You could possibly argue that it's a hold-over from the days when the only metal cutlery a peasant had was a knife, *and* therefore a outdated form of class signalling.
The actual place-setting is less an ostentatious display of wealth now, since I can nip down to IKEA and load up on cheap Chinese cutlery and wine glasses and ape the however-many-courses the lords and ladies have, but the idea of four/five different courses, plus wine to go with each course, and aperitifs, and ports/brandies, and presumably the staff to prepare it all and wash it all up afterwards is absolutely a gratuitous display of wealth.
It exists only as a form of class signalling. That is the point. it has nothing to do with manners, none of that rubbish does.
Seriously dude, they’re not thinking about you half as much as you think about them.
What on earth has that to do with it?
Lilbuddha seems to think that everything rich people do - right down to the cutlery they use for dinner - is designed with poor people in mind, in order to keep them poor. I’m disputing that.
...the idea of four/five different courses, plus wine to go with each course, and aperitifs, and ports/brandies, and presumably the staff to prepare it all and wash it all up afterwards is absolutely a gratuitous display of wealth.
See, this is what I’m talking about. To this mindset people can’t do all that simply because they happen to enjoy it, it has to be a display to show other people how rich they are.
FYI, minus the staff that’s pretty much a description of my family christmases. Trust me, we’re not trying to show off to the rest of the street how rich we are, we’re just enjoying good food, good drink and each other’s company. It’s not about displaying or signalling to anyone else at all. Honest.
I'm certain that you honestly believe that to be the case. And no one is insisting you and yours wear hair shirts.
But you are displaying and/or signalling (as am I, and almost everyone else). Sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously, and sometimes, yes, gratuitously and in an effort to be noticed. And I'm suspicious of the notion that you've reached the age of whatever without realising that.
Lilbuddha seems to think that everything rich people do - right down to the cutlery they use for dinner - is designed with poor people in mind, in order to keep them poor. I’m disputing that.
I've said this where? I'm speaking of etiquette, not the entirety of rich people and their lives.
See, this is what I’m talking about. To this mindset people can’t do all that simply because they happen to enjoy it, it has to be a display to show other people how rich they are.
The system exists for that reason. It doesn't follow that all who do/enjoy it are doing so with the same motive.
I've an acquaintance who uses a hearse to cater with. Doesn't change what it was designed to do.
But you are displaying and/or signalling (as am I, and almost everyone else). Sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously, and sometimes, yes, gratuitously and in an effort to be noticed. And I'm suspicious of the notion that you've reached the age of whatever without realising that.
Well, if you want to suggest that virtually everything anyone does is displaying/signalling of some kind then I'm not sure why it's also being seen as a bad thing. I'd also be very interested to know to whom you think we're displaying when we spend Christmas as a family behind closed doors.
It's the implied intentionality in your and lilbuddha's posts that I disagree with. For example, "the system exists for that reason". I simply cannot agree that the only reason dining etiquette is a thing in the first place is to exclude the poor. Such a claim strikes me as paranoia more than anything else.
You're not wrong, but the two are closely allied. Yes, I know a few very rich people who are still decidedly working class, and a few upper class people who have become poor, but money is very sticky, and the rituals, etiquette, and codes of the upper and upper-middle classes make sure it stays that way.
Some dining etiquette is designed to exclude the poor. That, I think, is reasonably uncontroversial, and what I'm objecting to.
Really? I'd be interested to know which elements of dining etiquette you think were designed specifically to exclude the poor.
Having separate knives and forks for each course is because it's nice to be able to eat your main course without having the remains of your starter all over the cutlery. Different glasses for each drink is so that you don't contaminate your water with wine (or vice versa). And the oyster fork going with the knives rather than the other forks is so you can fight off any undesirable serfs that might somehow gain entrance to your dining room - Begone, peasant, for I HAVE AN OYSTER FORK!!!
M-the-M, I wish I could do the 'I am not worthy' smiley.
MMM
Pretty low self-esteem you have then because his post demonstrates a lack of comprehension, at best.
The cost of cutlery now is irrelevant to the cost of it when these customs were instituted. It also ignores that multi-course meals are relatively new things to the hoi polloi and that everything in a meal was eaten with the same cutlery by everyone but the rich until relatively recently. And it certainly is not uncommon now in homes of the less advantaged.
To keep MtM's POV at this stage of the thread exhibits a tenacious ignorance and an inability to read for comprehension. And that is being generous.
The cost of cutlery now is irrelevant to the cost of it when these customs were instituted. It also ignores that multi-course meals are relatively new things to the hoi polloi and that everything in a meal was eaten with the same cutlery by everyone but the rich until relatively recently. And it certainly is not uncommon now in homes of the less advantaged.
No argument here. But between "they're only able to do it because they're rich" and "they're only doing it so that they can keep other people poor" there's enough room to drive every bus in existence.
I wonder what people would think if it had been a very conservative Jewish man and a female official? For many religious and cultural reasons he may not have been willing to shake hands. Would the courts have accepted that, or would the outcome have been the same?
Edited to add that with the Labour party anti-Semitism stuff in the news it was just on my mind.
No argument here. But between "they're only able to do it because they're rich" and "they're only doing it so that they can keep other people poor" there's enough room to drive every bus in existence.
So no one's said that last bit, and it's kind of sad that you're resorting to this faux argument so you don't have to think, but okay. I'll explain one more time for those at the back.
Any needlessly complex social situation that uses multiply redundant and/or expensive resources automatically excludes those not initiated into that cultural milieu. While this might possibly include activities common to poor or outcast groups, the impact of excluding the wealthy from such interactions is minimal compared with ostentatious displays of choreographed wealth-as-theatre which excludes the poor by means of both cost and ritual.
While a private umpteen-course meal (with or without vomiting in buckets) is in an of itself not necessarily an overt flaunting of disposable wealth (though arguably it is), its exercise as a signifier of exclusive luxury in an age of austerity (and actual foodbanks) is clear and uncontroversial.
The thing is, 'dining clubs' at Oxford get this entirely because this is the reason for their existence. They are, at least, being honest about their conspicuous consumption (and also their ability to pay off any restaurateur to avoid criminal charges for the damage caused thereafter). Spending money on displays of wealth is obviously a thing, and relatively, almost everyone does it, whether it's whatever brand of trainers or a superyacht, and obviously, anyone with money can do that whatever their class. But dragging this back to the cutlery, and the handshake, there are social codes involved too. Money doesn't buy breeding, darling. They're doing it not to keep others poor, but to distinguish themselves from the poor.
No argument here. But between "they're only able to do it because they're rich" and "they're only doing it so that they can keep other people poor" there's enough room to drive every bus in existence.
So no one's said that last bit, and it's kind of sad that you're resorting to this faux argument so you don't have to think, but okay.
The specific rules are different, but they’re still there.
So name a specific rule that poor people use to make rich people social pariahs and keep them in their place.
"Hah, ya rich bastard! That'll keep you in your place of wealth, privilege and power. Trying to come 'round here and share in our lack"
Look, there are activities (such as driving high-performance cars and eating 6-course meals) which budget considerations exclude many of us from much of the time (and some of us all of the time).
Of those who can afford to do these things and choose to do so:
-Some do for the sheer enjoyment of the activity
-Some do because that way they meet other people from the social class that they belong to or would like to belong to
- And some do to flaunt their wealth.
Putting forward the worst motivation and pretending that this is somehow intrinsic to the activity is just another part of lilbuddha's tedious prejudice against rich and powerful people.
Or to put it another way:
LB: the rich are different from us
Russ: Yes, they have more money.
Look, there are activities (such as driving high-performance cars and eating 6-course meals) which budget considerations exclude many of us from much of the time (and some of us all of the time).
Of those who can afford to do these things and choose to do so:
-Some do for the sheer enjoyment of the activity
-Some do because that way they meet other people from the social class that they belong to or would like to belong to
- And some do to flaunt their wealth.
Putting forward the worst motivation and pretending that this is somehow intrinsic to the activity is just another part of lilbuddha's tedious prejudice against rich and powerful people.
Or to put it another way:
LB: the rich are different from us
Russ: Yes, they have more money.
This. Except I would suggest that options two and three are both bad reasons to do anything. If you ar rich and drive a Ferrari to either meet people of your own status, or to flaunt your wealth, then you should be made to work for a year in a food bank.
Option one is the only legitimate reason.
Eating a meal with multiple cutlery and glassware is nice. I do it six or seven times a year. I could do it more often but, like anything, if you something too regularly it ceases to be special. I suspect I am not alone in that.
But, unlike LittleBuddha, I don't believe the less well off shovel food down their gullets with wooden chip fork or by the fistfull. I think if you sat someone from a poor family down and said "just work in from the sides" they would be fine.
It seems that some peole can find a class "problem" in any activity, which is ironic because the ultimate expression of class rejection - Marxism - would still contain many activities that they would see as promoting class privilege. Even Marx knew how to use a knife and fork!
I wonder what people would think if it had been a very conservative Jewish man and a female official? For many religious and cultural reasons he may not have been willing to shake hands. Would the courts have accepted that, or would the outcome have been the same?
Edited to add that with the Labour party anti-Semitism stuff in the news it was just on my mind.
FWIW I think the outcome would indeed be the same. It would still be regarded as a rejection of the values of the Republic.
Keffir means fermented milk in Arabic and is now the name of the newest most fashionable probiotic drink. For a very long time it has been used to mean native man in various colonial literature and by those ex-colonial administrators who came home to the UK to retire, of whom there were far too many around in my childhood. It may well come from local slang for Westerners as they smell of fermented milk to people who do not drink milk as adults.
I recognise it from an ill spent youth reading John Bunyan and Rider Haggard, among others.
What if an autistic person who is deeply uncomfortable with bodily contact did not want to shake hands as part of a citizenship ceremony? What if someone who has suffered horrific sexual and/or physical abuse and has difficulty with bodily contact with others, especially with strangers, did not want to shake hands as part of the ceremony? If these are understandable exceptions, why not the lady in question?
I would imagine they would be understandable exceptions because they are not based on a difference of values.
That's my impression as well.
The French attitude to citizenship seems to be that if you want to become a French citizen then you have to actually become French. Where that concerns religion one would have to become French first, [Religion] second, and where it concerns culture one would have to become French first, [Culture] second. By refusing to shake hands for religious or cultural reasons this woman has confirmed that she is [Religion/Culture] first and French second, which means she is not French enough to be a French citizen.
Personally I think there is much to admire with this take on citizenship. Noting, of course, that citizenship is not necessarily the same thing as right of residency or permission to work.
As one of the Reformed tradition and with NonConformist heritage, I do not find that take attractive and I have my suspicion that many Scots will join me in that.
Personally I think there is much to admire with this take on citizenship. Noting, of course, that citizenship is not necessarily the same thing as right of residency or permission to work.
As one of the Reformed tradition and with NonConformist heritage, I do not find that take attractive and I have my suspicion that many Scots will join me in that.
Your take, JJ, highlights part of the reason why the French approach MtM admires is so problematic. His assumes that a country's culture is monolithic and static; the former is true of no culture and the latter only when one has ceased to exist.
In the event of recognition of culture's variability, it then has to choose just what equals the national character and who gets to decide this. Which definitely wanders hard away from representative democracy.
No, just another example of the hypocrisy that says something is bad when a White Westerner does it but good when anyone else does it.
Seriously, WTF, dude? First, no one is making that argument. Second, McDonalds and Tehran have naught to do with cultural imperialism. That example is shite.
I'm a latecomer to this interesting thread. Coming back to the original handshake problem rather than the cutlery tangents, especially after the recent links posted by Eutychus, I asked my French and very non-Islamophobic other half what he thought. He rather confirmed my initial response as a very long-term French resident: that refusing to shake the hand of an official at a formal ceremony is pretty strong stuff in France, more than you might imagine from across the Channel, as has already been said. He suggested it's kind of equivalent to turning your back on the person, refusing a contract, or say, refusing the hand of a politician you don't like. I can't help thinking that if the woman concerned had lived in France since 2010 she must have had some idea of the significance of her act.
(NB I - we - are not trying to say that France is right to refuse nationality, but that it's more complicated that it could seem from a different cultural setting.)
Personally I think there is much to admire with this take on citizenship. Noting, of course, that citizenship is not necessarily the same thing as right of residency or permission to work.
...highlights part of the reason why the French approach MtM admires is so problematic. His assumes that a country's culture is monolithic and static; the former is true of no culture and the latter only when one has ceased to exist.
In the event of recognition of culture's variability, it then has to choose just what equals the national character and who gets to decide this. Which definitely wanders hard away from representative democracy.
3 options here:
1) use the notion of variability between individuals within a nation to deny that there is such a thing as "French culture" at all.
2) agree that there is such a thing as French culture but deny that shaking hands is part of it.
3) accept that shaking hands is part of French culture (and therefore that choosing not to shows a lack of assimilation).
As @Black Cat says, this isn't so much about French culture as about formal relationships with representatives of the state. I'd say that choosing not to in the context of this formal ceremony is a deliberate statement of one's refusal to assimilate.
(How I wish I'd had such a formal ceremony, or opportunity of a handshake, myself. As I recall, my certificate of nationality was handed to me at arm's length by a very disdainful official in a dusty side room).
(Readers should also be advised that getting a decoration in France such as the Légion d'Honneur, sort of the equivalent to a British OBE, involves being kissed on both cheeks by the bestower).
Comments
The actual place-setting is less an ostentatious display of wealth now, since I can nip down to IKEA and load up on cheap Chinese cutlery and wine glasses and ape the however-many-courses the lords and ladies have, but the idea of four/five different courses, plus wine to go with each course, and aperitifs, and ports/brandies, and presumably the staff to prepare it all and wash it all up afterwards is absolutely a gratuitous display of wealth.
Lilbuddha seems to think that everything rich people do - right down to the cutlery they use for dinner - is designed with poor people in mind, in order to keep them poor. I’m disputing that.
See, this is what I’m talking about. To this mindset people can’t do all that simply because they happen to enjoy it, it has to be a display to show other people how rich they are.
FYI, minus the staff that’s pretty much a description of my family christmases. Trust me, we’re not trying to show off to the rest of the street how rich we are, we’re just enjoying good food, good drink and each other’s company. It’s not about displaying or signalling to anyone else at all. Honest.
But you are displaying and/or signalling (as am I, and almost everyone else). Sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously, and sometimes, yes, gratuitously and in an effort to be noticed. And I'm suspicious of the notion that you've reached the age of whatever without realising that.
The system exists for that reason. It doesn't follow that all who do/enjoy it are doing so with the same motive.
I've an acquaintance who uses a hearse to cater with. Doesn't change what it was designed to do.
Well, if you want to suggest that virtually everything anyone does is displaying/signalling of some kind then I'm not sure why it's also being seen as a bad thing. I'd also be very interested to know to whom you think we're displaying when we spend Christmas as a family behind closed doors.
It's the implied intentionality in your and lilbuddha's posts that I disagree with. For example, "the system exists for that reason". I simply cannot agree that the only reason dining etiquette is a thing in the first place is to exclude the poor. Such a claim strikes me as paranoia more than anything else.
MMM
Really? I'd be interested to know which elements of dining etiquette you think were designed specifically to exclude the poor.
Having separate knives and forks for each course is because it's nice to be able to eat your main course without having the remains of your starter all over the cutlery. Different glasses for each drink is so that you don't contaminate your water with wine (or vice versa). And the oyster fork going with the knives rather than the other forks is so you can fight off any undesirable serfs that might somehow gain entrance to your dining room - Begone, peasant, for I HAVE AN OYSTER FORK!!!
Is that it? I think that's it.
MMM
If you haven't read the thread, then dial back the outrage, Mr Snowflake.
The cost of cutlery now is irrelevant to the cost of it when these customs were instituted. It also ignores that multi-course meals are relatively new things to the hoi polloi and that everything in a meal was eaten with the same cutlery by everyone but the rich until relatively recently. And it certainly is not uncommon now in homes of the less advantaged.
To keep MtM's POV at this stage of the thread exhibits a tenacious ignorance and an inability to read for comprehension. And that is being generous.
No argument here. But between "they're only able to do it because they're rich" and "they're only doing it so that they can keep other people poor" there's enough room to drive every bus in existence.
Outrage? That was me having a laugh.
Edited to add that with the Labour party anti-Semitism stuff in the news it was just on my mind.
So no one's said that last bit, and it's kind of sad that you're resorting to this faux argument so you don't have to think, but okay. I'll explain one more time for those at the back.
Any needlessly complex social situation that uses multiply redundant and/or expensive resources automatically excludes those not initiated into that cultural milieu. While this might possibly include activities common to poor or outcast groups, the impact of excluding the wealthy from such interactions is minimal compared with ostentatious displays of choreographed wealth-as-theatre which excludes the poor by means of both cost and ritual.
While a private umpteen-course meal (with or without vomiting in buckets) is in an of itself not necessarily an overt flaunting of disposable wealth (though arguably it is), its exercise as a signifier of exclusive luxury in an age of austerity (and actual foodbanks) is clear and uncontroversial.
The thing is, 'dining clubs' at Oxford get this entirely because this is the reason for their existence. They are, at least, being honest about their conspicuous consumption (and also their ability to pay off any restaurateur to avoid criminal charges for the damage caused thereafter). Spending money on displays of wealth is obviously a thing, and relatively, almost everyone does it, whether it's whatever brand of trainers or a superyacht, and obviously, anyone with money can do that whatever their class. But dragging this back to the cutlery, and the handshake, there are social codes involved too. Money doesn't buy breeding, darling. They're doing it not to keep others poor, but to distinguish themselves from the poor.
That's it. That's what it signifies.
MMM
MMM
No one has said that last bit? Faux argument?
Of those who can afford to do these things and choose to do so:
-Some do for the sheer enjoyment of the activity
-Some do because that way they meet other people from the social class that they belong to or would like to belong to
- And some do to flaunt their wealth.
Putting forward the worst motivation and pretending that this is somehow intrinsic to the activity is just another part of lilbuddha's tedious prejudice against rich and powerful people.
Or to put it another way:
LB: the rich are different from us
Russ: Yes, they have more money.
This. Except I would suggest that options two and three are both bad reasons to do anything. If you ar rich and drive a Ferrari to either meet people of your own status, or to flaunt your wealth, then you should be made to work for a year in a food bank.
Option one is the only legitimate reason.
Eating a meal with multiple cutlery and glassware is nice. I do it six or seven times a year. I could do it more often but, like anything, if you something too regularly it ceases to be special. I suspect I am not alone in that.
But, unlike LittleBuddha, I don't believe the less well off shovel food down their gullets with wooden chip fork or by the fistfull. I think if you sat someone from a poor family down and said "just work in from the sides" they would be fine.
It seems that some peole can find a class "problem" in any activity, which is ironic because the ultimate expression of class rejection - Marxism - would still contain many activities that they would see as promoting class privilege. Even Marx knew how to use a knife and fork!
FWIW I think the outcome would indeed be the same. It would still be regarded as a rejection of the values of the Republic.
Ummm.....I suppose it.'s nice your friends wouldn't humiliate a tangy, fermented milk drink with reputed healing properties...but why would anyone?
I recognise it from an ill spent youth reading John Bunyan and Rider Haggard, among others.
As one of the Reformed tradition and with NonConformist heritage, I do not find that take attractive and I have my suspicion that many Scots will join me in that.
In the event of recognition of culture's variability, it then has to choose just what equals the national character and who gets to decide this. Which definitely wanders hard away from representative democracy.
And yet if you talk about opening a McDonald's in Tehran it's regarded as cultural imperialism.
Are we to take Iranian isolationism as a measured counter-argument?
No, just another example of the hypocrisy that says something is bad when a White Westerner does it but good when anyone else does it.
<munch, munch>
Thanks for the laughs.
(NB I - we - are not trying to say that France is right to refuse nationality, but that it's more complicated that it could seem from a different cultural setting.)
3 options here:
1) use the notion of variability between individuals within a nation to deny that there is such a thing as "French culture" at all.
2) agree that there is such a thing as French culture but deny that shaking hands is part of it.
3) accept that shaking hands is part of French culture (and therefore that choosing not to shows a lack of assimilation).
Which are you arguing ?
(How I wish I'd had such a formal ceremony, or opportunity of a handshake, myself. As I recall, my certificate of nationality was handed to me at arm's length by a very disdainful official in a dusty side room).
(Readers should also be advised that getting a decoration in France such as the Légion d'Honneur, sort of the equivalent to a British OBE, involves being kissed on both cheeks by the bestower).