Tacked on the social wall

[Tabouli]

Amy:
> HDM may merit being banned from library shelves and so on, but it isn't a worldwide 
phenomenon.  HP is scarier because so many of us are lapping it up.  (I admit, I have to admire people who are willing to face down a juggernaut like HP.)<

Mmmmyes, but I don't think HP has established sacred cow status in the same way Narnia has (except possibly among children and literacy advocates!).  It may, but I don't think it has at this stage.  My impression was that HP cops a *lot* of criticism, from two main groups: the book-burning fundamentalists who declare it subversive and satanic and the superior intellectuals who deride it as derivative and juvenile.  I'm, well, not overly admiring of either of those groups.  I have more time for people who attempt a balanced critique without either kowtowing to bestseller lists or resorting to ivory toweresque sneering.

Grey Wolf:
> How's my new haircut/trousers/shoes/car/whatever? Those people that do not wish to offend 
normally use the famed "As long as you like it" phrase -which comes to mean that you don't like it but it's not you the one going around with horrible haircut, anyway.<

This raises a fledgeling theory of mine about a broad cultural difference between Anglophones and Western Europeans: the notion of the 'personal wall', for want of a better word.  In my experience, the Western Europeans generally seem more... self-contained, somehow.  Much less dependent on social affirmation than Anglophones.  If they disagree on something, they'll debate it frankly and unashamedly.  If they think something, they'll say it.  Not doing so isn't held to be 'tactless' and 'unsupportive' and 'damaging to people's self-esteem', it's considered to be a bit weak and wishy-washy and insincere.

Anglophones, OTOH, have much more permeable social walls, and thus tend to be more vulnerable to how people perceive them.  Hence the whole obsession with diplomacy and tact and 'political correctness'  - their self-esteem is more vulnerable to other people.  So we have all these polite but essentially meaningless rituals ("How are you?" asked to show you're a polite person showing interest in the other person, rather than because you really want to know.  A ritual which both Anglophone parties recognise as such, but still engage in: the French find it infuriating) and phrasings (using very indirect language to, for example, make a request, or express disagreement, so as not to appear undiplomatic).

It fits with the haircut example rather nicely.  The 'as long as you like it' response presumed that the hearer won't be devastated for the rest of the day to learn their her friend doesn't like her haircut, and neither might a lot of other people, they're just saying nothing to be polite, is everyone looking at me and thinking "urk, doesn't she realise how hideous that looks?  How clueless is she?"  It presumes that she will shrug off what others think and continue thinking what she always thought about the haircut.  It presumes that this is an OK thing to say to a friend, that one isn't expected to be "supportive" and to protect her self-esteem.

Why this might be is interesting.  Again I'm hampered by a lack of historical knowledge, but I imagine there might be a link to British class consciousness, and need to be held in high regard by other people in a fluid, status-conscious society or something.  Any thoughts?

Tabouli.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]