On Politeness, Sensibility and Men of Feeling

Last week Australian viewers were subjected to an extraordinary ill-mannered display by John Eliot, former President of the Liberal Party, on ABC1's celebrity panel show, Q&A. This made me reflect upon the history of politeness, sensiblility and the like.

I will deal first with the idea of politeness. Politeness originally was a mid-eighteenth century reaction against the stiff formality of social manners that was the norm before about 1750. It presupposed 'a relaxed and genuine sociability' which ideally led to a new kind of social refinement.It presupposed one was living in a civil society (i.e. not rude or vulgar) where people treated each other with mutual respect. [Helen Berry. 'Polite Consumption: Shopping in Eighteenth Century England, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th. Series, XII, 2002, p. 393.]

This idea of polite behaviour, though it originated in the propertied classes, was of particular advantage to the middle-class professions, notably lawyers, physicians and the clergy. Lawyers and physicians particularly used politeness to make themselves amenable to likely employers, while the clergy saw it as a way of gaining polish through their contact with social superiors;(though Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice may not be a very good example) shop-keepers saw it as beneficial to their trade; though none of these bourgeoisie were seen to have the required breeding used by people of rank to consort with each other. [Paul Langford. 'The Uses of Eighteenth Century Politeness', Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th. Series, XII,2002, p.318.] Nor could the use of politeness conceal the social and economic equalities that were the basis of eighteenth century society. [Berry, ibid., p.393.]

Despite this, politeness was a means of 'levelling up' for the middling sort (to use the correct eighteenth century term.) It produced a kind of 'self-conscious egalitarianism', most noticeable in the ubiquitous blue or black coat, hair without wig or powder, and the toleration of men wearing boots indoors. By behaving with attention and civility to inferiors (remember, its the eighteenth century we're talking about here), the address of men and women of humbler station as Mr. or Mrs., the dropping of titles of rank in everyday discourse, and the disappearance of swords as part of an everyday garb. They, instead, were replaced by canes and umbrellas. Specific street manners, such as men walking on the street side of the pavement when accompanied by a woman (so they could get splashed by the mud or choked by the dust from passing carriages) became the norm. [Langford, op.cit., pp. 316-317.) And polite conversation became the mark of a gentleman.

The new codes of politeness had advantages for women as well as men. They were no longer required to be silent in conversation, if only because women's conversation was seen as an adjunct of male refinement. Women could challenge in court the male practice of confining wives to the home. This now was seen as cruelty, because politeness demanded sociability within the home, in the guise of hospitality, as well as outside it. If they were victims of marital violence, the covering up of cuts and bruises while in public sent a strong social signal that attracted attention to their suffering, that was remembered by witnesses. [Elizabeth Foyster, 'Creating a Veil of Silence: Politeness and Marital Violence in the English Household', Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th Series, XII,2000, p.403; pp.407-408.]

As a response to politeness, the culture of sensibility was developed. [Foyster, ibid.,] This was perceived as a new kind of refinement, the expression of heightened and intense feeling. [ John Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination, English Culture in the Eighteenth Century, Chicago, 1997, pp.113-114.) (Perhaps this was what John Eliot was experiencing last week on Q&A). Australians are fortunate to have the example of such a man in their early colonial history, the First Fleet Journal writer, Second Lieutenant Ralph Clark. Clark was on the Friendship in the First Fleet, and is best known, perhaps world famous, for describing the First Fleet convict women as 'damned whores'. While this certainly demonstrated, among other things, that he was a Man of Feeling, there are better examples in his Journal. He was, for example, frequently moved to tears while contemplating the miniature of his young wife, Alicia, so much so that one might describe him as lachrymose. Being a Man of Feeling, however was not always a positive experience. In one of the darker passages of his Journal, hours after being shipwrecked on Norfolk Island on the Sirius on the 19 March 1790 Clark assisting people ashore on a raft was almost drowned. In his own words (I have modernised the spelling, despite its charm for purists like myself):

"almost drowned one of the Convicts who could not Swim, fell off the Raft and pushed me along with him, in which case we Should both have drowned if I could not have Swimmed - for the Raft went over us both and I was obliged to Swim back the Shore with him holding fast to me by the waistband of my Trousers - when I got on Shore he was almost dead but he Soon Recovered on which I took a Stick out of one of the Sergeant's hands and gave him a sound thrashing for pulling me off the Raft with him. ..." [The Journal and Letters of Lt. Ralph Clark 1787-1792, (eds. Paul G. Fidlon and R. J. Ryan,) Sydney, 1981, p.122.]

In Clark's case being a Man of Feeling gave him an excuse to lose control of his emotions.

So, is politeness really a good thing, as John Eliot was rudely trying to tell the country the other night on one of our national TV channels?

PB.