Book 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 morals.
