Jan 092013
Thoroughly enjoyed this BBC radio program on politeness. All the lunch guests were interesting and I particularly liked the historical perspective provided by Jason Hughes. I’d never thought about not blowing my nose on the table cloth as being good manners before.
Many thanks to Andreas Grundtvig for directing me to it.
Hi Vickie:
The show was enjoyable, in a manner of speaking, but of course, it was, like most such endeavors, it only touched the surface.
I might have mentioned this in the past, and if I did, please forgive me, but when I served in the U.S. Army in France back in the early sixties (that was before DeGaulle kicked us out), as a fluent speaker of French, I was immersed in the culture as soon as the workday was over.
Of course, in France, one always addresses another person as “Monsieur” or “Madame.” .
When I returned to the Land of the Round Door Knobs (GI-Speak for the US), I went for a job interview, and the interviewer mmediately addressed me as Marc. All these years later, I still remember how offended I was; I had, without realizing it, become acculturated to French standard fs of proper address.
It soon wore off, and today, in the US, I would have to consciously remind myself call another man “Mister”. after the first few minutes of our acquaintance, unless he was VERY VERY IMPORTANT (Yes, Mr. President, thank you, Mr. President).
Groucho Marx had the best solution, whe he said, “You can call me anything you like; just don’t call me late for dinner.”
Best of luck in the new year.
Marc
Hi All
I came across your blog post when I was today searching for the ‘Listen Again’ link for the Why Factor: Manners show to pass to a colleague. Glad you liked the programme, especially my contribution. Marc, you are right that we didn’t go into a great deal of depth. I think there are limits to how much one can do so in that kind of format. If you’re interested in reading further, I’d strongly recommend you check out Norbert Elias’s work, particularly ‘On the Process of Civilisation’, also known as ‘The Civilizing Process’. There’s also a good book on the US employing Elias’s perspective. It’s called ‘The American Civilizing Process’ (by Stephen Mennell). Finally, there are a number of recent books by Cas Wouters on the topic, the most significant of which is ‘Informalization’ which deals directly with some of the processes that Marc has pointed towards (never heard that ‘Land of the Round Door Knobs’ before!).
I’ve also co-authored (together with Eric Dunning) a book on Elias’s work ‘Norbert Elias and Modern Sociology’, but it is perhaps only of interest in parts on this particular topic, there are lots of other more general discussions of Elias’s work, but these focus on its broader implications for the academic discipline of sociology.
Anyway, hope the references are of some interest.
Very best
Jason Hughes