Asfa-Wossen Asserate. Manieren. Frankfurt am Main: Eichhorn Verlag, 2003. 388 pp. EUR 22.90 (cloth), ISBN 978-3-8218-4739-9.
Reviewed by Christine Leuenberger (Department of Science and Technology Studies, Cornell University)
Published on H-German (January, 2006)
Is the Decline in Manners Democracy's Achilles Heel?
A social commentary on German and European mannerisms (or lack thereof) written by an Ethiopian prince turned German businessman does not make for standard social science reading. The book's aim is not to be a guide to the "how to" of social etiquette; instead it pursues the "aesthetic norms informing manners" (p. 30-31) in today's Germany; how they map onto different social milieus, as well as how they compare with mannerisms in other European countries. While Asserate does not claim to provide a systematic analysis, he does proclaim to understand Europe's culture, class structure, and social arrangements (p. 31).
Different chapters deal with such diverse issues as: how manners link up with concepts of honor, discretion, and vulgarity; the presumed characteristics of servants, ladies, and gentlemen; and various interactional rituals ranging from conversations to present-giving. Yet other chapters bemoan the state of contemporary fashion, religious secularization in Europe, as well as the decline of ladies in favor of "shrill" and "sour" feminists (p. 57).
In this treatise on manners Asserate combines a sometimes keen sense of observation of social interaction with literary and historical anecdotes that are often couched in moral homilies. Despite the attempt to provide a historical perspective on manners, concepts such as vulgarity are treated as close to innate. Indeed it seems that one does not become a gentleman, but is born to be one. Thus for Asserate various interactional rituals and manners transcend time, space, and culture while still being embodied in the last remaining segments of European aristocracy.
Throughout the book runs the author's conviction that the aristocracy is the embodiment of culture, tradition, and sophistication. The rise of democracy attempted to erase what he takes to be natural inequalities between people that have long sustained manners. Thus Asserate contends democracy is incompatible with manners.
His observations can be understood as falling within the "culture and civilization tradition" in cultural theory between 1860 and 1950 that treated culture as "the best that can be thought and said" and whose bearers are aristocrats who are further on the "evolutionary continuum."[1] Within this tradition, democracy is seen as a threat to traditional authority and aristocratic cultural preferences. Indeed many of what he perceives as the culture faux pas that Europeans have adopted purportedly came from democratic America. Anything from personal confessions at the dinner table, to an incessant need to have "fun" and wear blue jeans are due to Europe's Americanization. Although European cultures (mainly France, Britain, and Germany) do not get the same cursory, straw man treatment that American popular culture receives, the book reflects less on contemporary European cultures and practices than on aristocratic ideals within certain social circles.
To understand the social and cultural significance of manners and conventions in contemporary society we would do well to turn to classics of social and cultural theory. Manners can be understood as culturally specific, institutionalized expressions of courtesy, as George Herbert Mead suggested as early as 1962, that are morally accountable in face-to-face interaction and are constitutive of our social and cultural being--factors stressed by Erving Goffman and Harold Garfinkel.[2] Indeed, as Norbert Elias and Michel Foucault contend, their force, rather than dwindling in modern society, has socially produced the very structure of the human psyche. Within this academic tradition, manners, conventions, and rituals are thought to speak to what it means to be "homo socius" (a phrase used by Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann) within a particular time, space, and rank.
It must be said that this book does not aim to contribute to academic theories, but is written for an audience of better-heeled, if not aristocratic, men. For such readers the moral escapades into the decline of culture, manners, and ladies, I am sure, will be "chicken soup for the soul." For others, the book presents an insight into elite cultural backgrounds, preferences, and assumptions about modern democracy's supposed incompatibility with certain preconceived notions of manners.
Notes
[1]. John Storey, Cultural Theory and Popular Culture (New York: Pearson, 2001), p. 19.
[2]. George Herbert Mead, Mind, Self, and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962); Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (New York: Penguin, 1959); Erving Goffman, Behavior in Public Places (New York: Free Press, 1963); and Harold Garfinkel, Studies in Ethnomethodology (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1967).
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Citation:
Christine Leuenberger. Review of Asserate, Asfa-Wossen, Manieren.
H-German, H-Net Reviews.
January, 2006.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=11341
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