A Short History of Rudeness: Manners, Morals, and Misbehavior in Modern America Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

A Short History of Rudeness: Manners, Morals, and Misbehavior in Modern America Book

If Americans value civility and good manners so much, then why have they made celebrities out of people like Jerry Springer, Howard Stern, and Dennis Rodman? How is it that political discourse came to be dominated by discussions of semen-stained dresses and mutual accusations of immorality and civic unfitness? Is the United States a nation of hypocrites? No, suggests Mark Caldwell, it's just really confused. "We want to be free, but we long for restraint," he writes. "We insist on openness and cringe when we get it; we strain at trivial offenses and swallow camels of iniquity." A Short History of Rudeness flits around the obsession with good manners and moral behavior, touching upon a number of aspects of public life (the workplace, mass transit, the Internet) and private (child rearing, home design, sexual politics). Along the way, Caldwell strings together an array of primary sources--including newspaper articles, business etiquette manuals, and South Park episodes--that help explain why people pay attention to Martha Stewart, whether Dr. Spock is really responsible for multiple generations of spoiled brats, and how users of the Internet developed a blunt discourse that, while superficially crude, exhibits a desire for decorum at its core. (Why do we feel justified in flaming spammers? Because they violate our sense of privacy.) The cultural obsession with manners and morality unfolds as part of a deeper anxiety over class. While the individual sections of A Short History of Rudeness are not always revelatory, Caldwell's slow but steady approach is at least innovative in the particular way he chooses to fit together these pieces of the social puzzle. --Ron Hogan Read More

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  • Product Description

    On the floor of the House, a U.S. representative urges Congress to "tell the President to shove his veto pen up his deficit." Angry Americans routinely spew abuse and obscenities in internet chatrooms. And a student in Massachusetts provokes an outcry when he shows up to class wearing a t-shirt that reads "Coed Naked Band: Do It to the Rhythm." What accounts for this apparent epidemic of toward incivility? And why do so many of us care about it?

    In his thought provoking new book, literary/social critic Mark Caldwell gives us a history of the demise of manners and charts the triumphant progress of rudeness in America. The perceived breakdown of civility has in recent years become a national obsession, and our modern climate of boorishness has cultivated a host of etiquette watchdogs, like Miss Manners and Martha Stewart, who defend us against an onslaught of nastiness. Meanwhile, New York mayor Rudolph Guiliani embarks on a personal crusade to improve the manners of the city's civil servants, pedestrians, motorists, taxi drivers, and delivery men, and Tipper Gore leads a nationwide campaign to label music albums that contain potentially brutish lyrics.

    Caldwell demonstrates that the foundations of etiquette actually began to erode several centuries ago with the blurring of class lines and the emergence of a new middle-class. Touching on aspects of both our public and private lives, including work, family, and sex, he examines how the rules of behavior inevitably change and explains why, no matter how hard we try, we can never return to a golden era of civilized manners and mores.

  • 0312204329
  • 9780312204327
  • Mark Caldwell
  • 1 July 1999
  • Picador USA
  • Hardcover (Book)
  • 274
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