gentility
brutishness/informality
and when did it all go to hell in a handbasket?
this internal conversation started years ago and just yesterday.
let me backup for a moment to put this in some sort of order.
i'm a member of an alumnae association on facebook. one of the women posted a photo from her graduation in 1966. lovely pic, of course, her smiling face, her proud daddy next to her, but what started my internal dialogue (it was really vocal once she got started. MITM) was the fact that every man and boy in the background had either a suit or a sports coat and slacks on! everyone was dressed up. no jeans, no casual clothes, no flip flops or fanny packs in sight and this was southern california in june! appropriate dress befitting the occasion was the norm.
ok, now, let's look at the past weekend. as part of the father's day festivities around here, the weekend was spent following the u.s. open and all things related to golf. we knew the place where the open was being held because we used to live in san francisco. of course, we never set foot inside because we weren't members, didn't know any members and at the time, didn't even play golf but even then, we knew what appropriate behavior on a golf course was. it used to be a joke when the krewe were younger that doing the right thing in public merited a soft golf clap on the sly. what happened during the course of the open was anything but that. it was boorish and rowdy, hooting and hollering after a swing, as if, i was watching a computer game of golf! seriously, what sort of a bumpkin yells out "in the hole" after a tee shot on a par 5, 670 yd hole?
now, before all y'all start talkin' about what sort of elitist hole i've fallen into or what stuck-up bug crawled up mah butt, i want to be be really clear about what i'm talking about. it isn't the externals, like suits v. jeans or golf claps v. hootin' & hollerin at a golf match. i'm talking about the decline of civility. the decline of the concept that "just because you can do a thing, doesn't mean you should.
(minor, but a real case in point digression, just saw a tv personality visiting an embassy in washington, d.c. and what was he wearing? tennis shoes with his suit. now, pardon me for being a stick in the mud, but i'm sure someone advised him on proper attire, because his normal dress is casual and perfect for the sort of show he hosts, but sweet mary sunshine, dude, your sarcastic wit and delivery would have been even more ironic if you'd been properly attired.)
i think i should interject something right now about clothing. i'm talking about wearing clothes that are appropriate to the occasion here, not even remotely suggesting a return to high necks, full length skirts or three piece suits (on men) for every day wear. let us be perfectly clear, we live in the 21st century and clothes have been developed for every possible situation and locale, i'm talking about not wearing your half of nothin' sundress to the city council meeting or sister hazel's funeral. (and young men, please, please, PLEASE wear a belt!)
what happened to standards, ladies and gentleman? when i was in school part of the reason for wearing a uniform was for "equality." what i took from it was discipline and focus on purpose. the regard for our uniform was a mark of respect for our school, but more importantly, for ourselves. i was there to learn, not to style. now, big leap forward because i'm afraid i'm starting to sound really priggish, but that is so not my intent. (ok, i wore a tie to school every day for 4 years and that tie had to be a certain length -3rd button of my blouse-no fancy knots, half windsor was just fine, thank you very much and seeing the current crop of girls wearing loose, messy ties made me faint so, there is a bit of residual pique.) anyway, back to the topic, i see this erosion of gentility as emblematic of a general decline in behavior on all levels.
we applaud stupidity.
mediocrity is not only accepted, but expected.
boorishness is tolerated and encouraged! witness the use of "shut up" as an expression of incredulity! yes, it is generally used by young people, but it came from an adult comedian, is part of his on-going act and i'm hearing it said by more and more people who really should know better. (i know, right? i am sounding more and more like my mama every day.)
what is it?
is it me?
am i just so out of step with humanity these days that i'm looking for something that no longer exists in the general population?why do we no longer practice good manners? what's happened to propriety? when did we become comfortable with crudeness, coarseness and commonness?
i am at a loss, sugarpies. what do all y'all think?
Yes, I know what you mean. My example is flying.
ReplyDeleteI first starting flying in 1969. People dressed and acted better on planes then. Over the years the entire experience has degenerated into sometime more akin to a low-rent bus trip.
[sigh]
Applauding stupidity is now apparently worthy of s tv show.
ReplyDeleteCheers, Sausage...
I so agree with everything you wrote.
ReplyDeleteDo you remember when The President had the winning Women volleyball team to the White House to congratulate them and over half of the girls wore flip flops and I think I remember some tank tops too.
Awful !
cheers, parsnip
One of my current (many) bugbears is that people having an argument seem to mistake being louder for winning.
ReplyDeleteIT ANNOYS ME!
You do realize that people are basically no good, right? Since they're no good and there are now more of them than ever before the overall level of stupid is way up. Off the charts. Since people are no good and there are a lot of them and a lot of those people are stupid their stupidity is multiplying and infecting the ever dwindling pool of intelligent people. Stupid is becoming the norm because it multiplies and procreates and subdivides and mutates constantly. Stupid is a virulent virus and it will eventually spell our species doom.
ReplyDeleteThat said, get dressed up and have a cocktail party with your intelligent friends. Discuss a great new book, listen to some jazz or classical or even some math rock and discuss. Enjoy the last moments of what was once referred to as humanity.
They used to dress nice when they boarded an airplane, too, don't forget.
ReplyDeleteThis is a clear case of "Those Damn Kids" syndrome. It is passed up through the generations and has been going on for centuries. These lamentations about how nice things USED to be and how things are really starting to degenerate is the oldest story in the oldest book, I'm afraid.
Ah. I see xl beat me to the flying comment. I think I'm such an original but it turns out, as usual, I'm late to the party. Damn kids.
ReplyDeleteI recently witnessed this at a performance in a theatre.
ReplyDeleteIt was a hot day so everyone was dressed ultra-casually in cutoffs, flip-flops and …worst of all…CROCS!
lx...don't get me started about how people dress on planes! xoxoxo
ReplyDeletesausage...reality tv is the norm. it does beg the question where the hell do these people live? xoxoxo
parsnip...i had the very same reaction! *sigh* xoxoxox
jules...exactly! it's no longer about an exchange of ideas, debate or even conversation, it's about imposition of will by volume. talking over other people means you're smarter and right! xoxoxo
captain...have a cocktail party? surely, you jest! you know we just call you up or share emails or have the BFF's over for a great meal and wine. xoxoxox
ub...you think so, sugar? i think it's more than nostalgia. we used to value education and how it enriched our lives now we're at the bottom of the heap in terms of educational levels. half the people interviewed in PEW survey (i'll find the exact stats) now believe that creationism should be taught in the schools! how about the tea party? they aren't kids... *sigh* i know the past wasn't ideal, i was there and have the arrest record to prove it! xoxoxo
mj...*sigh* and crocs make your feet stinky!! xoxoxox
I think the good Captain hit the nail on the head, Savannah.
ReplyDeletexoxoxox
I think dress and behaviour as appropriate to the situation. Or at least it is, in my reality. But then, as I'm the only person who lives in my reality, I'm on a winner.
ReplyDeleteI do know I have turned into my grandmother and I want people to cover up. I do this diatribe every summer. I just think in the middle of town, I don't want to see anyone's middle, no matter their size or shape.
dive...*sigh* i think he's only mostly right, sugarpie! (name the movie and i'll have a cocktail in your honor!) xoxoxox
ReplyDeleteroses...BINGO! that's it! imposition of will or flesh is soooooo inappropriate! xoxoxox
I think I'm a good case in point:
ReplyDeleteI used to wear baggy pants, t-shirts, and flip-flops practically everywhere. My job didn't have a dress code, my friends all dressed like me, and no one ever said anything. Now of course, I KNEW BETTER, having received more than adequate home-training on the subject, but I just stopped caring. I stopped caring how I looked and eventually I stopped noticing the consequences of my choices. That is, I stopped noticing how other people reacted to me and I stopped noticing how I felt about myself.
These days, I am invested in feeling as good about myself as possible, so I dress the part. When I put on a button-up shirt, flattering pants, and appropriate footwear, I feel like a Grown-Ass Man. This makes it that much easier to think like one, act like one, and ride the feedback loop until I feel like one.
So for me it is not about the decline of civility or standards so much as it is the decline of self respect. Here in Los Angeles, I seen grown men all the time who show up at nice restaurants in flip-flops. Meanwhile the women they are with are dressed to kill. I want to take them aside and share my perspective (this being L.A., that is an ill-advised idea I never follow through on, for a lack of self respect spills over quite easily into a lack of civil discourse, followed by inevitable fisticuffs). But no one can make you respect yourself. No one can harangue into wanting to feel better about yourself. And no one can tell you about the benefits that follow better choices - it's something you have to learn by experience.
Although, when your baggy, belt-less clown pants fall down around your ankles while you're trying to run through the crosswalk, I will point and laugh at you, whether it helps you or not.
No, my friend, this isn't a "generational" thing. It's that case of loudest being right and trashiest running a close second. :)
ReplyDeleteDo I dress like Mom's generation? No. But I'm neat, tidy and covered up. ;) It seems to me that the idea were were taught as children, to be respectful of adults because they were adults, has evaporated. Individual "rights" makes the other guy/gal the ignorant one and suddenly, no one is wrong and "I'm Sorry" is on the endangered species list of necessary terms of everyday speech.
My "favorite" today is of someone bellowing, at the top of his/her lungs, "You're disrespecting me!"
Really? You do realize respect is earned. right? And um, do you have a mirror at your house? :)
Fight on Warrior Sav...I'll hold the soap box and refill the liquid beverage of your choice.
i find the casualization of attire to be a mere annoyance - it's the rude, clueless BEHAVIOR that drives me batty. talking on the phone while checking out at a store or paying a bill at a restaurant? UGH! LOUD people. People oblivious to other human beings in the same general space? i could go on... but don't wanna comment-jack ya!
ReplyDeleteI'm with you every step of the way honey. Excellently said.xoxoxo
ReplyDeleteIn England this week it is Royal Ascot, a horse racing event at which there is a strict dress code.
ReplyDeleteHats for ladies, no plunging necklines, knee length skirts, no bare shoulders or narrow straps. for men the rule is suits and ties.
There are style 'police' with spare ties, hats, pashminas to ensure that race goers meet the rules.
It is so lovely to see everyone beautifully dressed, so elegant and smart as in this country scruffy and inappropriate dress seems to be the rule. Such a shame. Even at church every one dresses casually except for weddings a nd funerals.
No, it's no "generational thing". I think it's about respect towards others and oneself (very true what Mr. Moose saied). Values change. Norbert ELIAS wrote about the process of civilization, when the French nobility became houstrained because they had to live at the court. This is mainly an affaire of the 17th century; the ideals of the gentilhomme, honnetete reach a bit back to the 16th, but basically its a process that formed a kind of standard throughout the european society; later the bourgeoise followed the ideal and adapted it to their needs and reality. It formed the basis for Western standards of behaviour, customs, and of course outfit: That's why I wear a sacco even in summer.
ReplyDeleteI do not lean towards Kulturpessimismus, things do change, naturally. But I think that over the last 20 years or so, we wittness not the normal change and adaption of given cultural and civilizational "habits", but a kind of erosion. It's not that one form is replaced with another one, seemingly new (it is never new), "invented" by the actual living generation expressing the society's idea of something - there is simply no replacement, no idea to be expressed, no society: Just a male with short trousers flipflops and an open shirt blabbing to himself - oh sorry, dude wears a headset.
Most of the people I see while traveling are somehwere else, connected to whateverland through small buttons in their ears, headsets and computers. It's electronic autism at its finest.
I think we life in the age of randomness or whateverism, the backside of enlightenment: The individual finally faces (a sort of) freedom, but sadly uses it only to air its arse in public.
Clothing always has a function as sign, is always of semiotic value. So mybe flipflops, short trousers and a stupid cap just say "I am five years old and want to play in the mud". I am ready to treat someone this way, like a five year old, even while I realize that it is necessary to look at the individual, not at the wrapping. But sadly enough very often such people open their mouth and bingo - they are thirtyfive already!
And don't get me started on people who go out in public in their PJs!!!
ReplyDeleteoo yikes -- i've gone out in my pjs. briefly though, when I got locked out of a house that I was house sitting.
ReplyDeletei am not old enough to miss the old days but I do think dressing appropriately is key. I hate being underdressed or overdressed. Given a choice, I'd rather be overdressed.
I am guilty of saying, SHUT UP! But in my defense, I wouldn't use it in a professional setting or toward anyone that didn't get that I was kidding.
ReplyDeleteI feel that rules can be broken in certain occasions, but the problem is that the rules of decorum or etiquette are no longer known or practiced.
Simple things like saying thank you to someone that holds the door open for you or actually looking at the person you are helping at the store. Things that seemed to be basic before seem to require training now.
I remember some years ago when a visiting preacher came to our church (we were between Rectors at the time) his sermon, to our discomfiture, was about standards of dress and behaviour - whatever sense he spoke was overshadowed by his diatribe against jeans being worn in church. Now, a young teenage boy was in church that day and he was wearing jeans. Neat, clean, but bejeaned. Now, which was worse manners - being in the 'House of God' wearing jeans or standing in the pulpit forcefully criticising informal dress? - it wasn't aimed at young Stephen and obviously pre-written, but it was embarrassing and rude, and surely a young person who had the courage to come to church (at an age when he might well be teased by his peers for it) deserved more respect.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter used to work in a smart office in Belgravia and she had the awkward job once of having to tell her PA that she didn't dress well enough - down at heel shoes, not always crisply ironed shirts, hair that had been washed the night before, not newly washed and styled that morning. Small details but they stood out in a professional workplace. A lot of it is ignorance. When I go to funerals (as an organist, usually) there are often a few young women wearing black dresses - but the average young woman's best black dress is a short, strappy party dress. You can hardly imagine anything more inappropriate, but they don't mean any disrespect, they're wearing their best clothes in the colour of mourning and they think they're correctly dressed.
Some behaviour I see makes me squirm. But people are really nice to me and I've received such kindness from strangers, sometimes unlikely ones, that I can't bring myself to be critical. They're the same as they ever were under the surface, but life is tough and there's a lot of pressure and it makes some of us aggressive. And there's a tendency to grow up too soon and yet remain immature too long.
The generation before us thought that WE were taking the world to hell in a hand-basket with our hippy free-thinking, love beads and dope-smoking concerts, but the prior generation considered *them* to be doing the same with that all Elvis Presley rock and roll shenanigans... and so on, back 'til the beginning of time.
ReplyDeleteWhich means that we must have been perfectly behaved once.
Just a dissenter's opinion. ;-)