The Rise Of Rudeness
Mar. 4th, 2007 05:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mtvesselDec 2006
Talk to the Hand - Lynne Truss - Profile Books, 2005
* * *
Lynne Truss, the queen of the grumpy old women, is back with a book about modern manners, or more accurately the lack of them. Like her previous one it is an entertaining and thoughtful read, but the subtitle - The Utter Bloody Rudeness of Modern Life (or six good reasons to stay home and bolt the door) - reveals its Daily Telegraph-derived jeremiad tendencies, and unlike Eats, Shoots and Leaves it is not particularly enlightening.
It is hard to argue with Truss’ choice of annoyances - the loss of the “please” and “thank you” culture, the modern trend in “do it yourself” customer service where companies seem to expect customers to understand and conform with their internal business practices, the tendency of people to act in public as if they were in personal bubbles and do things that should really be done in private (like making phone calls) and so on - nor with her comments on them. I particularly liked her analysis of the modern tendency to “boo the judges”. As she rightly points out, people seem to have come to the dumb conclusion that because deference due simply to social class (as lampooned in the famous That Was The Week That Was sketch) is bad, showing respect of any sort to anyone is equally reprehensible, even if that person is more informed on the subject than you are.
Indeed, there are several areas of modern life on which she doesn’t but ought to comment. Truss is not a driver and thus there is no discussion of the many miseries of motoring such as tailgating, the blocking of boxed junctions which causes completely unnecessary gridlock, cars cutting in six inches in front of you at seventy miles an hour without indicating, and so on. Nor is there much on public transport, such as the people on trains who sit yacking away into their mobile phones or listening to music consisting, apparently, entirely of rhythmic banging at what must be deafening volume, on their inadequately shielded ipods, while maintaining a selective blindness to the signs plastered over every window saying that this is the quiet carriage (it’s all right, I’ve calmed down now. One of the problems with Truss’ books is that they bring out the grumpy old person in all of us).
Unfortunately Truss offers no guidance on how one should deal with such people - indeed her only conclusion is the despairing advice to stay at home and pull the blankets over one’s head. Which is a shame, because there are some interesting questions to be asked about the apparent rise of rudeness which are not addressed by this book. To what extent do we give permission for people to behave badly when we sit silently fuming rather than braving the frequent “eff-off reflex” (Truss’ term) when we ask them to stop? Are there any insights from psychology that might suggest strategies for changing people’s behaviour in public spaces? Why do people have this desperate urge to create personal spaces in public places and how did this trend arise?
And have things really got worse? My experience is that for every motorist who cuts you up on the motorway, you will find one who will slow down to let you out of a side turning. I can’t help thinking that people are sometimes rude and sometimes polite, and it has ever been thus. Only the media coverage given to people like Lynne Truss makes us think otherwise.
Yes, shop assistants who talk to each other while serving you are mildly irritating, but they do so for the same reason that people on any other production line talk to each other - it’s repetitive and boring work. Yes, mobile phone use in quiet carriages is extremely annoying, but it is usually brief, and even persistent offenders will usually stop or move into the vestibule if asked politely (it seems some people really are blind to signs). Perhaps we should all learn to be a little less het up about small things that don’t really matter. Though I would still like to implement my plan for “Humiliators”, gaggles of little old ladies hired to patrol public places and comment loudly on phone conversations or other undesirable behaviour. It would help to remind people that they are in a public place and should behave as such, and would be a laugh for the rest of us.
Talk to the Hand - Lynne Truss - Profile Books, 2005
* * *
Lynne Truss, the queen of the grumpy old women, is back with a book about modern manners, or more accurately the lack of them. Like her previous one it is an entertaining and thoughtful read, but the subtitle - The Utter Bloody Rudeness of Modern Life (or six good reasons to stay home and bolt the door) - reveals its Daily Telegraph-derived jeremiad tendencies, and unlike Eats, Shoots and Leaves it is not particularly enlightening.
It is hard to argue with Truss’ choice of annoyances - the loss of the “please” and “thank you” culture, the modern trend in “do it yourself” customer service where companies seem to expect customers to understand and conform with their internal business practices, the tendency of people to act in public as if they were in personal bubbles and do things that should really be done in private (like making phone calls) and so on - nor with her comments on them. I particularly liked her analysis of the modern tendency to “boo the judges”. As she rightly points out, people seem to have come to the dumb conclusion that because deference due simply to social class (as lampooned in the famous That Was The Week That Was sketch) is bad, showing respect of any sort to anyone is equally reprehensible, even if that person is more informed on the subject than you are.
Indeed, there are several areas of modern life on which she doesn’t but ought to comment. Truss is not a driver and thus there is no discussion of the many miseries of motoring such as tailgating, the blocking of boxed junctions which causes completely unnecessary gridlock, cars cutting in six inches in front of you at seventy miles an hour without indicating, and so on. Nor is there much on public transport, such as the people on trains who sit yacking away into their mobile phones or listening to music consisting, apparently, entirely of rhythmic banging at what must be deafening volume, on their inadequately shielded ipods, while maintaining a selective blindness to the signs plastered over every window saying that this is the quiet carriage (it’s all right, I’ve calmed down now. One of the problems with Truss’ books is that they bring out the grumpy old person in all of us).
Unfortunately Truss offers no guidance on how one should deal with such people - indeed her only conclusion is the despairing advice to stay at home and pull the blankets over one’s head. Which is a shame, because there are some interesting questions to be asked about the apparent rise of rudeness which are not addressed by this book. To what extent do we give permission for people to behave badly when we sit silently fuming rather than braving the frequent “eff-off reflex” (Truss’ term) when we ask them to stop? Are there any insights from psychology that might suggest strategies for changing people’s behaviour in public spaces? Why do people have this desperate urge to create personal spaces in public places and how did this trend arise?
And have things really got worse? My experience is that for every motorist who cuts you up on the motorway, you will find one who will slow down to let you out of a side turning. I can’t help thinking that people are sometimes rude and sometimes polite, and it has ever been thus. Only the media coverage given to people like Lynne Truss makes us think otherwise.
Yes, shop assistants who talk to each other while serving you are mildly irritating, but they do so for the same reason that people on any other production line talk to each other - it’s repetitive and boring work. Yes, mobile phone use in quiet carriages is extremely annoying, but it is usually brief, and even persistent offenders will usually stop or move into the vestibule if asked politely (it seems some people really are blind to signs). Perhaps we should all learn to be a little less het up about small things that don’t really matter. Though I would still like to implement my plan for “Humiliators”, gaggles of little old ladies hired to patrol public places and comment loudly on phone conversations or other undesirable behaviour. It would help to remind people that they are in a public place and should behave as such, and would be a laugh for the rest of us.