Search

Politeness [ Taste & Manners / Education ]

… Abstract In the eighteenth century, the term ‘politeness’ became a powerful, if controverted, tool for thinking about and understanding social order and also for … though practice often fell short of the ideal. Theorists disagreed about the fundamental psychology underlying politeness: whether it embodied a human capacity for virtue or it was a sophisticated expression of human egoism. In either case, the attractiveness of politeness grew out of contemporary developments in urban living, class aspiration, print culture and consumption …

White lies, polite lies [ Reading & Writing / Communication ]

… authors of advice manuals thus had to walk a fine line between recommending honesty towards oneself and politeness towards others, while novelists grappled with their characters’ attempts to attain or reject a sociable … Practices > Reading & Writing Practices > Communication Keywords Lies falsehoods fibs dissimulation Conversation Politeness anxiety A white lie, the OED explains, is ‘a harmless or trivial lie, esp. one told in order to avoid hurting … moralists poured scorn on liars. Lord Chesterfield’s  Advice to His Son , purporting to spread the principles of politeness, averred that even the most innocuous-seeming lie reflected negatively on the mental abilities of the speaker …

Laughter [ Communication ]

… laughing could communicate anything from warmth to outright hostility; a well-placed chuckle could be the epitome of politeness, while an uncontrolled guffaw – especially triggered by a ‘lowbrow’ joke – was anything but. Laughter was … aspirations inherent in sociability quite like laughter. Practices > Communication Keywords Laughter humour Wit Taste Politeness impoliteness Manners civil society In May 1787, author-turned cleric Thomas Monro devoted an issue of his short-lived …

Merchants [ Commerce ]

… social classes and the rise of the merchant was part of the expansion of the ‘middling sorts’. Cultures of commerce and politeness – two key attributes of eighteenth-century British identity – came together in the figure of the merchant. … to a merchant’s credit and financial dealings. People > Commerce Keywords merchant middling sort credit commerce Politeness A merchant was ‘a trader or a dealer by wholesale’, especially ‘one who trafficks to remote countries’. 1  Not … way of life and became somewhat of a status symbol. Indeed, many historians have made connections between commerce and politeness, which was regarded as a model of civil behaviour and ‘ideal of sociability’. 13  Some individuals noted a …

Anthony Ashley Cooper, third Earl of Shaftesbury [ Philosophy / Art and Literature / Aristocracy ]

… The almost all-encompassing importance of the term links it to other seminal ideas in Shaftesbury's thought, such as politeness, toleration, liberty, and cosmopolitanism. Given the influence of the Earl's thought across Europe, any … of his extended treatment of the term. People > Philosophy People > Art and Literature People > Aristocracy Keywords Politeness toleration virtue Wit Whig Manners dialogue Cosmopolitanism Anthony Ashley Cooper, third Earl of Shaftesbury … The almost all-encompassing importance of the term links it to other seminal ideas in Shaftesbury's thought, such as politeness, toleration, liberty, and cosmopolitanism. To grasp the scope of his contribution to theories of sociability, …

Conversation [ Communication / Education / Social interaction / Language & Speech ]

… Abstract Conversation was a polysemic practice of sociability in leisured and learned classes. Ideally, it cultivated politeness, pleasure, ease and reciprocity. At the same time, its plural meanings  also accommodated tensions within the … Practices > Education Concepts > Social interaction Concepts > Language & Speech Keywords Gentlemen Women Children Politeness masculinity Improvement Critical thinking dialogues ‘Conversation’, as developed in seventeenth-century … so that conversation could encompass controversy and collision of mind as well as harmony. 4 Integral to sociability and politeness and a means of individual improvement and self-fashioning, conversation had to be instructive as well as …