phillip,
the word "polite" is in itself part of a genre that orients people to act
toward each other in a certain way. anyone who has lived in different
cultures knows that all cultures have something that could be called polite
behavior but the specifics or even, if one may speak of it in this way, the
very syntax of politeness might be unrecognizable from the perspective of
some other's cultural definition of polite. The universality of some notion
of politeness was what I meant as "least malleable". In terms of the
variations of the particulars (who sits first when entering a house) and
even the syntax, what constitutes politeness seems extremely malleable.
as a child I was taught that after cutting food with the knife in the right
hand, I should put the knife down and pick up the fork with the right hand
(polite table manners). I vaguely remember being told it had to do with
avoiding a confusion of colliding elbows. My sister and I thought that
eating with the fork in the left hand had some connotation of being french,
and as such, for us, something sophisticated. Years later, when renting a
room with meals from a family that was basically working class, I was asked
why I made this fork/knife switch. For them it connoted pretentiousness .
It's fascinating how something that was just polite to me could have been
taken as a sign of "marking myself as better" and therefor definitely
bordering on the rude. There are times when being on one's best behavior is
downright insulting. But then I'm sure we've all had this experience. It
may or may not be possible to negotiate the redefinition of the meaning of
the gesture in question. I wonder if this possibility has to do with the
embeddedness of the gesture (little mushroom) in question within other
associated genres and identities (i.e., the fork-knife switch really is a
form through which I subconsciously affirm feelings of superiority
associated with the subtleties of my own class-identity).
Paul H. Dillon
----- Original Message -----
From: Phillip White <Phillip_White@ceo.cudenver.edu>
To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2000 12:26 PM
Subject: Re: Genre and communities
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu writes:
> > If we consider the genre
> >in relationship to the community which it pervades (for whom it is
> >appropriate, natural, etc.) politeness might even be seen to be one of
the
> >least malleable of genres.
>
>
>
> paul - to suggest that a genre is malleable surprises me - for me the
> malleablility would be situated within the agent - although i am glad to
> see you write this, for now i have a clearer understanding about conflicts
> between people. it has always surprised me that when it has been pointed
> out to someone that their discourse is rude, and they not only deflect the
> observation, but continue on being rude. now i can understand this
> behavior more clearly, for perhaps there is a different belief about where
> polite behavior resides, or who needs to practice it.
>
> phillip
>
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