swing the blade, but you commissioned the harm. Etiquette, in her framing, isn’t about softness; it’s about accountability in public life.

The subtext is a critique of cowardice dressed up as conscience. Anonymous messages often arrive with the sender’s self-image intact: I’m just being honest, I’m protecting myself, I’m doing what’s necessary. Martin denies that comfort. Responsibility adheres to intent, not method.

Context matters: Martin (Miss Manners) wrote through decades when mediated communication made indirect cruelty easier - letters, then email, then the proto-internet ecosystem. This line reads now like a preemptive indictment of online anonymity: the idea that removing your name removes your culpability. It doesn’t. It just removes your nerve.