Where have peoples manners gone to ?

[cleanbluesky]

Originally Posted by Garp

Wherever I've travelled I've found better manners than in the UK. They seem to have not lost that sense of community that appears to be lost around here, or at least certainly down in the South. It seems the majority of people know more about what is happening in the lives of characters in Soaps than they do about their neighbours. I wonder how many of their neighbours people on BD can name? How many of them do they know anything about more than just the basics?
Most places across eastern Europe I've been to (and in those places I've been away from the cities), including the '3rd world' ones have a very strong emphasis on being good hosts, to the point where it can be very awkward for visitors not used to the culture (e.g. you can't say "That's a nice rug" because they'll be honour bound to give it to you, and to refuse would be highly rude). Anyone seen to be bad hosts tends to be ostracised by the people around them.

What I've quoted is full of useless generalisation, but it did make me question whether I am generalising and I think that manners aren't uniform, even in poor areas of the world. They can be very individual and depend on how a person has grown up within their family and also why you come into contact with people.

I consider many foreigners to lack manners, and social awareness, although that may be just because many who stick out are either foreign or chavs.

Originally Posted by Garp

but what is appalling are the middle class and upper class people. It's not that they barge you or do anything quite so dramatic and ugly as the Chavs, but when out and about their complete obliviousness to everything going on around them, so focussed on getting to their destination courtesy doesn't even register as a blip on their radar. To them there seems to be no one else in the world. That attitude carries on into other stuff, be it simple things like holding open doors, or the more showy stuff like offering your umbrella to a woman without one when it's raining.

Middle and upper class people have an entirely different set of manners and are usually more socially adept than working class people, and opening doors for people really isn't neccessarily manners. Besides, it can be useful to break etiquette in social situations as long as it is done with confidence, which may be why you percieve middle/upper class people as lacking manners.