"...insisted on formal procedure at gatherings like this, for the same reason he insisted on proper attire when they ate supper together. Ritual was a bulwark against chaos in the spirit." (32, p. 298)
Immediately after their coup, Brent sits crisply uniformed whereas Cleland shambles in, unkempt, in rumpled unwashed garments, smelling of sour sweat. Brent barks:
"'Attention!'" (39, p. 372)
He explains that their mission demands:
"'...discipline. That begins with self-discipline... Nansen was right about the necessity of maintaining form, rank, respect.'" (p. 373)
I agree with Nansen although I was a hippy earlier in life. I knew a guy who had the opportunity to join a training scheme for the unemployed. One requirement of the course was that the trainees attend each day dressed and presented as if they were about to start an office-based job. My guy said that he did not think that this was necessary for attendance on the course and therefore chose not to attend the course! First, I thought that there was some sense in the requirement and, secondly, if he had wanted to benefit from the course, then surely he should have complied with the requirements even if he personally saw no sense in them?
An opinion column in the British Daily Telegraph newspaper once argued that formal dinners in country houses were a safeguard of democracy because politicians need to be able to mix with persons of their own class who can laugh the pomposity out of them! The old-fashioned English social attitudes implicit in that column are staggering. Telegraph readers safeguard democracy for the rest of us by accepting invitations to formal dinners in country houses? I don't think so!
Another guy I knew attended an evening event where he was dressed formally but everyone else was in T-shirts, jeans etc! My only advice is: if there is a stated dress code, then observe it, if there is not, then go as you feel comfortable or as you think is appropriate and do not feel uncomfortable whatever anyone else is doing when you get there! Some miners' wives from the North East of England attended a labour movement fund-raising event in a community centre in Lancaster. As they would for any evening event, they went dressed in their best only to find that everyone else present was dressed as informally as possible, as if they had deliberately "dressed down." The wives wanted to rush back to their lodgings to dress less formally whereas the truth was that no one else there minded how they were dressed.
One statement that is true across the board is that there is a very broad range of social attitudes on such matters.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And Captain Nansen was right, there are times and occasions when ritual, ceremony, formal/correct attire, etc., are good and necessary. I recall the Sachem, villain tho he was, making similar statements about the need for "forms of respect" in Anderson's THERE WILL BE TIME. And Stirling had John Rolfe VI repeating that almost verbatim in CONQUISTADOR.
It was Thomas Hobbes, to my amazement, who explained in LEVIATHAN how and why forms of respect makes sense. And I discussed all this in greater detail in my "Andersonian Themes and Tropes" article.
Ad astra! Sean
Yup. Social cooperation -- especially beyond an immediate kin-group -- depends on forms. As Captain Winters says in "Band of Brothers", "you salute the rank, not the man".
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Absolutely! A Chinese mandarin of the Ming or Ch'ing dynasties performing the kowtow to his Emperor was showing respect to the Imperial office, not necessarily to the reigning monarch, who might or might not be well meaning or conscientious.
Ad astra! Sean
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