Of Awkwardness and Gracelessness

It seems to me at least plausible that, as Adam Kotsko has suggested, a heightened awkwardness has become characteristic of contemporary life. However, it also seems to me that it would not matter so much were it not for what has also been characteristic of contemporary life--the absence of social graces. If we saw more of those we would probably suffer less from awkwardness, because awkwardness would not be so ruthlessly punished--while there would probably be less awkwardness simply because a critical mass of the population might have come to sufficient agreement about the rules of social interaction to make social life a bit more bearable than it is now.