it seems natural to most of us that we
shouldn’t burp loudly in front of
strangers touch their behinds without
permission or spit in the face of those
who annoy us but history shows us a
different story what we might take to be
normal impulses to be modest restrained
and dignified are the hard-won fruits of
a long and always unsteady civilizing
process human beings have gradually and
painfully learned to tame the beasts
inside for the sake of propriety and
kindness at a moment in time when some
people question manners and the
pressures they impose on us it can be
fruitful to look back in time in order
to trace key moments in the history of
manners and to search thereby for the
future of manners 13,000 BC Goths cave
Somerset England we’re in a cave in
what’s known as the magdalenian period
one of the later cultures of the Upper
Paleolithic Age in Western Europe our
ancestors have learned to use harpoons
made of bone antlers they’ve
domesticated dogs and in their spare
time have developed a taste for making
remarkable images of the fierce wildlife
around them especially hyena reindeer
and mammoths we look a little different
from the way we do now our bodies are
generally heavier and more solid with
strong musculature and straight
foreheads with only slight brow ridges
and prominent chins our manners would
surprise us – we sleep around a lot and
openly there is a lot of what we now
call rape we do everything in front of
one another in our caves and most
strikingly we have an occasional habit
of eating our human enemies following a
squabble the leader of a group will take
an enemy’s severed head carefully remove
the brains and tissues and prepare the
skull for use as a ceremonial drinking
vessel primitive humans don’t do manners
Circus Maximus Rome 20 AD we’re at one
of the high points of ancient
civilization in the West in many areas
of daily life we won’t have this many
manners and complex etiquette for
another thousand four hundred years at
least we’re taking fascinating care to
tame nature within us for the wealthy
ones among us at least we
having at least a bath a week to
removing nasal hair took at ailing
displays of violence to policing the way
men behave towards women to carving
chicken and fish and to brushing our
teeth a lot conscious of our bad breath
and its effect on the sensitivities of
others however little knowledge of
odontology Romans use a variety of
somewhat random ingredients for
toothpaste
crushed bone an oyster shell is popular
horse urine is another favorite
especially from iberian breeds the
specifics of the Roman approach to oral
hygiene may be questionable but the
mentality is advanced and fascinating
good personal appearance and cleanliness
are believed to be what set Romans apart
in their minds from what they term the
Barbaria the people who live north of
the famous olive line the line above
which the noble olive tree will not grow
the germanic sand celts among them
humanity will have to wait a while until
shalom anya is next recorded as brushing
his teeth with time Poitier France 1152
French Queen Eleanor of Akutan marries
henry ii of england at her court in the
south of france she employs a poet the
troubadour they are now devoted all to
compose songs of love for her and her
husband
this sounds merely romantic but the
songs are not simple sentimentality they
are part of Eleanor’s subtle attempt to
civilize her husband and the men around
him by putting into verse how a good man
should treat his lady she and her
ladies-in-waiting learn to use poetry to
set expectations of how military men
should act around women slowly thanks in
part to Eleanor and attitude known as
chivalry develops in the courts of
Europe an idea that men need to moderate
their force and sexual impulses to
protect what is termed the honor and
dignity of women Eleanor of a key 10 is
making an early highly coded call from
an end to what we would nowadays will
bluntly term sexual harassment
London England 12:09 the book of the
civilized man is published by a Daniel
of Beckles it’s a poem written in Latin
that explains how to act with courtesy
and decorum in social situations it
advises for example if you wish to belch
remember to look up to the ceiling do
not attack your enemy while he is
squatting to defecate never pester
ladies or look too closely at their
dress
don’t mount your horse in the hall and
in front of Grandy’s do not openly
excavate your nostril by twisting your
fingers slowly the aristocracy is
becoming more self aware that its
conduct in social circumstances in
particular men are being asked to behave
with more decorum around women and as an
ever-increasing censure of picking one’s
nose in public murano venice 1450s a new
kind of tableware
the Venetian glass goblet or flute takes
Europe by storm under the direction of
the Venetian master glassmaker
Angelo / OVA on the island of Murano
some three thousand glass blowers are
sating demand for a new highly delicate
and ornamented kind of glass part of the
reason for the demand is that the
glasses are extremely easy to break any
slightly rough handling of them and they
shatter like a dry autumn leaf the
Venetian drinking glass is not fragile
because of a deficiency or by mistake
it’s not as if its maker was trying to
make it tough and Hardy and then
stupidly ended up with something a child
could snap it is fragile and easily
harmed as the consequence of a
deliberate search for extreme delicacy
the underlying thesis is that it’s the
duty of civilization to create
environments where it’s ok to be fragile
it’s obvious the glass could easily be
smashed so it forces people especially
men to use their fingers very tenderly
it teaches people that moderation is
admirable and elegant not just a tedious
demand it tells us that being careful is
glamorous and exciting even fashionable
it’s a moral tale about gentleness told
by means of a drinking vessel Venetian
glass makes a big claim being mannered
and civilized involves be aware of the
effect of one’s strength on others
Marseille France
15:33 14 year old Catherine de Medici
marries the future henry ii of france
her home city of Florence is by now the
epicenter of culture in the Western
world and she brings with her new
culinary fashions that quickly become
all the rage macaroons gelato and most
significantly a collection of forks the
fork adds a bizarre complication to the
rituals of eating dinner instead of
using our fingers which are ideally made
for tearing meat off a bone fast with
slowed down on purpose and made to use
the strange new instrument so stirred
temper and guide our appetite
the fork quickly spreads around Europe
by 1600 no European Court is without a
large set of forks this marks out the
savages from the civilized
maja Paris 1750 a Swiss philosopher
jean-jacques Rousseau publishes an
extraordinary essay a discourse on the
Arts and Sciences what makes it so
revolutionary and such a milestone in
the history of manners is that for the
first time in Western culture an author
sticks up for the so called unmannered
Savage for the guys who would have
burped not brush their teeth never
employed a fork and had a lot of nasal
hair but whom Rousseau now contrasts
favorably with modern mannered people
Rousseau tells us that people living in
what he calls the state of nature were
in his eyes far superior to educated and
mannered Parisians their manners may
have been simple but they were honest
and forthright without the sins of what
he now terms the over civilised Rousseau
retells the story of civilization as one
of loss and decline from a primordial
state of fresh-faced curiosity honesty
and enthusiasm to barbarous hoover
politeness fakery and deceit he
describes the elaborate French court at
Versailles as less civilized that an
early human cave readers across Europe
are astonished and not a little
impressed by this impudence for hundreds
of years
moralists have been arguing that our
natural selves are wild harmful over
sexual and dangerous and that we must
learn to tame them for the sake of
others now Rousseau suggests that
diametrical opposite civilization has
gone too far
it’s our mannered selves that have
become the problem and the task of a
properly evolved civilization is to
throw off the chains of manners to relax
us strip off the etiquette and
return to primitive frankness Rousseau’s
point continues to echo down to our own
times it is his voice we can hear
whenever someone sticks up for the
simpler life and suggests we dress less
formally eat dinner more casually and
more readily say whatever’s passing
through our minds new york united states
1827 a french aristocrat alexis de
tocqueville
is on a tour of the young united states
in an effort to understand the spirit of
a new kind of society a democracy he is
immediately struck by American manners
or lack thereof in Europe reflects the
Tocqueville manners have been codified
to emphasize hierarchical differences
between people ordinary people defer to
aristocrats aristocrats to royalty and
so on but in the United States
everything is done so as to suggest that
there are no differences between people
no one takes off the hat to anyone a
postman can casually greet a judge a
mule driver can strike up cheerful
banter with a wealthy merchant and one
cannot tell by someone’s clothes whether
they might be living in a mansion or a
hut expressions like how you doing an hi
are heard everywhere across the New
Republic
it could be charming but the
aristocratic de Tocqueville wryly notes
a problem these casual manners do not do
away with class and wealth differences
they merely sentimentally disguise them
the manners of old Europe have been
accused of being cruel in their stress
on hierarchy but now de Tocqueville
accuses American casual democratic
manners of their own kind of cruelty
because they pretend that everyone is in
the same boat when clearly they’re not
really at least in Old Europe everyone
knew who the king and the aristocrats
were ads the Tocqueville now the casual
manners teach everyone to think of
themselves as alike and encourage them
to dream of making it to the top of the
pile
but when society remains very unequal an
opportunities for genuine advancement
and not as widespread as is thought then
bitterness and a sense of failure are
likely to be the result to Tocqueville
prescient lean oats casual manners can
be their own form of fakery Northern
Ireland June 2013 at a meeting of the g8
developed countries a few eyebrows are
raised when some
of the most powerful men in the world
including Barack Obama of the United
States David Cameron of the United
Kingdom and Francois Hollande of France
all appear at a press conference without
ties the men also hug and in some cases
high-five each other during the course
of the summit the absence of ties is an
inadvertent and continuing tribute to
jean-jacques all ties have been deemed a
symbol of oppression and hierarchy by
the people who control the nuclear codes
and direct the world economy between
1996 and 2008 sales of ties in the u.s.
half in the UK the Thai Rak company for
20 years the country’s biggest seller of
ties goes into administration in late
2014 by early 2015 in the United States
only 18 percent of male employees
regularly wear a tie to work one-third
show up in jeans at least once a week
Suffolk Crown Court London September
2014
ellinor of icky tans long campaign to
civilize men reaches a new milestone a
minor British DJ Dave Lee Travis is
found guilty of indecently assaulting a
woman two decades earlier he is accused
by a judge of having displayed primitive
behavior when he groped a young female
employees breasts at his radio offices
padding bottoms iron breasts and
throwing out leery comments is now
deemed deeply anachronistic and vile
manners Dave Lee Travis a 69 year old
father of two is roundly punished and
humiliated for his actions Travis is in
a long line of men who in the early 21st
century are called to account for their
behavior towards women
they are puzzled and at a certain level
incensed by this they had come of age in
a period when Victorian manners towards
women were on the retreat seen as
outdated and hypocritical these men had
believed in messages about casual nurse
and sexual liberation but it seems they
had fatally misinterpreted what a world
with a few less sexual manners would
actually be like slowly society is
learning to reheat some of the basic
lessons the Victorian etiquette books
always stressed that men must be careful
around women that they must never touch
or look at them inappropriately and that
the overwhelming priority is never to
cause anyone else discomfort through
one’s advances men like Dave Lee Travis
are judged to be pathological and sexual
predators
looked at through a longer lens they
could also simply be accused of having
forgotten their manners the history of
manners shows an ongoing search for the
best way to be kind for long periods it
seemed that being mannered had to be
about hiding and moderating the inner
self which was associated with something
beastly and cruel then under the
influence of Rousseau and the romantic
philosophy to which he gave birth
good manners were associated with being
natural and free letting out the inner
self which was deemed to be good and
spontaneously kind but we have come to
learn that there are in fact limitations
to the natural approach there is
unwitting cruelty and political
subterfuge in the defense of natural
manners which suggest we’re all equal
when we’re not or which allow one gender
to pester another
there’s a fine line between being
natural about things and being
bothersome to others a line we are
continuing to explore often a great cost
to all concerned there are no doubt many
behaviors which many of us subscribe to
now which a later age may come to see as
no less vulgar than catherine de medici
found a meal without a fork the
aspiration to be well-mannered shouldn’t
be seen as pretentious or fake it should
be generously interpreted as always
belonging to a highly important wish not
to cause other people distress through
one’s impulses and needs the history of manners goes on
shouldn’t burp loudly in front of
strangers touch their behinds without
permission or spit in the face of those
who annoy us but history shows us a
different story what we might take to be
normal impulses to be modest restrained
and dignified are the hard-won fruits of
a long and always unsteady civilizing
process human beings have gradually and
painfully learned to tame the beasts
inside for the sake of propriety and
kindness at a moment in time when some
people question manners and the
pressures they impose on us it can be
fruitful to look back in time in order
to trace key moments in the history of
manners and to search thereby for the
future of manners 13,000 BC Goths cave
Somerset England we’re in a cave in
what’s known as the magdalenian period
one of the later cultures of the Upper
Paleolithic Age in Western Europe our
ancestors have learned to use harpoons
made of bone antlers they’ve
domesticated dogs and in their spare
time have developed a taste for making
remarkable images of the fierce wildlife
around them especially hyena reindeer
and mammoths we look a little different
from the way we do now our bodies are
generally heavier and more solid with
strong musculature and straight
foreheads with only slight brow ridges
and prominent chins our manners would
surprise us – we sleep around a lot and
openly there is a lot of what we now
call rape we do everything in front of
one another in our caves and most
strikingly we have an occasional habit
of eating our human enemies following a
squabble the leader of a group will take
an enemy’s severed head carefully remove
the brains and tissues and prepare the
skull for use as a ceremonial drinking
vessel primitive humans don’t do manners
Circus Maximus Rome 20 AD we’re at one
of the high points of ancient
civilization in the West in many areas
of daily life we won’t have this many
manners and complex etiquette for
another thousand four hundred years at
least we’re taking fascinating care to
tame nature within us for the wealthy
ones among us at least we
having at least a bath a week to
removing nasal hair took at ailing
displays of violence to policing the way
men behave towards women to carving
chicken and fish and to brushing our
teeth a lot conscious of our bad breath
and its effect on the sensitivities of
others however little knowledge of
odontology Romans use a variety of
somewhat random ingredients for
toothpaste
crushed bone an oyster shell is popular
horse urine is another favorite
especially from iberian breeds the
specifics of the Roman approach to oral
hygiene may be questionable but the
mentality is advanced and fascinating
good personal appearance and cleanliness
are believed to be what set Romans apart
in their minds from what they term the
Barbaria the people who live north of
the famous olive line the line above
which the noble olive tree will not grow
the germanic sand celts among them
humanity will have to wait a while until
shalom anya is next recorded as brushing
his teeth with time Poitier France 1152
French Queen Eleanor of Akutan marries
henry ii of england at her court in the
south of france she employs a poet the
troubadour they are now devoted all to
compose songs of love for her and her
husband
this sounds merely romantic but the
songs are not simple sentimentality they
are part of Eleanor’s subtle attempt to
civilize her husband and the men around
him by putting into verse how a good man
should treat his lady she and her
ladies-in-waiting learn to use poetry to
set expectations of how military men
should act around women slowly thanks in
part to Eleanor and attitude known as
chivalry develops in the courts of
Europe an idea that men need to moderate
their force and sexual impulses to
protect what is termed the honor and
dignity of women Eleanor of a key 10 is
making an early highly coded call from
an end to what we would nowadays will
bluntly term sexual harassment
London England 12:09 the book of the
civilized man is published by a Daniel
of Beckles it’s a poem written in Latin
that explains how to act with courtesy
and decorum in social situations it
advises for example if you wish to belch
remember to look up to the ceiling do
not attack your enemy while he is
squatting to defecate never pester
ladies or look too closely at their
dress
don’t mount your horse in the hall and
in front of Grandy’s do not openly
excavate your nostril by twisting your
fingers slowly the aristocracy is
becoming more self aware that its
conduct in social circumstances in
particular men are being asked to behave
with more decorum around women and as an
ever-increasing censure of picking one’s
nose in public murano venice 1450s a new
kind of tableware
the Venetian glass goblet or flute takes
Europe by storm under the direction of
the Venetian master glassmaker
Angelo / OVA on the island of Murano
some three thousand glass blowers are
sating demand for a new highly delicate
and ornamented kind of glass part of the
reason for the demand is that the
glasses are extremely easy to break any
slightly rough handling of them and they
shatter like a dry autumn leaf the
Venetian drinking glass is not fragile
because of a deficiency or by mistake
it’s not as if its maker was trying to
make it tough and Hardy and then
stupidly ended up with something a child
could snap it is fragile and easily
harmed as the consequence of a
deliberate search for extreme delicacy
the underlying thesis is that it’s the
duty of civilization to create
environments where it’s ok to be fragile
it’s obvious the glass could easily be
smashed so it forces people especially
men to use their fingers very tenderly
it teaches people that moderation is
admirable and elegant not just a tedious
demand it tells us that being careful is
glamorous and exciting even fashionable
it’s a moral tale about gentleness told
by means of a drinking vessel Venetian
glass makes a big claim being mannered
and civilized involves be aware of the
effect of one’s strength on others
Marseille France
15:33 14 year old Catherine de Medici
marries the future henry ii of france
her home city of Florence is by now the
epicenter of culture in the Western
world and she brings with her new
culinary fashions that quickly become
all the rage macaroons gelato and most
significantly a collection of forks the
fork adds a bizarre complication to the
rituals of eating dinner instead of
using our fingers which are ideally made
for tearing meat off a bone fast with
slowed down on purpose and made to use
the strange new instrument so stirred
temper and guide our appetite
the fork quickly spreads around Europe
by 1600 no European Court is without a
large set of forks this marks out the
savages from the civilized
maja Paris 1750 a Swiss philosopher
jean-jacques Rousseau publishes an
extraordinary essay a discourse on the
Arts and Sciences what makes it so
revolutionary and such a milestone in
the history of manners is that for the
first time in Western culture an author
sticks up for the so called unmannered
Savage for the guys who would have
burped not brush their teeth never
employed a fork and had a lot of nasal
hair but whom Rousseau now contrasts
favorably with modern mannered people
Rousseau tells us that people living in
what he calls the state of nature were
in his eyes far superior to educated and
mannered Parisians their manners may
have been simple but they were honest
and forthright without the sins of what
he now terms the over civilised Rousseau
retells the story of civilization as one
of loss and decline from a primordial
state of fresh-faced curiosity honesty
and enthusiasm to barbarous hoover
politeness fakery and deceit he
describes the elaborate French court at
Versailles as less civilized that an
early human cave readers across Europe
are astonished and not a little
impressed by this impudence for hundreds
of years
moralists have been arguing that our
natural selves are wild harmful over
sexual and dangerous and that we must
learn to tame them for the sake of
others now Rousseau suggests that
diametrical opposite civilization has
gone too far
it’s our mannered selves that have
become the problem and the task of a
properly evolved civilization is to
throw off the chains of manners to relax
us strip off the etiquette and
return to primitive frankness Rousseau’s
point continues to echo down to our own
times it is his voice we can hear
whenever someone sticks up for the
simpler life and suggests we dress less
formally eat dinner more casually and
more readily say whatever’s passing
through our minds new york united states
1827 a french aristocrat alexis de
tocqueville
is on a tour of the young united states
in an effort to understand the spirit of
a new kind of society a democracy he is
immediately struck by American manners
or lack thereof in Europe reflects the
Tocqueville manners have been codified
to emphasize hierarchical differences
between people ordinary people defer to
aristocrats aristocrats to royalty and
so on but in the United States
everything is done so as to suggest that
there are no differences between people
no one takes off the hat to anyone a
postman can casually greet a judge a
mule driver can strike up cheerful
banter with a wealthy merchant and one
cannot tell by someone’s clothes whether
they might be living in a mansion or a
hut expressions like how you doing an hi
are heard everywhere across the New
Republic
it could be charming but the
aristocratic de Tocqueville wryly notes
a problem these casual manners do not do
away with class and wealth differences
they merely sentimentally disguise them
the manners of old Europe have been
accused of being cruel in their stress
on hierarchy but now de Tocqueville
accuses American casual democratic
manners of their own kind of cruelty
because they pretend that everyone is in
the same boat when clearly they’re not
really at least in Old Europe everyone
knew who the king and the aristocrats
were ads the Tocqueville now the casual
manners teach everyone to think of
themselves as alike and encourage them
to dream of making it to the top of the
pile
but when society remains very unequal an
opportunities for genuine advancement
and not as widespread as is thought then
bitterness and a sense of failure are
likely to be the result to Tocqueville
prescient lean oats casual manners can
be their own form of fakery Northern
Ireland June 2013 at a meeting of the g8
developed countries a few eyebrows are
raised when some
of the most powerful men in the world
including Barack Obama of the United
States David Cameron of the United
Kingdom and Francois Hollande of France
all appear at a press conference without
ties the men also hug and in some cases
high-five each other during the course
of the summit the absence of ties is an
inadvertent and continuing tribute to
jean-jacques all ties have been deemed a
symbol of oppression and hierarchy by
the people who control the nuclear codes
and direct the world economy between
1996 and 2008 sales of ties in the u.s.
half in the UK the Thai Rak company for
20 years the country’s biggest seller of
ties goes into administration in late
2014 by early 2015 in the United States
only 18 percent of male employees
regularly wear a tie to work one-third
show up in jeans at least once a week
Suffolk Crown Court London September
2014
ellinor of icky tans long campaign to
civilize men reaches a new milestone a
minor British DJ Dave Lee Travis is
found guilty of indecently assaulting a
woman two decades earlier he is accused
by a judge of having displayed primitive
behavior when he groped a young female
employees breasts at his radio offices
padding bottoms iron breasts and
throwing out leery comments is now
deemed deeply anachronistic and vile
manners Dave Lee Travis a 69 year old
father of two is roundly punished and
humiliated for his actions Travis is in
a long line of men who in the early 21st
century are called to account for their
behavior towards women
they are puzzled and at a certain level
incensed by this they had come of age in
a period when Victorian manners towards
women were on the retreat seen as
outdated and hypocritical these men had
believed in messages about casual nurse
and sexual liberation but it seems they
had fatally misinterpreted what a world
with a few less sexual manners would
actually be like slowly society is
learning to reheat some of the basic
lessons the Victorian etiquette books
always stressed that men must be careful
around women that they must never touch
or look at them inappropriately and that
the overwhelming priority is never to
cause anyone else discomfort through
one’s advances men like Dave Lee Travis
are judged to be pathological and sexual
predators
looked at through a longer lens they
could also simply be accused of having
forgotten their manners the history of
manners shows an ongoing search for the
best way to be kind for long periods it
seemed that being mannered had to be
about hiding and moderating the inner
self which was associated with something
beastly and cruel then under the
influence of Rousseau and the romantic
philosophy to which he gave birth
good manners were associated with being
natural and free letting out the inner
self which was deemed to be good and
spontaneously kind but we have come to
learn that there are in fact limitations
to the natural approach there is
unwitting cruelty and political
subterfuge in the defense of natural
manners which suggest we’re all equal
when we’re not or which allow one gender
to pester another
there’s a fine line between being
natural about things and being
bothersome to others a line we are
continuing to explore often a great cost
to all concerned there are no doubt many
behaviors which many of us subscribe to
now which a later age may come to see as
no less vulgar than catherine de medici
found a meal without a fork the
aspiration to be well-mannered shouldn’t
be seen as pretentious or fake it should
be generously interpreted as always
belonging to a highly important wish not
to cause other people distress through
one’s impulses and needs the history of manners goes on
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